Bicycle Travel > General Discussion

Bike shipping / Lesson learned?

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awbikes:
 After much research and effort it appeared the best and cheapest way to get my two bikes from Florida to San Francisco for my west coast tour was FedEx. LBS gave me two boxes curiously one much smaller than the other. My wife's bike fit in the larger of the two boxes with only removing ft. Wheel, handlebars and peddles. What a dream. My bike in the smaller if the two boxes required both wheels removed, Rear rack, derailluer, handlebars and of course peddles. It was a difficult and tight fit. Took the boxes to FedEx and send them standarrd 5 day ground delivery. Now came the Shock. Small box total weight 35.8 lbs. shipping cost $85.17 larger box total weight 33.8 lbs. shipping cost 157.43. ALMOST DOUBLE!!! Total cost to get tha bikes toCalifornia. 242.60. Info has it that the  some of the so called rip-off airlines are too pricey. While I'm not complaining about FedEx their pricing seems a bit high, or is it that everybody ships in small boxes and my mistake was the larger box?

If anyone will send me a free set of southern tier maps (I spent my last dime on shipping) I may consider riding home!

John Nelson:
FedEx and UPS both offer on-line rate calculators. You can do what-if games with sizes and weights to see where the break points are. It's also a good way to see what extras you find worth paying for and which ones you don't (e.g., insurance, home pickup, home delivery). When I shipped my bike, I played around with those rate calculators quite a bit. With FedEx, size seems to matter much more than weight. If you get too big or heavy, you slip from "ground" to "freight" class and the rates quadruple, so you want to make sure you don't do that.

staehpj1:
Be careful with the box sizes for FedX or UPS it makes a big difference once you go bigger than a particular size.  Personally my preference is to fly with the bike on one of the bike friendly airlines.  SouthWest, AirTran, or Frontier are the way to go if doing that.  On Southwest my only baggage fee is for the bike and that runs $50.  AirTran was recently acquired by Southwest and now apparently are the same.

Frontier charges for both bags if you go economy class, but nothing extra for the bike if it is one of the bags.  I think that comes out to $40 or so.

On the way home I sometimes don't want to bother boxing my bike in a strange city and just drop it off at a bike shop for them to ship.  Between their packing fee and the shipping it usually runs about $100 ($40-60 for the bike shop and $40-60 for UPS).  They seem to get a better rate than I do and it is nice to have them pack it and deal with the shipping.

indyfabz:

--- Quote from: awbikes on May 14, 2012, 11:16:42 am ---Info has it that the  some of the so called rip-off airlines are too pricey. While I'm not complaining about FedEx their pricing seems a bit high, or is it that everybody ships in small boxes and my mistake was the larger box?
--- End quote ---

Out of curriousity, which airline will you be flying, and what is there bike charge? You may have saved money. U.S. Air, for example, charges $200 per bike.  I believe Delta is $175.

As noted, size can matter. Last year we shipped two bikes UPS in two separate boxes from Philly to Missoula. MY GF's bike is 42cm so it can go in a relatively small box. I used my pretty large CrateWorks plastic box because my bike is 60cm and has correspondingly larger things like bars and stem. Also has 700c wheels vs. her 26". Shipped via a LBS. While the shipping bill was not itemized, it was their belief that my bike was more because of the larger box.

Looking forward to flying Southwest to Cycle Oregon in September.

John Nelson:

--- Quote from: staehpj1 on May 14, 2012, 11:58:53 am ---Frontier charges for both bags if you go economy class, but nothing extra for the bike if it is one of the bags.  I think that comes out to $40 or so.

--- End quote ---
In one month, I'm flying Frontier domestically within the U.S. with my bike. I paid $25 extra for a "Classic" fare. Both my bike and my checked duffle bag will fly along for free.

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