Shipping My LHT with Racks and Fenders

[Dandito]

I live in Indianapolis and am planning a week-long loop tour in southern Arizona in late February.  I'd like to fly out to Tucson and ship my fully racked and fendered LHT.  Is there any shipping option available where I can ship it without having to remove and reinstall the racks and fenders? Thanks.

[paddleboy17]

Leaving racks and fenders on will require a really big box (say an Amtrak bike box), and a box that big will be really expensive to ship via FedEx, UPS, or DHL.  I think Amtrak may have a freight service, I know that Greyhound Bus has a freight service.  I would look into GreyHound Freight.  It might be $75 -$100 to ship a large box from one bus terminal to another bus terminal.  The critical dimension to ship with Greyhound Freight is the height of the cargo bay.

I shipped my bike from Detroit (MI) to Salem (OR) this summer.  It was $115, and I used an old Performance Bike hard case.  The case looks a lot like the one Thule sells.  Yes, I had to tear the bike apart to fit in the case, but the case fits under the FedEx oversize limit.  FedEx, UPS, and DHL have similar limits for what they consider oversize.  A regular bike box is in the oversize category, and the rate is much higher.  An Amtrak bike box is even much larger, and FedEx/UPS/DHL may not even accept it due to size.  Plus they may have a fit because the Amtrak box needs to travel upright.

You might look into taking an Amtrak train instead of flying.  Some Amtrak trains have roll on/roll off service for bikes.
Please let me know what you ultimately do.

[indyfabz]

Why not simply take off the racks and fenders and put them in the box? While I don't use fenders, I have shipped my 60cm LHT with the racks in the same box. They easily fit around the frame and thus did not affect box size. The larger the box, the more it's going to cost you.

[John Nelson]

Is there any shipping option available where I can ship it without having to remove and reinstall the racks and fenders? Thanks.

Yes, certainly. But it will be expensive, perhaps as much as four times the cost of shipping with the racks and fenders removed. Use the online FedEx and UPS shipping cost tools to compare.

[staehpj1]

I live in Indianapolis and am planning a week-long loop tour in southern Arizona in late February.  I'd like to fly out to Tucson and ship my fully racked and fendered LHT.  Is there any shipping option available where I can ship it without having to remove and reinstall the racks and fenders? Thanks.

It would be more expense than it would be worth to me.  It is pretty easy to remove and racks and fenders.  I typically find that the rear rack can stay on and the front may or may not.  Fenders typically come off and take up almost no space if you place the wheels in the fenders.  I did find that with the wedge shaped box (aircaddy) that I got from shipbikes.com the least dis-assembly was necessary of any option I have used, but I found dealing with the box when on tour was too much trouble on point to point tours.  It required only the front wheel, fender and rack be removed in my case.

[o2tour]

The parts of my LHT after a flight.

[John Nelson]

The parts of my LHT after a flight.

OMG, they lost your front wheel!

[Dandito]

Thank you all for your advice.  I was hoping to avoid having to reassemble the fenders/racks when I arrive, but I'm thinking now I will simply remove the racks and fenders and ship in an LHT box I can pick up from the shop.  I'll take my lock-tite for reassembly and should be okay.  (The Amtrak schedule doesn't appear to be much better than driving in my car.)  Thank you all!!

[o2tour]

Out unicycling.

[indyfabz]

(The Amtrak schedule doesn't appear to be much better than driving in my car.)  Thank you all!!

I think what he was suggesting is to ship your bike via Amtrak even if you are flying. Amtrak offers freight service for non-passengers between certain ciities.

If you have the $, you can ship via UPS/FedEx to a shop and have them reassemble the bike for you. That's what we have done for our last two tours out west (although I did put my racks on myself, but that takes about 10 min.). After a long flight and getting situated at the start, it's nice to be able to have your bike ready to roll. The shop holds the box. At the end of the trip, you drop the bike off, tell them where you want it shipped and off you go for beers. To me, it's worth the $90 or so total (plus shipping, of course) it costs.

[paddleboy17]

Actually, I was pushing both options. 

If Amtrak had a workable train with roll on/roll off service, you could get there without having to disassemble your bike.  Sure it might be as slow as driving, and not a fiscal bargain, but it is an option I keep trying to explore on my trips.  Closest I ever came to shipping by Amtrak was an Amtrak bus ($10 for unlimited use of bay #2).

Both Amtrak and Greyhound shipping are worth looking into and you would not be bound by the usual box limits that go with shipping via DHL, FedEx, or UPS.  Greyhound can probably get from anywhere to anywhere else, whereas Amtrak might require you to drive to Chicago in order to ship to Tuscon.

Just remember that the bike store box will probably be considered oversize by DHL, FedEx, or UPS, and still be expensive to ship.  USPS might be more forgiving.  If you think you are going to do a lot of traveling, then one of the commercial cases might pay for itself.  In shipping a bicycle,  it really is all about boxes' length + width + height, and then its weight.

[Old Guy New Hobby]

Check with your airline. I flew Southwest once and found that I could take my bike as baggage for $50. They didn't have a lot of restrictions about size. Some other airlines aren't so friendly.

[indyfabz]

Check with your airline. I flew Southwest once and found that I could take my bike as baggage for $50. They didn't have a lot of restrictions about size. Some other airlines aren't so friendly.

SW has upped its charge to $75. Still low compared to most other carriers.

[John Nelson]

SW has upped its charge to $75. Still low compared to most other carriers.

When they upped their charge earlier this year, they also stopped counting the bike as one of your bags. So if you're going to take two bags plus your bike, it's a better deal, but if you only have one bag plus your bike, it got a bit worse.

On other airlines, they not only "aren't so friendly," many of them are downright mean! There was a trend for many years of increasing bicycle fees to absurdly high levels, but in the most recent few years, some of those absurdly high fees have backed off to just ordinarily high fees.

[PeteJack]

There are 3 REI stores in Indianapolis, have you tried them? My local REI near Seattle packed and shipped my Trek 520 with fenders and front & rear racks to a motel in Bangor Maine for $60 this summer. Had there been another REI store I could have shipped it to it would have been even cheaper. If they don't have a bike shop they may not offer the service.

Do call ahead to the motel to make sure they will keep your bike for a few days so you can ship early and be sure it's there when you arrive

BTW I put my loaded paniers in a $3 suitcase I got at Goodwill so they only counted as 1 piece of luggage. The motel got rid of the suitcase for me or you can find another Goodwill to give it to. (One thing there's no shortage of at Goodwill, SVP, etc is suitcases.) If you have nice aluminum fenders you may want to put the front one in the suitcase to protect it rather than zip tieing it to the front wheel as I do. My fenders are SKS which take quite a bit of banging around.