How to transport bike box?

[PeteJack]

For this particular trip I would suggest taking Amtrak back to Eugene.   Take the ferry over to Oakland.  The train leaves very late in the day and you will be in Eugene the next day.

+1 You don't even have to box your bike up these days, they hang the bikes in the baggage car, no removing pedals or turning bars just remove "anything that might fall off" It's all of a minute's ride from the ferry to Oakland station, I was a senior but I believe the regular ferry fare is <$10 and bikes are no problem. Caveat: don't arrive too early for the train, there is absolutely nothing to do around Oakland station.

[Soulboy#1]

Interesting responses. Does anyone have any advice or ideas for doing all this when flying into the states from London. I'm doing the trans-am trail in May 2017 so it's not as easy for me. If I bring my own bike case (I have a trico case) how much would it be to to send an empty bike across to my final destination? Would I be able to do this at Washington Dulles airport?

Thanks in advance

[John Nelson]

My advice is the same as before. Don't bring your Trico.

[Soulboy#1]

My advice is the same as before. Don't bring your Trico.

I have a destination at the end of my journey and staying with family in San Francisco. Is there a possibility of fed-ex'ing the box from Dulles?

[PeteJack]

My advice is the same as before. Don't bring your Trico.

I have a destination at the end of my journey and staying with family in San Francisco. Is there a possibility of fed-ex'ing the box from Dulles?

I'm with John on this. Pack your bike in a cardboard box from a bike shop and toss it when you arrive. It should take 5 minutes of phoning in SFO to find a shop that will give you a box for free.There's no shortage of places there that will box up your bike if you don't want to do it yourself, I'd budget $100 for a shop to do the boxing, last one I had a bike shop do was in Tulsa OK and it cost me $80. San Fran is more expensive than most places.  I've flown from Seattle to Europe four times using cardboard boxes for my bike.

[zzzz]

Are you actually riding out of Dulles airport directly from your flight? That seems like a pretty tough way to start. It's been years (like 40) since I lived in DC and I don't know if there are others roads out than the Dulles Access Rd but I hope you don't need to ride on that.

Since you have someplace to send it in SF and I presume you can ship it right away, you are not asking for much help.

Before you leave get in touch with either a local bike shop or a hotel if you want to get some sleep before you start and see if they will hold your box for 1 or 2 days. If I do some business w the bike shop they have been easy to get help from. Bclayden said he has gotten cooperation from Marriot hotels. Leave the airport for a taxi ride out of the immediate metroplex to your pre-arranged bike shop or hotel. Alternativly, maybe there's someone on Warmshowers that would hold it for you but I think pick up from a residence is harder than from a business.

Go thru either BikeFlights or ShipBikes to send the box to SF. They have to generate the shipping ticket within 3 days of shipping and on the forms you will fill in the space for a pick-up. Take care of this the day before you leave and print out the paperwork and take it with you. That should do it.

pm

[John Nelson]

I have a destination at the end of my journey and staying with family in San Francisco. Is there a possibility of fed-ex'ing the box from Dulles?

The nearest FedEx shipping office is 5.2 miles from Dulles Airport. The online FedEx calculator says that to ship a 31 pound box of dimensions 47x30.5x10.5 (the specifications for a Trico Iron Case) via FedEx Ground (the cheapest option) from Dulles to San Francisco with no insurance and with delivery to and pickup from a FexEx office (again, the cheapest option) is $162.95.

[zzzz]

I think anybody reading this topic from the beginning will see that we have repeated all of our points several times over.

Some people, and I am one of them, prefer the additional assurance of packing our bikes in a hard shell case.

The original poster felt that way, Soulboy#1 feels that way.

If he ships the empty box from DC to SF using ShipBikes (who ships w FedEx ground) with door to door business pick-up service, their on-line calculator says $46.50. BikeFlights had a similar cost.

The #1 issue is the cordination involved, since he has someone already on the receiving end, and he can ship it there right away, he's more than 50% of the way there. He's going to have to email either some bike shops or hotels in Northern Virginia as a prospective customer -if-  they can do him the favor of hanging on to the box for 24-48 hours until it gets picked up. It has never been a problem for me to get someone to say yes to this request.

[Pat Lamb]

I'm with sleepy (zzzz) on two points.  First, even though there's a back way out of Dulles, it'd be a whole lot easier to go to a local motel via cab or (free?) shuttle and ride out of there the next morning.  Second, you should have little to no problem getting the front desk to help ship the bike the next morning (or shortly afterwards).  There just aren't any Bates Motels left in the high-priced area of Dulles.