Hi folks! I'm hoping some of the more travel savvy forum members here can help me gain some insight into a logistical issue.
I'm traveling to Europe with my family for the last 2.5 weeks in August. After that I'll spend the month of September cycle touring.
I will of course need to have a bicycle on which to tour. Renting a decent bike for that long is quite expensive and constrains me to having to return it where I rented it. I could buy a bike, and then sell it. But what I want most is to have my bike from home. I really love my Cutty, would love to ride it all through the Alps and into Italy.
My family and I start our trip in France, and then we'll fly to Vienna where we will end our trip together. It's not practical for me to fly my bike to France and then deal with dragging it around on our non biking French part of the trip, and then try to box it up again and fly to Vienna with us.
What seems to make the most sense is just shipping my bike from home (Seattle USA) to Vienna. The cost of doing so is pretty reasonable, not a whole lot more than the airline would charge me for flying the bike as luggage anyway.
What I'm trying to figure out is where to send my bike in Vienna so that I can pick it up. We're staying in an Airbnb, so that addresses out. In the US there are UPS stores where you can have things shipped to pick up, but when I look for similar in Vienna it seems like the shipping business is often a side part of a different business. Maybe a bike shop, but I wonder what's in it for them? If there's anyone who has local knowledge or general wisdom about how to send a pretty big bike box with a not-cheap bike inside to somewhere reliable for pickup, I'm all ears!
Thank you,
Hank
