What NOT to do when using BikeFlights to ship your bike

[Christopher Young]

Hi Riv Owners,

So probably most of you know how this works better than I, but just in case I can save even one person the aggravation I am going through, I want to pass some advice on. 

I just bought a Riv Platy (yay!) from a bike shop in CA, and am having it shipped to NM via BikeFlights. The BikeFlights web interface is great, but it's still a bit confusing if you haven't done this before (trust me, it is). Anyway, before I had even placed the BikeFlights order and without my asking, the bike shop guys told me to choose the no cost option for pickup because UPS stops by their shop every day, and I could save some money. I was glad for any advice on this and so chose that option, even though I noticed that it only saved me $5 on a shipping that costs ~$300 with the insurance. Unfortunately, as it turns out, in the following 2.5 days (starting Wednesday noon), UPS never showed up, and unless they show up in the remaining few hours of the day, the next pickup will be Monday. So, the well-meaning bike shop guys (they are really nice!) tried to save me $5 on a $300 shipping and the likely result is that I incurred something like a 5 day delay in a very costly process. Even worse, I'm headed out of town next Thursday morning for 4 days, so unless a shipping miracle occurs, my wife will not be able to ride her bike until I get back in town and set it up, so almost 2 weeks after we scheduled the shipping. Ouch!! Could this have gone more poorly?

Now that I get how this works I would NEVER choose the option to not schedule a pickup when shipping from a bike shop and I called the bike shop guys and (calmly, nicely) told them that they should make sure customers understand the possible downside of their advice. 

In the end, we will get the bike and I'm sure love it, but what a mess this has been, and I can only hope that I can save someone from going through it. For sure, I won't make this mistake again. 

Probably a different one, though...

regards,

Chris Young

(sadly waiting for a Platy)

[Steve]

Thanks for sharing! Now I know.

[Johnny Alien]

Hot tip!! You can create a fee UPS account and use it to schedule any pickup for anything at any time regardless if you bought the label through them. I think its around $5-8. Just go into your UPS account and hit "schedule a pickup" and add the label and place of pickup.

[Doug H.]

Chris,

The same happened to me in 2024. The bicycle sat at the bicycle shop for almost a week. Then the shop was kind enough to drive it to a UPS store. Unfortunately, My beautiful Roadini was lost in transit, I think in Colorado. I stress to all of you to purchase insurance, as I did. I was reimbursed for the value of the bike plus the shipping cost. My buyer, Valerie was so gracious through the whole process though which was so nice. Both of us were made whole financially but I'm so bummed that that beautiful bike is lost. I do wonder what became of it.

Doug

Athens, Ga

[Old And In The Weeds]

This certainly gives me pause and I think is an important call to due caution. I try to be extremely vigilant when awaiting frames/bikes, maybe even to the detriment of my peace of mind! However, stuff happens and insurance is key. Had one instance where a Rivendell Quickbeam via Bikeflights went MIA (thankfully and miraculously recovered after doggedly pursuing a claim) as well as an unfortunate experience dealing with the grand debacle of a "pro" shop shipping a Toyo Rivendell Atlantis in a box with NO tape-- WTH (somehow nothing missing and no damage). I suppose all that is luck minus the few additional gray hairs... With frames it's less of an ordeal (sometimes still sketchy) but with bicycles that need to be signed for I tend to be at the ready... As far as working with a distant shop, even the seller's choice, i do sadly now feel a modicum of unease. But ymmv and communication is key. Even the seller with the untaped Atlantis had some choice words to deliver for "his" shop and I have absolutely had the exact opposite experience (and always lead on this history) of lbs across country being TOP notch. Very bad dream to finally get the grail Atlantis and it shows up with the box lids flapping though! 

-Nick

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[Will Boericke]

I always pack myself and drop off at Staples.  Never an issue 

Will

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[Christopher Young]

FYI, today (Saturday) at ~1:30 PM, the bike finally got picked up by UPS from the bike shop. It was ready to be picked up Wednesday morning at 9 AM when the shop opened (they packed it Tuesday and had the label before COB that day), so that's about 3.5 days of waiting, which seems kind of embarrassing for the bike shop, but whatever. What finally got things moving was reaching out to BikeFlights via email. They responded promptly and offered to change the order to request the pickup I had declined in the first place, and I gladly accepted, and they managed to get a pickup on Saturday. Hopefully the shipping and delivery will be uneventful.

The lesson here is that if you can't drop off the bike yourself (I definitely couldn't), pay the $5 to have the bike picked up!

Chris

[Old And In The Weeds]

Glad for this update!

-Nick

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[meti...@gmail.com]

Chris, I had to wait some time to get my Platy from a bike shop in Montreal, Canada…issues at customs, with taxes, etc…then delays with UPS getting the bike to my house. But then I got it and it all worked out fine…it was just really  tough to wait for something I wanted so badly.

But the real reason for my note here is to ask if the “truchas” in your email address is related to Truchas, NM…I took a queen-bee rearing workshop there many years ago and LOVED all those little towns along the High Road there. Seriously…LOVED. 

Liz in Cincinnati

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[Christopher Young]

Hi Liz,

you get it exactly! I felt a little guilty whining about this, especially as it seems that we've got at least one person in the group that lost their bike and maybe their whole home in the LA fires, but it's been so frustrating and I wanted to try to turn my frustrations into something helpful for someone. I wish someone had given me better advice! However, just as happened with you, if the bike gets here intact, I'm sure we'll love it and this will all fade fast. Beautiful purple platy, by the way! I've been admiring the pictures of it on the bike shop website. I'm a little nervous about getting my wife this bike without having a chance to ride it, but there wasn't any way to do that, so I'm just going with my intuition. I love my Homer, and pretty much everything about the whole Riv experience (founder, staff, quirky company philosophy, owners group) just felt so right, so I want to share that with my wife.

My email is nmtruchas because Chris Young is such a boring, generic name that I knew it would be taken and I didn't want to be chrisy...@hotmail.com, so I tried to think of something else. Truchas is the spanish word for trout, and I am an avid fly fisherman, so I came up with that because I was then a member of the NM Trout organization and I thought that would sound cool in spanish. But one of my favorite places is indeed that little town in northern NM on the highroad from Santa Fe to Taos. We try to drive that road every fall (1st week or so in October) on our way up to Taos for hiking and a walk around town. The view east towards the Sangre de Cristo mountains with golden aspens on the slopes of the Truchas Peaks is as beautiful as anything I've ever seen, and I've been some pretty great places. I'm glad you have such a fond memory of it because not everyone gets the appeal of our arid, under-developed state, particularly if they come from a place that is green and has big cities with impressive infrastructure. We like to say "Thank god for Mississippi!" because if not for them, NM would be 50th out of 50 on a lot of lists you don't want to be at the bottom of, like quality of public education. But for me NM -- and especially the area that you are talking about -- has a feel to it that is unlike any other place, and I love it. I'm 63 and have lived here since I was 10, with the exception of 6 years in Ann Arbor at UM.

Is the bee keeping something you've kept doing, or was it just that one workshop? Did you happen to stop at the Santuario de Chimayo along that road? That's another really special place, even if you aren't particularly religious. 

Chris

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[Christopher Young]

The latest:

So is "sortation" actually a word? Couldn't they just use "sorting"? I blame this on AI.

Meanwhile, the platy languishes somewhere in the Bay Area longing to be let out of its box.

Chris

[ricksteves]

Enjoyed reading this thread, and an obligatory go blue!