How do you ship yer Riv?

[Paul in Vermont]

Hello 👋 All. 

I am planning a trip out west to help take care of my parents, and I’d like to take my long wheelbase Atlantis and my wife’s Clem, as baggage on  the plane or by shipping them UPS.The wheelbases are so long they appear not to fit in most normal bike travel boxes. 

I know I can use cardboard, but I’d prefer something more permanent I will use long term once the world opens up!

How do you ship your long wheelbase Rivendell when you travel?

Paul

[dougP]

That's a tough one.  Have you checked with https://www.bikeflights.com/faq ?  From discussions here, they seem a good source, and much more customer oriented than common carriers.  I have not used them but would look into next time I ship my bike.

My 58cm Atlantis is the old, shorter wheelbase & it's like doing Rubik's Cube to get it into a dedicated bike box that the airlines will accept as not being oversize.  The long wheelbase of the newer models could create problems, unless you have a small frame.  The airlines all have weight limits (varies by carrier but 50 lbs is common) that are expensive to exceed.  Ground shipment generally has a 70lb limit before extra charges. 

dougP

[Jay Lonner]

I have thought through this very problem for a while, and so much hinges on how frequently you plan to travel with your bikes. If this is a one-off then your best move is probably to bite the bullet and just pay the ludicrous oversized shipping costs. That adds up quickly though, and if you envision more frequent travel I’d look at alternative solutions, like getting S&S couplers installed. In my case I concluded that dedicated travel bikes were the best solution, and am expecting a pair of Bike Fridays (or would that be Bikes Friday?) in the next few weeks. We went full custom, but good deals are available on the used market.

Jay Lonner

Bellingham, WA

Sent from my Atari 400

On Dec 18, 2020, at 4:17 PM, dougP <doug...@gmail.com> wrote:



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/ed028993-2c02-4cfa-abab-ecfb2a7b587en%40googlegroups.com.

[Hetchins52]

There is also https://www.shipbikes.com. You can call and talk to them with your questions on box and bike size: 

Contact info:  PH: 1-708-383-2433. inform at shipbikes.com

They do sell a ready-made XL bike container. It is advertised as suitable for tandems, large mountain bikes and e-Bikes.:  https://www.shipbikes.com/xl-bikebox/

The XL Bikebox.com meets all ground and air shipping requirements for UPS and FedEx (which is 72 x 14 x 32 inches or 164 dimensional inches). Recommended total shipping weight is 100 pounds. Made in USA. Guaranteed for one year on shell, lifetime on metal mounts.

They'll sell you a new "skin" when your box gets too battered to reuse.

You can also make your own. With the increasing popularity of e-Bikes I was able to find a few of those when regular boxes had disappeared this past summer. They are big and tough, too. Designed for heavier loads, they'll last more trips.

This all assumes ground shipping with shipbikes or bikeflights. The airlines will likely be prohibitively expensive, albeit faster.

Best,

David Lipsky

Berkeley, CA

On Friday, December 18, 2020 at 2:51:19 PM UTC-8 Paul in Vermont wrote:

[Paul in Vermont]

Hello Jay/Joe,

Thanks for your replies. I love the look of Bike Fridays and have wondered how they ride. 

I used to have a Brompton, which was excellent if I wasn't going to ride for more than a few hours, and never offroad — it was a blast in Paris and I used to carry it into Museums and they'd check it for me! But I'm so addicted to my Atlantis right now and it's high handlebars and big fat tires for dirt trails, that I want to bring it with me to the Azores in February (yes, you can still go to the Azores after a COVID test, and it's inexpensive too). I don't know if I want to do the S&S thing, and unsure such a long wheelbase will work with one anyway.  So I'm going to have to cough up the $150 I think.

This really expensive case seems to allow wheelbases up to 130mm... which would give me about 1cm to spare if true. Might order one to see if it will work if no better ideas come up here.

Love.

Paul