OT: moving bike (and other stuff) across country- help!

[Faye]

Hi all,

I am sad to say that I will be moving to New Haven Connecticut in August (though it is for a good cause, to start school, changing careers to medicine...).

When I moved to the Bay Area, I cam from Paris with precisely 2 suitcases and nothing else.  I now have accumulated some furniture, and of course my beloved bike.

Question 1: What would you do to move the bike?  One consideration is that I do not want to be without my bike for more than 1-2 days... I guess all of my other stuff will take at least a week to cross the country, so I would hope to find an option where I could get my bike ASAP.  Would you go to a bike shop and have them ship it to another shop?  I also do not have the mechanical skills to assemble my bike, though on the Oakland end, I have a friend who could disassemble.  (though I have no packing materials for a bike).  What would you advise to maximize the chances of my bike being unharmed, and also to move the bike as fast as possible so that I can ride it immediately before and after moving?

Question 2: on the off-chance that anyone has moved across the country, how did you do it, do you have recommendations on how to go about this?  I do not have a clue and am starting to research from scratch now... feel free to send me this info off-list as it is not at all relevant (though maybe people woudl benefit from info on how to move the bike).

My email: faye.s...@gmail.com

Also, hope some folks may want to join me for a ride before I go in early August :)

Very gratefully,

Faye

[Christine Ryan]

I'd have the bike shipped from bike shop to bike shop, as you're gonna have to have someone put it back together and then make sure it's okay anyway, at the other end. And they'll be set up to take care of all the ins and outs of shipping/signing/etc. And can probably pack it for you too... they'll have good, big cardboard boxes. (That's what the New Wheel does, when it ships e-bikes out of town.)

When I moved here from NYC, I didn't want to wait for a moving van to make its way across country (I had a very limited window that I could be in SF to greet them), so I paid movers in Brooklyn to box my stuff and load it into a UHaul I'd rented, then I drove that cross country. Then I had movers here meet me, unload the stuff and shlep it upstairs, where I (eventually) unpacked it. I *hate* packing, and love driving, so this was the best possible solution...whole thing cost roughly the same as packing the boxes myself and having movers move them would have been.

This worked great for me—I did talk my cousin into coming with me, so I had a co-driver, which I'd recommend—but as I said, I love road trips and had driven smallish trucks and horse trailers and RVs in the past, so I sort of knew what I was getting into. 

Good luck! Also, New Haven's not so bad... it's been a while since I lived there, but if you need tips/recommendations, my family's about 40 mins north, so they know what's going on, restaurant-wise...

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[John Murphy]

If you're driving a u-haul across the country, just put the bike in the u-haul?

 

Sell the furniture, pack two suitcases, get a bike case, fly? Amtrak?

[faye steiner]

Thanks a lot for these suggestions, and Chris also for the offer of your family's advice which may be very useful!

It sounds like the bike shop option is probably the best one for me.

I also should clarify that 1)I hate packing 2)I hate driving even more 3)I am on a budget, but at the same time, want to reduce the painfulness of something that is already painful since I am leaving a place I love.

So I can't personally handle driving a UHaul across the country, though I would be happy if I could find someone who wanted to do that... (I know there are people like Chris who actually like road trips and might be interested in the cross country thing, and I could pay them :)  ).

It's not clear to me that it is worth keeping the furniture since it is all Ikea, but on the other hand, if I don;t keep it, I have to buy new stuff which will take not only money but time I wont have since school is going to be incredibly intense from day 1... not sure what the point is where you decide that it is worth it to move your stuff paying a lot of money to move cheap stuff versus dealing with getting rid of what you have, and then buying new stuff (any thoughts on any of this are very welcome!)

all the best,

Faye  

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[Ken MacInnis]

Particle board furniture rarely survives/tolerates long distance moving well. I'd highly recommend selling local while it's still in good shape.

[Nathan Dushman]

Call the local affiliate of one (or more) of the national moving companies - we used United Van Lines when we moved here from Boston - and schedule an appointment for someone to estimate your moving costs. They'll take a look around your apartment, ask some questions, and give you a quote, which should be either not-to-exceed (if your stuff weighs less than estimated, they'll reduce the price) or binding (you won't pay more even if their estimate is low). They should be able to quote you for packing your stuff too, if you don't want to pack it yourself. Getting a quote is free, and you'll have a sense of the cost (and the timing - they'll probably give you a window for delivery which could be 2 weeks). Then you can compare with the cost to buy new furniture from Ikea, and the cost of a pack-yourself pod solution. If you decide to hire movers, get quotes from at least 2 more movers before you pick one. http://www.movingscam.com has lots of stories that will scare you about irresponsible movers, but useful information too. Our move actually went amazingly smoothly; we packed up all the boxes ourselves, they showed up exactly when scheduled and took it all away, and our stuff arrived in San Francisco the first day of the window, only a day after we arrived ourselves. Also, they slightly overestimated the weight, so we got a small price reduction (coincidentally, this was exactly the amount that I tipped the movers).

Nathan

[Ramesh Baller]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 11:37 AM, Faye <faye.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Also, hope some folks may want to join me for a ride before I go in early August :)

Oh no! Faye is leaving us :(

I would be down to join your farewell ride for sure :)

Ramesh

[Patrick Lea]

REI at least a couple of years ago did shipping of bikes between their stores. It made it so everything is neatly organized and you don't have to coordinate with two bike shops but I don't remember how long it took. I was shipping one to my brother so time was not the most critical to me.

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[Christine Windsor]

When we moved Peter's stuff across the country I dumped most of his stuff into boxes and UPS came and picked it up. Google was paying so I didn't keep track of his costs. He left behind most of his ikea furniture but the stupid chair. I didn't even disassemble the chair because I couldn't so I schlepped that to the UPS store had them box it up and then 'rolled' the box home. (I didn't like the chair before and on the way home I grew to hate it so rolling a box seemed perfectly reasonable.) The chair made it just fine. 

I think he packed his bike himself and took it on the plane with him. 

I did the road trip option with my stuff. 

[Lina Mårtensson]

And does he still have the stupid chair?

Photos!!!

[Ryan Anderson]

I'm very curious about the stupid chair myself now.

Ryan

[faye steiner]

Thanks again to everyone for the helpful advice.  The chair is hysterical!

F

[Ben Kochie]

Get a bike trailer and ride the whole way. :)

[Ben Kochie]

+1, sell the IKEA and get new/used IKEA on the other side.

[Zoe Hoster]

Seconding the option to ship bike shop to bike shop -- that's how I got my bike to Philadelphia last year. Cost about $300 all in, zero hassles. I dropped off the bike at a shop in SF, they packed it and shipped it to a shop in Philly, I picked it up from there fully assembled. I used Mikes Bikes bc I happened to have a gift certificate, but I think pretty much any shop will do it. 

[Yuanyu Chen]

^ I think it's ~$75 on each end to disassemble/pack/assemble a bike. That, added w/ 1 day shipping to account for the constraint of "need bike back in 2 days", makes it probably closer to $4-500. (BikeFlights.com will give you free shipping estimates, and their prices are pretty much on par with industry standard.)

If you want to save money but want to keep the 2 days constraint, I'd just haul the bike on the plane. Last I checked (a year ago), United is $75 for checking a bike, and everyone else was less. However, if your way of getting from presumably a NYC area airport to New Haven is via public transit, then hauling a cardboard box (or bike bag or whatever) probably makes that seriously unpleasant.

The other big $ saver is to just disassemble/assemble yourself. I've only done this w/ cardboard boxes (get them for free from a bike shop), but it requires close to zero actual mechanic skills - remove wheels, pedals, seatpost, handlebar (not stem). Put plastic spacers (comes w/ cardboard box) in fork and rear dropouts, and baby the rear derailleur. Upon reassembly, this requires zero tune up if the bike was not damaged. (If you have a carbon seatpost/handlebar, I'd tighten it to snug enough to ride and then just ride it to a shop and use their torque wrench. Though, those pre-set torque wrenches are ~$10-15 and are a worthy investment.)

[faye steiner]

Thanks, this is helpful info!  I hadn't really thought about bringing the bike on the plane, but maybe that is the best option that respects the time constraint (cheapest... I am a student after all...).  I guess the issue is that I have no bike case to take it in... would I buy a cardboard box from a shop?  Does that provide sufficient protection for the bike?

My family live in NY, so if I did take the bike, I could get them to transport me and it to New Haven...

Thanks a lot for all of these helpful contributions!!

[Nathan Dushman]

You shouldn't have to buy a cardboard box from the shop. Most shops will give you a box from a recently-assembled bike if you ask nicely. Of course, make sure it's approximately the right size for your bike. Is it enough protection from airline luggage handlers? No idea. I've shipped a steel bike that way with no problems (OK, there was one problem - apparently some frozen fish was loaded on top of it in the luggage compartment, and the fish defrosted during the flight, resulting in a wet and smelly box when I received it, but the bike was in a plastic bag inside the box and survived fine).

[Ken MacInnis]

If you find a bike box or bag on CL here, I'd bet you could re-sell it on the other end for virtually the same price.

[Kurt Wallace Martin]

Just saw this on another list, Faye:

"Gavilan BFF case

It's a tight fit with my 58cm (and absolutely no way it would take an MTB) but this only weighs 33lbs with my shoes, helmet, all the tools, spares, pumps and chargers.  Looks like a suitcase and carries on a shoulder strap. Have to remove the fork but its not much worse than removing the bar from the stem. 

I told a friend about these and he got one and a Ninja case for his TT. He has flown domestically four times already (tour of the Gila etc.) with no surcharges so its name BFF (bikes fly free) has some truth to it.”

kurt

[Matthew Hiller]

Which airline are you flying?

http://www.bicycling.com/culture/travel/rated-best-and-worst-airlines-cyclists

Bike shops typically have extra bike shipping boxes that they'll give away to you. It's not tricky to back a bike into one of those; remove the pedals and front wheel, loosen and turn the handlebars 90 degrees, and it'll all fit.

[Peter Colijn]

I do still have the stupid chair! It's my Poang chair.

On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 6:01 PM, Lina Mårtensson <lina.ma...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Lina Mårtensson]

Poäng!! (That means "point".) Well those are really nice and comfortable.

You can also get them with the Eslöv fabric these days. That's my hometown.