Sending a bike from Australia to France

[chamsoft]

I'm travelling from Australia to France via Cuba in Jan 2007 and I want to send my road bike to France to arrive around March. Does anyone have any good tips on which freight company I should use or how to best go about this.

Australia Post is no good because the box is too big. I tried the Fed Ex site and was quoted nearly AU$700 which is too much for a $2000 bike.

[davef]

Maybe get a friend to take it to France as luggage.

Even if the airline charges them $50 for excess baggage it is going to be a LOT cheaper!

I just got my bike to Canada for free, but got charged $50 for the return trip.

Good luck

[matagi]

Try looking in Yellow Pages for other shippers - the big "courier type" guys like Fedex, DHL, etc can be really expensive for stuff like bikes, etc. but often a smaller shipper who buys wholesale space can do it for less.

As an example, we had to send an inflatable liferaft to the US last year - it was being shipped with its gas bottles and also its full complement of flares. This meant it had to go as Class 9 Dangerous Goods, TNT quoted us $1200 to ship it but we found a small shipper who specialised in dangerous goods and ended up paying only $600.

Good luck!