Bike transport

[bcron]

Please help! Myself, and some friends are going to fly to Utah in the late spring to go mountain biking. My question is-what are my options on getting my bike there. We really don't want to spend $300 plus dollars for a bike crate plus airfare. I will probably only do it this one time. What other options do we have?

[Metalheadbiker]

uhh....drive?

[Duckwah]

go to a bike store, ask for some old bike boxes, pull your pedals, wheels and handlebars off and pack into the box

fly

reassemble

Ride!!

make sure you don't break any cables and pad your frame up

[Hecubus]

You might want to look around. Some bike shops have the crates to rent and its much safer as the airline is very likely to toss and crush your frame if you pack it in a box. Its an oversize item so they might even loose it or send it in a different plane. Not much fun to go to Utah only to find out your box did not arrive with you. A lot of my friends fly there to ride in moab frequently and I'm going this summer most likely. They say the safest thing to do is to send it in one of those Trico crates or something similar by UPS to the hotel you will be staying at a few days before you leave. Apparently its pretty common to do this there since a lot of the people who stay there are mountain bikers and the hotels have no problem with it.

[JustinH]

300 bucks is a bit high for any bike. I paid 700 to have a 96 ford thunderbird shipped from texas to new york.

Check into fedex freight, if you take the wheels off it and ship it seperate it should be like 40 bucks.

[maarten]

If you use the cardboard bike box from the lbs. then look for a rather thick one and cover the tubes of you bike with foam pipes(very cheep and effective). An d think about the rear derailer, either take it of or protect it in some way. If ya have old hubs lying around fit them in the fork and especially rear stays to protect from squeezing(size cut pipe is an alternative).
Better safe dan sorry, it worked for me.