Discussion: How to ship a Bike?

How does one ship their bike if you plan to fly to a race? Never done it before and was looking for best (and reasonable priced) method to do it. Time is not necesarily of the essence.

Thank you!

Cardboard box from a bike shop - the boxes they ship the bikes in from factory to store. Ask at your normal bike shop, they should give you one for free.

Cheaper than a bike bag, lighter (handy for excess luggage on a flight..), and offers more protection against sharp blows most of the time too from ham-fisted baggage handlers.

Have to take front wheel out, and either bars from stem, or stem off with bars; whichever you prefer. I usually chuck a bit of bIking clobber in the box too, ie coats, spare tires, jerseys etc to protect a few vital bits and bobs. Also, stick another layer of cardboard under the front forks dropouts, as they are quite pointy with the wheel out and can sometimes puncture through the box, then get dragged along tarmac by the afore mentioned ham-fisted ones..or better still, ask your bike shop; new bikes come with a plastic spacer just for this reason, they should have a few of them in the bin too, as long as your running a quick release front fork, and not a 20/15mm bolt through hub.

Did I mention its free? Good.

Thanks Norton. That price is definetely hard to beat :) After going back and forth on this for a while, if the race is not too critical, I think renting might be an option. (I also asked this on the orienteering page and got some answers
http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...). For some reason, the AR page is just not that popular...