Sending a bike by DHL, TNT or similar??

philip99a

A cycling friend and I are planning to cycle tour from Inverness in the early summer.

But our available time is limited (families, work etc) and we want to spend as much time riding as possible, and as little time travelling there and back as possible (we both live in or near Leicester)

So

1) The train takes effectively a day there and a day back out of our five days. Not good, much as we both would like to travel by train (more green, bikes more safe, no packing up in boxes, arrive in the town centre of where we want to be etc)

2) So it looks like a cheap flight. But I've had very bad experiences of bikes and budget airlines, even packing the bikes in cardboard boxes. EasyJet in particular have damaged bikes very badly when I've gone touring. We're planning to start in Inverness and end in Aberdeen so permanent rigid boxes/cases aren't an option.

3) Has anyone tried sending a bike ahead by DHL or a similar carrier. I've made some initial enquiries and they seem willing. The bikes would have to be in boxes. There's a local carrier in Inverness who has quoted £30 + VAT per bike which includes limited insurance (but we both have insurance for our bikes on our house policies). Seems possible. I kind of feel the bikes would be safer than being chucked about by airport baggage handlers. Or is that unfounded, would a road haulage carrier be no better?

Any advice/experiences please??

andymiller

philip99a wrote:

But our available time is limited (families, work etc) and we want to spend as much time riding as possible, and as little time travelling there and back as possible (we both live in or near Leicester)

So

1) The train takes effectively a day there and a day back out of our five days. Not good, much as we both would like to travel by train (more green, bikes more safe, no packing up in boxes, arrive in the town centre of where we want to be etc)

Have you considered taking the sleeper? The Caledonian Sleeper stops at Crewe. So you could get a train from Leicester to Crewe (less than two hours) pick up the train just before midnight and then be in Inverness at 8:30 the next morning.

Coming back you'd leave Inverness at quarter to nine and be back in Leicester before 8 next morning (OK the bad news is that the train arrives at Crewe at 5.30).

So the amount of cycling time lost pretty much zero.

I don't know about the logistics of getting from Inverness station to John O'Groats but I'm assuming it's no more difficult than getting there from the airport.

If you book early the sleeper fare can be as little as £19 (or at least to Edinburgh/Glasgow - Inverness may be a bit more expensive). There's no reason why it should cost significantly more than flying. The sleeper service is very comfortable (one of the best in Europe) and the section through the Highlands is reckoned to be one of the Great Rail Journeys.

ColinJ

philip99a wrote:

3) Has anyone tried sending a bike ahead by DHL or a similar carrier. I've made some initial enquiries and they seem willing. The bikes would have to be in boxes. There's a local carrier in Inverness who has quoted £30 + VAT per bike which includes limited insurance (but we both have insurance for our bikes on our house policies). Seems possible. I kind of feel the bikes would be safer than being chucked about by airport baggage handlers. Or is that unfounded, would a road haulage carrier be no better?

Any advice/experiences please??

I used parcel2go to send a bike from West Yorkshire to Penzance. It cost me £8.99 + VAT. I scrounged a bike box from my LBS and cut it down a bit to get it to the 1.2m length limit. P2G arranged for DHL to take the parcel. It arrived intact within 2 days, and the same coming back.

philip99a

Cheers. Very helpful.