So you think your bike is safe in a bike box?

cougie

I've flown with my bike usually in a soft bag and it's been fine for over a dozen flights.
Lots of us do it and the only damage ive heard of was when one guy didn't secure his in the rigid box and he broke his rear hanger off.

Ok so bad stuff happens - but it's rare.

daviesee

cougie wrote:

I've flown with my bike usually in a soft bag and it's been fine for over a dozen flights.
Lots of us do it and the only damage ive heard of was when one guy didn't secure his in the rigid box and he broke his rear hanger off.

Ok so bad stuff happens - but it's rare.

Remove the rear dérailleur, wrap in bubble wrap & tape to frame.
Safety first.

chris2109

Sketchley wrote:

neiltb wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

That damage is extreme I'd hazard a guess that box was run over by truck.

What do fed-ex charge to ship a bike?

erm, how would it get to you again?

FexEx the bike to the hotel you are staying in, any decent hotel will hold it for you until you get there providing you tell them first, not that difficult to do. I've met a few people that do this for holidays, e.g. ship luggage to hotels as they don't want the hassle of travelling with it.

I fedexed my bike to the etape a few years ago in a bikeboxalan-- the bikebox was completely destroyed when it arrived in france and the bike severely damaged (in fact i couldnt locate the bike at first because it was a shrink wrapped collection of broken pieces to keep all of the broken bits together.

It took ages claiming back on the insurance too which was a complete pain. I think bikes and boxes are safer in the hold than sent via fedex due to how they handle them -- I suspect something very heavy was stacked on top of it in transit.

the price i seem to remember was around 700 quid

Chris

rick_chasey

Il Principe wrote:

Coopster the 1st wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Out of interest, how much does it cost to hire a proper road bike?

I've thought about it a lot. My bikes are nothing exciting. The only good thing about them is they fit, but I'm sure some good measurements and I'd be good to go.

Would be nice to take out a special steed just for the champagne cycling abroad.

About £100 a week based on the hire I did last year in Majorca.

Considering the airline charged nearly that to take a bike box with you, for a weeks cycling, it is not worth the risk to me

See I don't get this. When I go abroad I want my bike, not a hire job, but a bike i am comfortable with and trust. What's the point of spending £x on a road bike and then not using it abroad...

I seem to adapt to new bikes pretty quickly - as long as they're the right measurements. First mountain decent I ever did was on a bike I'd never pedalled before (not even on the way up) and I got down faster than the other guys I was with.

My bikes are probably only worth £100 and £200 now, so why spend that much to have a poxy bike + the hassle of taking it to and from the airport, where I could get a nice one for holiday the same price...

daviesee

Rick Chasey wrote:

My bikes are probably only worth £100 and £200 now, so why spend that much to have a poxy bike + the hassle of taking it to and from the airport, where I could get a nice one for holiday the same price...

In which case you are probably quite correct.
I would suggest that those transporting their bikes are worth a whole lot more than that.

spasypaddy

there is absolutely no way id want to ride anything other than my 695 on some glorious days. no chance. theres a reason i bought such a ridiculously expensive frameset and then built it up with dura ace (and soon to have some zipps on it)

rick_chasey

I've never found the bike makes an enormous difference.

Then again, maybe that's why I don't fork out a lot for one. And if I do fork out a lot on one, maybe I'd change my mind - else why did I spend that much?

The stress of looking after my own bike wouldn't be worth the minor gain of having my own bike. Hire bikes are all pretty high spec anyway.

spasypaddy

high spec yes but once ive got my zipps on it my bike would be interchangeable with cofidis team bikes (although they run campag not shimano).

if i rode a £2.5k bike then id think again but my frameset alone is £1k more than that... there are good reasons for that price increase. i ride what cycling magazines classify as a 'super' bike. Theres high end and then theres high end.

bails87

BigMat wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

For the price of a good box couldn't you hire a bike out there?

Its just not the same as being on your own bike though. Fine for mountain biking.

I would respectfully disagree.

If I'm going to be on a bike I'm not sure of I'd rather be on the smooth road than alpine downhill trails!

t4tomo

spasypaddy wrote:

high spec yes but once ive got my zipps on it my bike would be interchangeable with cofidis team bikes (although they run campag not shimano).

if i rode a £2.5k bike then id think again but my frameset alone is £1k more than that... there are good reasons for that price increase. i ride what cycling magazines classify as a 'super' bike. Theres high end and then theres high end.

As long as you are aware that there are severely diminishing returns in performance per £ once you get above the £1500 -£2000 mark.

Its much more about the rider than the bike, otherwise Oil funded Arab states national squads would be winning the TDF on their $50,000 superbikes.

On a personal note, unless I'd dumped a small fortune on a bike and felt compelled to ride it at every opportunity, hiring abroad is a good chance to try out something different, particularly as in the lieks of Mallorca you can hire some pretty nice kit for reasonable money.

spasypaddy

t4tomo wrote:

As long as you are aware that there are severely diminishing returns in performance per £ once you get above the £1500 -£2000 mark.

Its much more about the rider than the bike, otherwise Oil funded Arab states national squads would be winning the TDF on their $50,000 superbikes.

On a personal note, unless I'd dumped a small fortune on a bike and felt compelled to ride it at every opportunity, hiring abroad is a good chance to try out something different, particularly as in the lieks of Mallorca you can hire some pretty nice kit for reasonable money.

i realise that, but if a full build is costing less than either my wheel set or my frame and around the price of my groupset then id like to think as a complete package the superior bike is worth the money.

the three things you want in a road bike are: stiffness, lightness and comfort. for £1500 you get 1 or 2 of those (depending on the other spec of the bike), for £2000 you will definitely get 2 of those. £3k and above you get all three (IMO and its also a bit of a generalisation due to manufacturers like canyon undercutting people).

when i got my first road bike 5 years ago i got a second hand cannondale CAAD5, it was a great ride but it was comfort over everything else. (£200)

then a year later i upgraded to a planet x super light with ultegra (£999), this was comfortable and at the time i thought it was light and stiff but that was in comparison to my CAAD5.

roll on 3 years and i upgraded again to the Look 695. Now there isnt much i can upgrade to from here at the current time and i wouldnt want to. Its the most comfortable bike ive ever ridden, its the lightest bike ive ever ridden and its by far and away the stiffest bike ive ever ridden.

Now i could have got a bike for probably a few £k less but ultimately i decided that i wanted to go as near to the top of the range equipment out there as i could. And i have been blessed with the ability to buy a flagship frameset, a flagship mechanical groupset and soon a flagship wheelset.

as you say its more about the legs than the bike. but it sure as hell feels awesome riding a bike that is at the forefront of the road bike scene.

edit: I also work in the industry so stuff doesnt cost as much as it should, and ive also ridden a huge amount of bikes from the £150 BSO to other top of the range £4k+ bikes

t4tomo

I'd probably do similar if I had the cash to spare and I could get the purchase order past Mrs T without her starting divorce procedings.

As it is I'm happy I got the Bianchi purchase past her.

spasypaddy

im young free and single

i also saved for well over a year for the frameset and groupset.

the wheels will hopefully be coming from an injury payout that im due.