parcelling up a bike?

jim said:

I have to parcel up a bike to send by courier to someone who has bought it
on eBay.

Anyone had any experience of doing that?

I realise I can make the parcel dimensions smaller by putting seat right
down, turning h'bars around etc.

I'm just not sure about where I'd get enough cardboard to safely wrap it
up...

Try LBS or even Halfords, etc, for a box - anywhere that sells bikes
has a lot of them to get rid of. Remove wheels, wrap separately in
cardboard, loosen and turn handlebars, drop saddle down, remove pedals
and pack in a bit more cardboard. It should all fit inside the box,
though the boxes vary a bit in size, so you might need to go back for
a second one. Halfords happily gave me one when I needed to send a
bike.

Rob

Great - thanks Rob, that's really useful.

Quoted message said:

cardboard, loosen and turn handlebars, drop saddle down, remove pedals

sorry if this is teaching you to suck eggs, but if you've never
removed pedals, you need to know that one side has a reverse thread.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/stuck-pedals.html tells you what to
do.

Rob

On 16/07/2007 20:43, jim said,

Quoted message said:

Anyone got any ideas / advice please?

Others have already suggested sources of cardboard, but I would be
*really* interested to know which courier you will be using. I sold a
bike on eBay and got caught out when I found it was too big for
ParcelForce and CityLink wouldn't touch it without an account (the
latter used to do a cash on collection service, but they've stopped it).
I ended up paying, um, more than I planned to Business Post. (No, I
didn't expect the buyer to make up the difference!)

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

I've seen this one on eBay:
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/parcelworks/

They look pretty decent...

More info here:
http://tinyurl.com/ynmbje

About £8.00 for a bike!

Paul Boyd said:

Others have already suggested sources of cardboard, but I would be
*really* interested to know which courier you will be using. I sold a
bike on eBay and got caught out when I found it was too big for
ParcelForce and CityLink wouldn't touch it without an account (the
latter used to do a cash on collection service, but they've stopped it).
I ended up paying, um, more than I planned to Business Post. (No, I
didn't expect the buyer to make up the difference!)

--
Paul Boydhttp://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

I've used Nightfreight (www.nightfreight.co.uk) - excellent service
and low cost, but you do need to open an account with them.

jim said the following on 16/07/2007 22:51:

Quoted message said:

I've seen this one on eBay:
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/parcelworks/

They look pretty decent...

More info here:
http://tinyurl.com/ynmbje

About £8.00 for a bike!

Check the maximum size though - not just each dimension but the combined
dimensions. Some boxed bikes might just scrape within that, but mine
didn't. Something else to be aware of is that many eBay delivery
services are unauthorised ParcelForce resellers, and PF have made it
known that they won't provide insurance in these instances as the
reseller is breaking the terms of their contract. (I don't know if this
applies to parcelworks or not)

Incidentally, the people I've used in the past are
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/parcel2send who are authorised to resell
ParcelForce services, but their prices reflect this!!!!!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Paul Boyd said:

On 16/07/2007 20:43, jim said,

Quoted message said:

Anyone got any ideas / advice please?

Others have already suggested sources of cardboard, but I would be
*really* interested to know which courier you will be using. I sold a
bike on eBay and got caught out when I found it was too big for
ParcelForce and CityLink wouldn't touch it without an account (the
latter used to do a cash on collection service, but they've stopped it).
I ended up paying, um, more than I planned to Business Post. (No, I
didn't expect the buyer to make up the difference!)

used to get the odd bike though when i worked in Royal Mail, some things
come though that probably shouldn't have, had one parsel come though
that needed two of us to lift it. 200KG or so.

roger
--
www.rogermerriman.com

Roger Merriman twisted the electrons to say:

Quoted message said:

used to get the odd bike though when i worked in Royal Mail, some things
come though that probably shouldn't have, had one parsel come though
that needed two of us to lift it. 200KG or so.

<nods> Saw a bike come through once with an address label (with the
appropriate amount of postage) wrapped around the crossbar. I suspect
that the Royal Mail is kinda like a beehive, if you manage to get the
parcel into the system everyone assumes it's must have been okay'd by
someone!
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...

Alistair Gunn said:

Roger Merriman twisted the electrons to say:

Quoted message said:

used to get the odd bike though when i worked in Royal Mail, some things
come though that probably shouldn't have, had one parsel come though
that needed two of us to lift it. 200KG or so.

<nods> Saw a bike come through once with an address label (with the
appropriate amount of postage) wrapped around the crossbar. I suspect
that the Royal Mail is kinda like a beehive, if you manage to get the
parcel into the system everyone assumes it's must have been okay'd by
someone!

true rather like that parsel i mentioned only got saw it as the postie
doing that round couldn't lift it.

roger

--
www.rogermerriman.com