Our bikes are at the FedEx warehouse in Madison AL. Fingers crossed that the snow doesn't cause any delays leaving today. 
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Packing Bikes
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Time is getting short for preparations. This week I picked up boxes which I will use to ship the bikes to San Diego. These boxes were used by Trek to ship new bicycles to our local bike shop, Bicycles Etc. They are busy assembling new bikes for retail sales as we approach spring, and to them the boxes are waste. Normally, I pack bikes in a bicycle case and check them as luggage. Since I won't have a way to get cases back from San Diego for this trip, I'm using these cardboard boxes instead. The boxes are slightly roomier and lighter than the cases, so less disassembly of the bikes will be required.
I checked with UPS, and their estimate for shipping the bikes, by ground, was $167. Ouch. You can check them as luggage for less than that. I contacted some of the fellow riders on our Coast to Coast trip and found other options. Shipbikes.com and bikeflights.com get the price down to about half this cost. They use FedEx and offer the same delivery guarantee, 4 business days. Shipbikes.com even offers home pick up service for an extra $5. Given that the weather is so cold right now, and the bikes need to go out by mid week next week, I may pack them up over the weekend. I can then get them on their way early next week. Frances has a second bike that she can ride if the weather cooperates. If not, she can ride it on her stationary trainer.
I've got a few more tires on order, but I'm basically set with the spare parts I need. Bubba's mechanic sent out a suggested list of things to bring along, and I'll review that one more time, but I felt like I was pretty well set when I looked it over.
Some of the other riders are already on their way to California. They have elected to drive out to San Diego and are using the time to see other parts of the country. We leave two week from today on our flight to San Diego. We start pedaling two weeks from Saturday. Hopefully our blog post will be more interesting and visual once we get rolling.
Stay tuned.
I checked with UPS, and their estimate for shipping the bikes, by ground, was $167. Ouch. You can check them as luggage for less than that. I contacted some of the fellow riders on our Coast to Coast trip and found other options. Shipbikes.com and bikeflights.com get the price down to about half this cost. They use FedEx and offer the same delivery guarantee, 4 business days. Shipbikes.com even offers home pick up service for an extra $5. Given that the weather is so cold right now, and the bikes need to go out by mid week next week, I may pack them up over the weekend. I can then get them on their way early next week. Frances has a second bike that she can ride if the weather cooperates. If not, she can ride it on her stationary trainer.
I've got a few more tires on order, but I'm basically set with the spare parts I need. Bubba's mechanic sent out a suggested list of things to bring along, and I'll review that one more time, but I felt like I was pretty well set when I looked it over.
Some of the other riders are already on their way to California. They have elected to drive out to San Diego and are using the time to see other parts of the country. We leave two week from today on our flight to San Diego. We start pedaling two weeks from Saturday. Hopefully our blog post will be more interesting and visual once we get rolling.
Stay tuned.
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