I have a race this coming Sunday and I plan on shipping my bike. For those who have done this, which do you prefer: Fedex or UPS? (In terms of of the bike arriving safely, guaranteed delivery date, etc)
My bike box falls within their dimension requirements for a regular package, so I won’t be charged an oversize fee. Fedex is cheaper, but I am willing to go the UPS route if it offers a better piece of mind.
Second question: I plan on shipping this bike box to my hotel. My bike box doesn’t lock. I hate to ask, but has anyone had issues with theft or the hotel not knowing where the package went once signed for?
The question is really, “Which is the lesser of two evils?”. UPS delivery is pathetic, I’ve sat in my living room, waiting for a second attempt to deliver, and seen the driver walk up to my door slap another note on it and head back to his truck without even ringing the bell.
On the other hand, a friend fedexed his bike to Florida for last weekend and his hard shell bike box was badly damaged(split and holed!), a skewer was missing and his bike scatched. Apparently this wasn’t the first time fedex have damaged his bike.
I would never trust either with anything valuable.
I shipped my bike from a hotel in Florida (long story, I was TDY for the USAF) to my hotel in Wisconsin, and from there back to my house in Ohio. It was all done like clockwork. I used a Triall3 case that came through it with just a small bend in one of the latches (easily fixed). I was very impressed with their level of service. My bike was waiting for me when I showed up at the hotel, and I left it with the staff when I had to catch my flight, and it arrived back at home with no problems whatsoever. And I don’t think their rates are any more expensive.
I promised that after my experience with Fed Ex I would never use their service again. Long story short - I shipped my bike from Illinois to Texas with plenty of time in advance. Day before event, it still had not arrived. After 4 hours of phone calls and tears, they located my bike (shipped in your standard hard shell bike box), discovered that it was actually in Georgia because it was misloaded from a truck in Forth Worth to a truck destined to Georgia. Even though they are Fed Ex and in the business of shipping packages they told me they could not ship my bike from George to Fed Ex because it needed to first go back to Fort Worth and then on to me. Anyways, my bike finally arrived the day after the race. That’s my two cents.
