I am travelling from Australia to the LD Age Group Champs in Las Vegas in November. Once the race is finished I want to ship my bike back from Las Vegas to Australia as my wife and I are then having a three week holiday around the US. I have contacted the event recommended bike shipping company, however, they have advised that due to the low volume of shipping they do to Australia the price is prohibitive.
So does anyone have any suggestions for companies for shipping an unaccompanied bike from Las Vegas to Australia ? I’m not concerned with how long the bike takes to get back to Australia as like I said I will be taking a trip for a few weeks after the race.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve found quotes for shipping/unaccompanied luggage bikes to Australasia prohibitively expensive due to quotes being based on volumetric weight.
One option may be to post via USPS. I live in New Zealand and have purchased bikes & wheels off this site via the classifieds. Shipping costs are usually ~USD$60 (likely x2 for you, 1 box wheels, 1 box frame). You might be able to contact a LBS in Vegas who will pack & send for you after the race.
I wouldn’t recommend using USPS. We ship packages to Australia all the time with them, but if something goes wrong, getting insurance coverage will be VERY difficult if using them. UPS or Fedex are likely going to be your best bet. You will probably pay around $200-$300 to ship using their services assuming you’d be using a normal size bike box.
http://www.ups.com
http://www.fedex.com
Easy… call or visit BikeFlights.com. They will take care of everything. All you have to do is pack and give them a destination. Easy stuff…
WOW! I just got a quote from bikeflights.com as I’m moving back to Australia next year from Canada. My quote was ~$900!! YIKES! I think I’ll be searching for that bike fee thread and studying it over before I book flights!!
Take it with you, it is expensive otherwise. depending on your travel plans you may be able to store it at a hotel.
There are no good, affordable options. I travel to Oz 3-4x per year and have tried everything–i finally bought a S&S coupler bike to solve the issue. Best bet would be to leave your bike with someone in the US while you holiday and take it with you on the flite home, but even then the costs can be high. USPS is the cheapest option but if it goes missing, you will not get paid by “insurance”. UPS or Fedex will be about $100-200 more than checking it on airline on flite home.
Well I agree, that’s a lot. However I have used them a couple times domestically (US) between PA and CA, and not only was the process super easy, but insurance was taken care of, and the frames arrived in less than three days. I spent around $150 if I recall correctly. I have heard many stories about the guys at BikeFlights fixing nightmare situations with race teams who had shipping issues.
I am looking at some shipping this winter too (again within the US) and although their costs seem on the higher end, I’m not sure I would trust the cross-eyed lady in the FedEx/Kinkos, or USPS, and certainly not the TSA to handle $10,000+ of carbon. I’ll stick to BikeFlights for my team’s bikes.
Hey I’m doing almost the exact same thing…4 week holiday in the US/Canada post race, fly back to NZ from LAX. We’re road tripping from Vegas up the west coast with an early stop in LA so we’ll lug our bike back to LAX and store it there for pick up on the way out. Storage + airline check in fees (if they do indeed charge) will save a couple hundred $$$ over DHL/TNT/Fedex/UPS/etc shipping.
Are you flying out of Las Vegas or somewhere else? I am a local LV guy and if you are leaving from Las Vegas at the end of the trip, I could store your bike for you in my garage.
Where are you going to store at LAX? We don’t have lockers here like in Europe/Oz. You can probably get one of the bike shops in Manhattan Beach to pack/store your bike for you for a fee.
http://laxluggagestorage.com/index.html
Slightly different arrangement I know, but still suits us…
Sorry to bump an old thread but I just wanted to pass on my thanks to everyone who made suggestions for bike transport. I ended up booking with Bikeflights (thanks for the heads up) as we are flying out of New York on our way home so I was a bit constrained in getting the bike back to Australia and didn’t really want to cart the bike bag on flights/trains etc around the US.
So thank you to everyone that posted with suggestions the information was very much appreciated.