Recumbent - Shipping a trike... how?

How does one go about shipping a trike somewhere? For my mountain bike I can get a carrier that takes the airline or shipper abuses and can be reused many times. What I dont know is if this same carrier could be used for a trike? are there other carriers? Should I just plan to break it down and ship in padded cardboard every time? etc.

Thanks.

Is there a recumbent dealer in your area? If so, hit them up for a used box that'll fit your trike. Otherwise you're stuck building your own crate.

I've done both—using an old cardboard box that I could abandon when I was travelling with my trike, building a crate to ship a trike that I was selling.

Different carriers will have different rules on dimensions, but you should be able to fit your trike into a box that UPS and Fedex will both take. Shipping will be expensive, though.

It all depends on your trike and the extent of your willingness to disassemble. If you don't mind shipping a parts collection, one or two conventional box boxes like those from Crateworks (http://www.crateworks.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=Bike-Boxes&Store_Code=crateworks)would be an option.

If you are going to be doing lots of traveling, something like the new neatly folding ICE models might be the ticket.

Strangely enough this is one of the reasons I have just sold my ICE trike. I fly a lot in Europe with Ryanair, the cut price airline. Because of the weight of the trike, they would not entertain carrying it.

The other problem I can forsee is what do you do with a box that size when you get to where you are going? Unless you have a place to leave it of course.

I am just buying a Bacchetta Giro 26 which should make the transportaion problem much easier.

Steve

Do you already have a trike? If so, which one. That would help people in answering your question.

I have shipped my Greenspeed GTO on a plane in a regular bike box but it was designed with and S&S coupler so the frame could be take apart and the seat taken off. There are a couple of folding trikes that would also probably be small enough when folded to fit in a box. Once you go oversize, it gets very expensive. It cost $70 to ship my first trike (unassembled) half way across the country from the factory to me but these days they ship them fully assembled and charge about $150 for essentially the same trike

I don't have one yet. Very soon. I'm limited to a small selection set as I am a big mofo, so most if not all the folders are out of the question. I'm targeting a terratrike cruiser, as by the time I order I should have lost enough weight to not exceed its rating.

I did email terratrike to ask about shipping and they said the cruiser doesn't break down much and they have not tried fitting it into a standard bike box, which I translate to say they know it wont fit, so they didn't bother to try.

The rover could be broken down, and it certainly handles my weight, but the more I study it and other trikes, the more I think i would end up trading up within a pretty short timeframe, so I'll probably not even try the rover.

I bailed on the idea of ever shipping my trike since I figured I'd rather worry about a trike that fit me and was comfortable and would do all the other things I wanted (like tour) without worrying about making it fit some possible unlikely future event.
I figure if I ever really really want to ship it, I'll pay the bucks to have a pro take apart, the cost to ship, and to have someone else reassemble it.
Yes, my trike folds, but not into a particularly small package.

. . . . The rover could be broken down, and it certainly handles my weight, but the more I study it and other trikes, the more I think i would end up trading up within a pretty short timeframe, so I'll probably not even try the rover.

You might want to test ride a Rover before eliminating it. This experienced and picky rider was pleasantly surprised by a test ride. I expected something slow and awkward but found myself riding a nice trike.