[Gerry_C]

After years of thinking about it, I bought a used Tandem last year to try to get my wife to ride with me. Well, it didn't work so I finally gave and auctioned the bike on e-bay. Now I need to ship it from NE to Texas and I'm not sure what the best way is to go about it. Any advice out threre?

Thanks,

Gerry Cotnoir
gcotn@neca.com

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[Gerry_C]

Thanks, that's exactly what I did. For any one else in this situation, I ended up getting regualar bike boxes from a shop, opening up one end on each and sliding one inside the other. Lots of tape, foam peanuts and bubble wrap finished the job. The package was to big for UPS, so it went Fedex freight saver. $140 from CT to Texas.

[JMCraig]

Not that I have any first-hand experience with shipping tandems, but a Santana publication I have says that you can ship via a company called DANZAS. You're supposed to be able to call them at 800-426-5962 and "request the special Santana Roadmaster rate #4353."

Santana also has a nice box pictured but the description doesn't say anything about getting one yourself (perhaps the shipper has them, I don't know). Santana's # is 909-596-7570 (Mon - Fri 9 - 5 Pacific time). They have a web site but it is lousy (www.santanainc.com).

Maybe this will be of use to someone else (or even me, if I ever buy a tandem!).

J

[saharvey2]

I recently shipped my tandem in a Santana box using DANZAS. I would recommend this method. It is easy and the cost is reasonable.

The Santana box is designed so take a tandem with the wheels attached. The box is huge 100"x40"x10" and durable. To ship our bike I removed the pedals, turned the front wheel around 180 degrees, then turned the handle bars 90 degrees (parallel to the frame). The wheels fit into folded cardboard forms in the bottom and ends of the box. Add a couple zip-ties and the bike is fixed. You should be able to pick up a used Santana box from your local Santana dealer for $50 or less. Obtaining the Santana box was the most difficult part of the whole process.

Shipment through DANZAS was quite easy, just tell them where to pick up the bike. Of course, I didn't really have to deal with them; my local bike shop handled the shipment. DANZAS charges additional ($15) for pick-up or delivery to a residence, so shipping the bike out of my LBS saved me a couple buck.

In all, my cost was about $120. Just add another $30 if you end up sending it residence to residence.

[dirtsqueezer]

Excellent - I assume that it is insured if you ship it through Danzas?

[BassoBabe]

We second the Danzas idea. We have had two shipped from the West Coast and shipped one to the East Coast. Incredibly responsive to web inquiries.

[Richard Parker]

This is not so timely for the first post. Here it goes anyway. I just purchased a Burley from Truckee CA and I live in Houston TX. The shipment cost $56.00 via Greyhound, took 4 days and the adventure downtown was certainly worth the price of admission. Bus stations are not the finest places to hang out after dark(picked the bike up at 8:00 pm). I did have to pick it up at the terminal but the price was just too good to pass up. The only bad thing about the deal is the $300 maximum insurance. Most bikes will far exceed this.

[TandemGeek]

The Danza route is the most reliable and I do recommend using a friendly local bike shop as pick-up and drop off points. We've done 7 long distance bike transactions and five of them were tandems, either coming or going. Four of the five have been with UPS, the other two were by Danzas.

Unless you're shipping a small sized tandem, UPS is probably not the way to go because the frame box will be too big. Our three outgoing tandem shipments have all been small sized frames that came within 2" of falling under their maximum girth size of 130". The most recent tandem was shipped last Friday. Two oversized 32lb boxes from Atlanta, GA, to a residence in Sacramento, CA with appropriate insurance ($2.5K for the frame box & $1.5 for wheels, forks, etc...) = $114. Our shipments to Texas and New Hampshire via UPS were $49 and $65 respectively. Our Danzas shipment from New Jersey was $87 and another from the Dakotas was about the same. Up and to this last shipment the destination was a bike shop which saved a few bucks.

If you're looking for packing tips we have a couple sets of instructions and/or examples linked off our Web site. They show you how we packed up three different tandems for shipment via UPS. All have pictures but it seems I'm documenting less these days:

Santana Arriva to TX:
http://home.att.net/~thetandemlink/articles/packingtandems/tandemshipment.html

Cannondale MT3000 to NH:
http://home.att.net/~thetandemlink/articles/cdalebuild.html

Ventana ECdM to CA:
http://home.att.net/~mark.livingood/Ventana3.html

[TandemGeek]

I respectfully withdraw my endorsment of UPS. They just lost $1,500 worth of wheels, forks and other components after leaving a box that was supposed to be signed-for on a door step. The loss was only discovered when the same UPS guy came back later in the day to drop off the second oversized box with the frame in it which he did remember to get a signature for. The buyer asked where the second box was and he told him he'd left at the door earlier today.... Unf**king believable.

Girding up for a fight with UPS over insurance coverage while buying new components for our buyer.

[bugatti2me]

I recently bought a used Santana while visting Washington state. I bought two regular bike boxes, cut and taped them together to make a tandem size box. I left the wheels on to protect the frame. Lowered the seats and just took off the handle bars and pedals. It cost me $75 to New York city by Greyhound bus. Arrived in a week.
I had talked to a Seattle tandem builder about shipping it for me. The price with packing would have been $400.
I took my other tandem to the island of Martinque in the Carribian with similar packing but took the wheels off to make the box smaller.

[DocF]

Our tandem came from Mel at Tandems East via the Danzas route. They did manage to mis-deliver it three times in one afternoon/evening, but it did arrive after a lot of toll-free phone calls. the price was right and the DHL supervisor seemed very concerned.

I deal with UPS on a daily basis. They are excellent until something goes wrong. I personally had to conduct a search of their Greensboro hub to find a part that had not been delivered to my home. It was sitting outside the sorry supervisor's office. He did not seem concerned that his lack of caring had caused my customer to have to spend several thousand dollars.

Link to DHL/Danzas (http://www.us.danzas.com/)

Doc