i came across an ebay auction that offered a video of how the seller packs a bike for shipping. pretty entertaining, although nauseating high speed frame rate makes it hard to watch for 10 minutes.

i've shipped many frame sets (no complete bikes yet), and have never had an issue. my routine takes maybe 30 minutes from beginning to end.

-remove fork from frame
-cover all frame tubes in high density pipe foam insulation
-set spacers between dropouts
-add additional coverage to braze-ons etc with bubble wrap
-place empty boxes inside TT-ST-DT and ST-chain and seat stays to avoid crushing to center area of the box
-place it all in a heavy corrugated cardboard bike/frame box


it takes this guy 4 hours (with help) to pack this bike, wow. i imagine it takes nearly as long to unpack and clean all the sticky tape residue off the spokes and everywhere else. i'm also not too sure what the t-shirt mummification is doing, ultimately.

the video makes me not want to buy a bike from him.


http://youtu.be/rdpTSYH__ZY