Originally Posted by
icepick_trotsky
I want to send a bike to my brother in Atlanta. What are your shipping tips? How disassembled should it be? He has no tools or expertise to reassemble, so I'd like to keep it as together as possible. If that's not doable, I could ship it to a bike shop, but that would increase expenses.
I've never found it to be significantly less expensive to ship in 2 boxes, in fact, I more often than not find it more expensive.
For the beginner try finding a Trek Madone clamshell box, the only problem with them is most Trek dealers like to charge upwards of $20 for the box. I only use them when I'm sending a very, very expensive bikes.
Recently I've been removing the left crank arm when I package a bike as it give more flexibility with front wheel placement.
Small dimensional changes in box size make a big difference as well. If it's a small bike, 54cm or less, look for a wider box, the extra inch goes a long way.