Originally Posted by
indyfabz
Say what? I shipped from Philly to Missoula, MT back in June for around $50. Same delivery time. Larger case. That was before any additional insurance. I am going to look into Shipbikes.com next time. Did a post-shipping comparison and it was noticeably less expensive.
My issue with flying is ground transportation, especially if I have to be at the airport at 4 a.m. and am flying somewhere like Missoula, where ground transportation with something like a bike box is a PITA. Also, PHL doesn't seem to have those large scanners, which means a TSA agent is going to open my bike box. No thanks.
Not sure why, but I have noticed that it seems to matter where (what state and maybe what city) you ship to in addition to how far. It wasn't with shipbikes or bikeflights, but when we finished a tour and my daughter and I had our bikes shipped home they were packed and shipped by a bike shop and were in the same size boxes. I am pretty sure if anything her's would have been smaller and/or lighter. They went from Reno, her's to Tallahassee, mine to Baltimore. Google directions say Baltimore is a little further drive and the flights are equal distance, UPS was $20 more for her bike. It has seemed to me that I have generally paid more for shipping since I moved to Tallahassee, but that is just a general impression.
I am with you on the hassles of ground transportation. I generally minimize using ground transportation as much as I can by flying to my tour with my bike in cardboard and riding out of the airport and then letting a bike shop pack and ship my bike home to avoid dealing with the process in a strange town. That way I only have to lug a bike in a box once in the entire process and it is in my home town. Since my start and end point are never the same hard cases just don't work for me any way.