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.


https://youtu.be/rdpTSYH__ZY

I wish I could pack that fast. why do you take the rear wheel off to pack it?

I see you've found Mr. Shipping Worldwide. Lol.

OMG. My brain hurts. I'd be tempted to send it back rather than unwrap all that. It's like a gag gift that you wrap with 18 rolls of duct tape.

What is he doing at the end? Carrying it to the buyer's house? It seems like he is walking for a while.

haha..are you freakin kidding me**********???

You ain't kidding that's hard to watch. Apparently, he doesn't know what editing is. Made my head hurt just to watch about a minute and a half.

"you can watch my job of the safety pacjage making, which takes 4!!! hours"

Wow! Now that is an exercise is over kill if I ever saw one. My opinion, of course and, for what it is worth, that is pretty close to how I started out packing bikes. But, after 500+ packing jobs, I do things a great deal differently these days.

None the less, the guy understands something important when selling bikes on-line. Packing is an issue, more so if it is not done correctly. In this case, the bike is well packed but the guy did make some mistakes that could end up biting one in the butt. Just my opinion.

Would I buy a bike from him after seeing that video? Yes. Would I ever pack a bike up like that - no. This is How I Pack and Ship bicycles...

Did that other packing thread get made into a sticky yet?

Randy. you are zee artiste!

Wow.
my purchases before shipping a bike (twolve take pictures when the fuji arrives) is 12 ft of pipe insulation, 1 foot of 1/4" allthread, nuts, washers, 1 Inch rubber stopper.
Add all the cardboard from the portion of the box I removed, plus rags, smaller box for all the small parts.
I really dont understand how people can ship bikes cheaply without removing everything and getting very picky about packing order.
Any larger than this and it will cost me over $100

PDX, I'm just disappointed I didn't get pieces of one of your old t-shirts when I unwrapped the Opus!!!!

Say what you will, but after watching that, I'd totally feel confident buying a bike from him.

There were several editions of various news papers when I shipped my first wheel-set to a forum member. I probably added a couple dollars to his shipping in tape and newspaper , but as far as I heard they got there safe.

"Pack like this, or don't pack at all."



-Kurt

That they did sir.

However, in that video, wrapping tape around everything is silly....the spokes I mean actually. That's insane. Pipe foam, zip ties. Perfect every time.

It'd probably take another 4 hours to unpack and get all the packing tape residue off everything.

Kurt, how did you get the wheelset inside that box taped to the top tube? Interesting contrast in packing styles here. I know from experience Joe Bell ships a frame and fork with the dropouts wood-blocked and taped in place but nothing else; it all is surrounded by wadded up balls of newspaper. Go figure. I'm from the pipe foam/zip tape with extra padding where needed school.