Shipping a bike to Spain by courier.

[User269]

Has anyone got recent experience of sending their bike in a hard bike box to Spain? I'd like to send my bike to a hotel in Benissa, then have it sent back a week later. I tried a new service called https://www.bagsolo.com/ but their size restrictions exclude just about every bike bag or box I've ever heard of. My Elite Vaison bike box is 123x79.2x33cm. I've checked with a few delivery services, with the cheapest quote being £360 return, so wondered if this is as good as it gets.

 

[Cycleops]

There are several companies offering this service, try these people https://www.sendmybag.com/?gclid=Cj...-cMUf9EJKgWLGHzdfznf3CVpNK2pMNo2woaAiJ38P8HAQ
Or https://www.luggageforward.com/ just keep looking on the net.
I don’t think it’s any use trying a courierlike DHL because they tend to be very expensive unless you’re a regular dealer/user.

 

[Welsh wheels]

There are several companies offering this service, try these people https://www.sendmybag.com/?gclid=Cj...-cMUf9EJKgWLGHzdfznf3CVpNK2pMNo2woaAiJ38P8HAQ
Or https://www.luggageforward.com/ just keep looking on the net.
I don’t think it’s any use trying a courierlike DHL because they tend to be very expensive unless you’re a regular dealer/user.

So DHL is expensive unless you sell or take drugs?

 

[growingvegetables]

I've just sent a bike to Germany for £120 in an LBS supplied cardboard box using Paisley Freight. [The "bike specialists" I looked at on t'Interweb specified impossibly small boxes for a bike, at very reasonable prices. Whereas anything in a reasonable sized box cost an arm and a leg.]

Plus points

• cheap.
• efficient, very friendly, and kept me up-to-date. (Efficient? Sort of - see below!)
• safe (just reassembled the bike, flawlessly, via WhatsApp, tonight)

Negatives?

• They can't arrange the return . Nope - that's an import!
• They took 3-4 days to get the bike to their depot in Paisley, and process. Then popped it onto a DHL flight to Frankfurt, and DHL onwards to Freiburg (which took only 36 hours!).
• Wee gripe - the cardboard box had obviously been seriously manhandled; fortunately NOT to damage the bike.

I'm NO expert. But I'm guessing any company working in long-distance logistics is doing pretty much the same - using all sorts of companies in the "network". So ... a couple of things to check out with your courier?

For the return of the bike from Germany in December, I'm off down to DHL tomorrow to see what I can sort out. If smaller "specialists" are basically rebadging DHL, I'm guessing DHL handle bikes rather more flexibly and cheaply than their website suggests?

Open to suggestions and/or corrections!