leicaman
Maximum Pace
- Sep 20, 2012
- 2,878
- 2,698
Hi all
Just thought I'd let people know about my experience recently when trying to ship a bike frame back to the UK. I think I remember reading a thread on here a year or two about someone shipping a bike from Japan but I don't think they updated the thread to say how they did it. Hopefully it might come in useful for people in the future.
Last week I needed to ship my frame and fork back to the UK for a repaint so I boxed them up and took them to the post office to send them EMS. The post office measured the box and said it was too big to ship via EMS. They measure the longest length and add that the the circumference of the box (the widthx2 and depth x2). The total has to be a maximum of 300cm. Mine came to 338cm. To took the bike home and thought about alternatives. I checked out some of the popular courier companies including FedEx, DHL, UPS, Yamato and Sagawa. The box was too big for Yamato. Sagawa was a really complicated calculation despite it initially looking like it was be a cheap solution. I think it came in at around 75,000 yen but then there were other fees etc. The overseas couriers were just a joke with quotes coming in from 130,000 to 170,000.
I then found a company called bikeflights.com who have a deal with fedex. They gave me a quote of 380USD which seems pretty reasonable. Before I gave them my money I decided I'd try to make the box small enough for Japan Post to accept it. I cut the box down and taped it up. I repackaged my frame and popped it in the box. At the post office they measured it and it came in at 297cm. Including the import handling fee and insurance I paid ¥18,050. I posted it on Thursday morning and it was delivered to Sheffield, UK yesterday afternoon (6days) in tip top condition. If you need to ship a whole bike you may struggle to get under the post office max size restrictions so bikeflights.com would probably be a great alternative. Please note I've never used them though.
Just thought I'd let people know about my experience recently when trying to ship a bike frame back to the UK. I think I remember reading a thread on here a year or two about someone shipping a bike from Japan but I don't think they updated the thread to say how they did it. Hopefully it might come in useful for people in the future.
Last week I needed to ship my frame and fork back to the UK for a repaint so I boxed them up and took them to the post office to send them EMS. The post office measured the box and said it was too big to ship via EMS. They measure the longest length and add that the the circumference of the box (the widthx2 and depth x2). The total has to be a maximum of 300cm. Mine came to 338cm. To took the bike home and thought about alternatives. I checked out some of the popular courier companies including FedEx, DHL, UPS, Yamato and Sagawa. The box was too big for Yamato. Sagawa was a really complicated calculation despite it initially looking like it was be a cheap solution. I think it came in at around 75,000 yen but then there were other fees etc. The overseas couriers were just a joke with quotes coming in from 130,000 to 170,000.
I then found a company called bikeflights.com who have a deal with fedex. They gave me a quote of 380USD which seems pretty reasonable. Before I gave them my money I decided I'd try to make the box small enough for Japan Post to accept it. I cut the box down and taped it up. I repackaged my frame and popped it in the box. At the post office they measured it and it came in at 297cm. Including the import handling fee and insurance I paid ¥18,050. I posted it on Thursday morning and it was delivered to Sheffield, UK yesterday afternoon (6days) in tip top condition. If you need to ship a whole bike you may struggle to get under the post office max size restrictions so bikeflights.com would probably be a great alternative. Please note I've never used them though.