From previous experience Air Freight seems to get the least checking.
Most of mine weren’t opened and arrived as was. I described them as Bicycle rather than mountain bike. Fresh rubber as a precaution on them. I was planning on doing the same but due to not having work lined up chose to have all 3 expressed!
Had shoes, bag and tools in the box ready to go and got all 3 out for under £500 (each box was 30kg) so has been a nice advance on our shipping which is still a few weeks out (after nearly 3 months)
Other thing is to make sure you declare they are all over 12 months old on the forms. (Remember nothing you import is newer than that or you will be due import duty)
I was going to fly with 1 bike but the prospect of living off 15kg of stuff for 3 months was not going to work.