I’m thinking of buying a bike on ebay, the seller doesnt want to arrange postage. Can anyone tell me what I can expect to pay to arrange a courier to pick up from him (London) and deliver to me (Bristol).

Any recommendations for a reliable courier?

thanks

As most couriers measure stuff like bikes volumetrically it’ll depend a huge amount on how much the seller is willing to break the bike down and pack it away.

If he’s prepared to spend the time doing it then you can get a bike with no wheels fitted, stem/bars/etc taken off, pedals off and seat post out packed away into a pretty small box. But, he needs to make sure it’s packed well to avoid damage.

If he does this I would think £30 would be about right.

If he just wants to turn the bars and chuck it in a big box then you’ll be looking a great deal more.

coach from bristol to london about £15
train from london to bristol about £25

depends if you have a day to spare and ticket prices depend on day/time of travel but might be an option….

My time @ £300 per day, I think I’ll pay a pro. Thanks anyway.

I could pay someone to take the Megabus I suppose….

I use senditnow.com It’s a fixed price service run by parcel force. Pretty cheap and always been reliable.

+1 for senditnow.com

Senditnow make it hard work to get a quote.

Get vendor to pack it. Get dimension and weight and then…
Parcel To Go…
Simples 🙂

Senditnow make it hard work to get a quote.

its a fixed price for items upto 32kgs

There’s a few ebay couriers that do fixed price

Parcel2go included
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mountain-Bike-Courier-Parcel-Delivery-Service-UK-/180705063653

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BICYCLE-COURIER-SCHWINN-TOURING-BIKE-/370534970572

”Parcel Monkey” are probably your cheapest/best option. I’ve sent a whole bike via them before for about £8 plus insurance and that’s next day too. As long as you stay under the (pretty generous) maximum length & weight it’s extremely good value (standard bike box is within the max.

Very easy to organise too, as you can order it all online the night before (even pretty late) print out the label, stick it on and have it picked up the next day.

With insurance etc, it can add up (I just sent most of a bike with insurance up to £900 and it was £20), but it stil seems very good value, so I’m very happy to recommend them.

Despite the name I have no connection with the company other than being a very satisfied customer! 😀

Paisley Freight, £21.50, just has to be boxed for protection. The only comment the guy made was – “ooh, that one’s nice and light..”

I think the main problem with most couriers is that they will all deliver for around a tenner, fully insured . . . up to £50-100 😯 . Once you try adding compensation for a frame, say £800 in value, the price goes up considerably to over £50 (I know, I paid that when I sold my Slopestyle frame last year 😥 and just wasn’t prepared to take the risk). As some of you will know, I’ve couriered many frames in the past 😳 and mistakes do happen – I’ve only had one parcel lost (and it took involvement from the BBC before I received compensation) but I have had to claim for damage or late delivery on a couple of occasions.

If anyone can recommend me a reliable, fully insured 48 hour courier, I’d be most grateful. I feel another sale coming on.

Be careful senditnow. stipulate a max parcel length of 1.5m I used a Giant box that was slightly over 1.5m and had to cut it down a bit. With insurance it cost me £20 (£350 insurance)

However do a search, the same question was asked last week and I’m sure some one said they used a company that gave them £1k of insurance for about £30.

I’ve used Interparcel a number of times now, over the UK and EU.

Always been great, always collected when they should & never any issues.

Insurance does bump the cost up considerably, but i’m not prepared to take that risk otherwise.

As with any company though, the true test of how good they are is when it all goes t*ts up. Thankfully, I have never had to test that as yet.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/sending-a-boxed-bike-in-the-post-who-uses-what-service-what-price-help

Cheers! Some more options worth considering there. Checking the direct courier solutions link though, the price still only includes £100 insurance. I guess I’m just gonna have to get used to paying for the extra piece of mind 😕

the only “person” that cares about the dimensions is the website

geezer collecting doesnt care
warehouse doesnt care
delivery guy doesnt care

i always type random measurements into parcel2go to get the cheapest quote

never ever had a delivery guy refuse a collection