I'm busy selling my road bike on eBay and guestimated £25 to ship it but UPS want £92 and DHL £111 to ship it to a UK destination. That's crazy money, especially given the value of the bike. Do any of you know if a saner way or am I going to have to restrict the sale to people who can travel to pick it up?

Many thanks in advance to the STWMassive.

try here

There are loads of couriers on ebay mate. I used one to ship some alloy wheels a few years ago, think it cost around £20. Just check the feedback and all should be good.

As footstomper says 'parcel2go'

Used them loads and cheaper than going direct to UPS or DHL

Cheers guys, I'll give them a try. The STW hive-mind triumphs again!

Nothing wrong with Parcel Force in my experience. About £15 to post a bike.

Send it now is Parcel force, but cheaper!

Sent a £1200 road bike fully insured for about £50 if that helps.

http://www.senditnow.com which is parcel force. You specify when they come and collect, and 2 day, 24hour or AM delivery options for something like 11,12,13 quid. Cheapest by far. I've used them 3 times.

ps. if you use the most expensive (13 quid) service, you get the most included insurance. If you want to increase the value, you can during the ordering process.

+1 senditnow are very good

Chaps thank you all for your advice, I was panicking that the guestimate I had putvin my eBay listing was misleading and I really don't want to lose that 100% feedback!

Darn, I spoke too soon: Parcelforce (or SenditNow) won't take any item where:

Length plus (2x(Height+Width)) is >3metres.

So the bike box I have (1.47 x 0.23 x 0.79) was rejected out of hand. How you guys managed to get them to ship a bike I will never know.

Looks like either UPS at £55 or HDNL, who have the worst customer reviews I have ever seen

🙁

Try Parcel Monkey, they do not seem to have many restrictions.

Hmmm….

<disappears to ferret around on t'internet>

Jees, change the size on the site until it does accept it!
When Mr Parcelforce arrives do you think he knows what size box he is collecting?!!
He'll take it and whack it on the back with the rest of the mahoosive parcels they now accept off people willing to pay the extra.

Trust me 😉

Only ever use send it now, why pay more….

Sent numerous bike boxes.

I'm quietly pleased that it never occurred to me to massage the dimensions of the box.

Or should I be embarrassed at my naïvety?