We strongly recommend letting your own local bike shop handle as many aspects of your personal bicycle shipping plans as possible from and to your home town. They'll be able to give you valuable advice, make sure eveything gets done that needs to, and if they pack and unpack your bike professionally there will be much less risk of damage or additional charges.

Boxing and Unboxing Your Bicycle
You will need to have your boxed bicycle disassembled, boxed, and shipped on your own before the start of the event, as well as received, unboxed, and disassembled preferable after the end of the event.

Before disassembling, boxing, and shipping your bicycle, it should be clean and in great mechanical working order. This will significantly help our mechanic properly reassemble it and ensure that it will be ready to ride at the start of the start of the event!

Scheduling and Timing
Planning the time frame for shipping your bicycle before the start of the event is critical so that your bicycle arrives in plenty of time for our mechanic to build it up and have it ready for you to ride on time when you arrive. It's much better to let go of your bike early and miss a couple days of training than to ship it too late and have to miss a couple days of the event or pay more money for express shipping services.

Generally, you should allow at least three weeks total time to ship your bike. This includes the time to have your bike disaasembled and boxed, shipped, and unboxed and reassembled. You should plan on at least five days shipping time for your bicycle to arrive from anywhere in the continental U.S. to our mechanic when using ground transportation. Also plan on having your boxed bicycle arrive at our mechanic at least one weekbefore the start of the event so there is plenty of time for him to unbox and reassemble it and address any other mechanical issues that might come up as necessary. You may also want to allow even more time to account for any unforeseen circumstances and shipping delays beyond your control such as inclement weather situations. Don't take deadlines lightly and don't cut it close - extra time is always your friend.

• Click Here for more information about shipping your bicycle through our mechanic before the start of the event.
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Shipping Documents and Additional Labelling Considerations
Your specific shipping documents are not included in our mechanic's fees. You will need to generate them, attach them to your bicycle shipment before the start of the event, and/or provide them to our mechanic for your bicycle shipment after the end of the event yourself.

• Click Here for more information about shipping carriers.

It is critically important that your shipping label is properly attached to your shipping container and does not fall off during transit. If you are using a reusable shipping container, you should secure your labels with tie-on tags and zip ties available at your local retail shipping centers upon request. You should also include three additional copies of your shipping label - an extra one on the outside of your shipping container, one inside, and one attached to your bike itself. Remove or black out any old shipping labels or information and only provide the current label and specific shipment information.

Print your return shipping labels before you depart since you can't depend on an internet connection or a printer after the end of the event. If you will be using the same shipping container both before and after the end of the event you should attach the return shipping labels to it as soon as possible after it is received in the starting town so they are not lost, damaged, or destroyed during the event. If this is not possible, you will need to make sure to keep them safe in your baggage yourself and easily after the end of the event.

Additional Labelling Considerations
You cannot be too prepared or include too much information when shipping your bicycle. In the event that your shipping label is lost or damaged in transit or if your shipping container opens and the contents spill out this additional information will allow the shipping carrier to quickly and easily identify its owner to confirm shipment, report damage, or get more information. In addition, this information makes it much easier for our mechanic to easily identify your bicycle and its parts, particularly if he receives many unidentified boxed bicycles with no names or other identifying information.

In addition to the shipping labels issued by your shipping carrier, you should clearly write your name, home address, mobile phone number, tracking number, destination information, and the event you are attending in big bold letters with a permanent marker both directly on the outside AND INSIDE of your shipping container and also on a piece of masking tape on your bicycle frame, both wheels, and every other individually packed item. Do not just put your information on a separate tag or label, just the name of the local bike shop from which you shipped your bicycle, or no identification on your bike itself. You should also mark 'ASSEMBLE' on everything so our mechanic makes sure to reassemble your bike for you. If someone else will pick up your bike for you, you should include their name along with yours to make claiming your bike easier.

Items NOT to Pack
There are many items that are best not to pack and ship with your bicycle.

Small, Loose, and Valuable Items
It is best to plan on carrying with you as many small, valuable, easily lost, or loose items as possible and carrying them in your baggage instead of boxing them for shipment. Such items include removed pedals, electronics (cycling computers, GPS units, etc.), water bottles, saddle packs, skewers, etc. These items could become loose in transit and can fall out of the shipping container and get lost or move around and damage or stratch other items. You will be able to easily replace these items on your reassembled bicycle on your own or have our mechanic do it for you.

Packing these small, easily removable items in your baggage beforehand will also make the process of preparing your bicycle to be transported aboard our transportation services easier. This is because we require that you remove all loose items from your bike that could easily fall off or get lost, damaged or mixed up in transit and store those items in your baggage before we will load your bicycle onto our moving truck.

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If you must pack these items they should be contained in separate plastic bags securely taped or zip tied to your bike's frame so they cannot fall out of the shipping container or move around and damage or stratch anything.

Helmets
It is not safe to ship your helmet with your bicycle. If your helmet gets hit or damaged in transit you would not know, and its ability to protect your head in an accident could unknowingly be compromised.

Hazardous Items
There are many hazardous items that are regulated or restricted to ship and many complicated regulations about how to properly ship these items including packaging, labeling, and handling. It is extremely important to check with your shipping carrier about how to properly ship any hazardous items, especially airlines. Failing to identify these items or improperly shipping them can cause delayed or missed shipments, serious safety problems, and severe penalties. You should always plan on not travelling with any hazardous items if at all possible.

Two of the most common hazardous items in cycling that are mistakenly assumed as non-hazardous are CO2 cartridges and all types of lithium batteries, such as those used for electronic devices (cell phones, GPS units, etc.) and e-bikes.

CO2 Cartridges
CO2 CARTRIDGES CANNOT BE TRANSPORTED IN ANY AIRCRAFT by the Federal Department of Transportation and FAA and there are NO exceptions to this policy. These are the metal cylinders used in the quick tire inflators (as opposed to a hand operated frame pump).

It is best to leave any CO2 cartridges at home. If you must rely on CO2 cartridges to reinflate your flat tires you will need to purchase them from our mechanic or a bike shop before the start of the event.

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Particularly if you are flying to or from our events, we strongly recommend relying on carrying a hand operated frame pump with you while riding to fix flat tires on the road rather than a CO2 quick tire inflator.

• Click Here for more information about handling flat tires during our events.

Lithium Batteries
The quantity, electric capacity, charge and how they're packed - whether they're contained within equipment, shipped with equipment or all alone - are all determining factors in how to properly pack, label, and ship lithium batteries.