posting bikes to yourself from europe

[shutupthepunx]

with summer plans in the making im wondering if anyone has much experience with darting about the place and posting bikes/stuff to yourself?

just it seems pointless to be paying extra costs for hauling more stuff than i need around with me. i do have places where i can post these things where they can wait on me until i arrive.

current silly idea is...

send packraft from uk to france
fly with bike uk to bulgaria to do the kom emine route
post bike to sweden when im done (i make this sound so easy right, like i just ride up to the post office and leave it with them)
fly bulgaria to france for packrafting trip
post packraft to sweden
fly france to sweden
be reunited with bike and packraft and live happily ever after

any ideas of companies to use or does anyone have experience of posting/getting posted bikes from other countries? or just horror stories of bikes getting lost/damaged in the post which will be enough to put me off the idea. ta

[pistonbroke]

Sorry, no experience of a plan as complicated as that. The only similar service I've come across is here in Spain where the Correos will send a bike back to your home Post Office from Santiago de Compostella once you have completed the pilgrim's route. This enables you to take the high speed train AVE which doesn't allow bikes on board. Of course you don't have to follow the Camino, just end up at Santiago. It's about €50 including a box which seems a good plan.

[atk]

Not bikes but we used the 'post restante' service in the US and NZ. UK and various places in Europe offer something similar.

Taking trains is the other option, probably take a little longer but better for the planet and that...

[mfezela]

. . take the high speed train AVE which doesn't allow bikes on board.

That's true if it's recognisable as such. Pack it in cardboard and label it as Flat Screen TV and no problems. Even better, get FS TV boxes or at least one large piece showing the 'contents'.

[shutupthepunx]

smart. thanks for the tips. ive heard of people squaring off their guitar cases to make them rectangle when flying cheap airlines, as to travel with a musical instrument costs much more than to travel with a big box which is the same size as a musical instrument

[shutupthepunx]

smart. thanks for the tips. ive heard of people squaring off their guitar cases to make them rectangle when flying cheap airlines, as to travel with a musical instrument costs much more than to travel with a big box which is the same size as a musical instrument

[mfezela]

This idea isn't foolproof with airlines since all baggage is X-Rayed. Sometimes boxes (and other pre-purchased extra luggage) are clearly marked with contents as declared at check-in counter, but if the scan shows something different it can cause problems.