The thing about UPS is that you actually get worse rates when you walk into a UPS service center (at the UPS distribution point) and drop it off yourself at the counter. So there is a huge element of comparing apples to oranges.
Here are some rates from the UPS website on a 50"x28"x8" 35-70 pound box UPS ground with $500 insurance from knoxville to oakland.
UPS dropoff point: 54 UPS customer service center : 59.85 UPS retail center (UPS STORE): 59.85 Web scheduled pick up : 56/58 (future day/sameday) Phone scheduled pick up: 58/59 Daily pickup (with UPS account number): 38.89
You are paying $20 bucks less shipping from your LBS or company that had daily UPS pickup, than you are dropping it off your self at the UPS customer service center.
This example is a Giant cycles bike box in my bike room that contains an off topic Schwinn single tubed skip tooth coaster brake bike and packing. It weighs about 60 pounds with the bike, packing and some other crap.
If the box went up to 60" x 28" x 8" or 50" x 12" x 30" the cheapest price jumps up to $95, up to 118 or so at the worst. The formula for girth is Length plus 2x height and 2x width. So the total jumps up alot if you go from less than 130" total to more than that. Most bike boxes seem to straddle this line.
So forget about 108" there is a second level that kicks in around 130"!
Good luck!
Tarik
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Tarik Saleh
PO Box 1326, Knoxville, TN 37901
tsaleh at rocketmail dot com
Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles:
http://www.engr.utk.edu/
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