Many of us that buy and sell bikes on a regular basis have had to jump thro ugh many hoops to receive the bike or ship it and make sure it arrives in g ood condition. At this time I have had 4 bikes that have arrived with some sort of damage. The worst being a Fuso that the seller took to a bike shop to pack and ship. I had specifically asked the seller to have the shop use pipe insulation to protect the tubes and such and of course my wishes were not followed. The top tube was dented as a result of poor packing. the hand lebars were resting on top of the tube with only the thin card board materi al that new bikes have to protect the paint. The paint wasn't damaged, just the tube. Then there are the two bikes that had bubble wrap to protect the frame. The rear wheel was taken off for shipping and the freewheel/cassett e was placed to the inside. Well the teeth of the cogs ate right through th e bubble wrap and then started to work on the paint. In the case of the Tommasini the cog started to work on the steel itself. While the ride quality was not affected by the damage it would have been nice to have the bike arrive without the cosmetic damage. A 50th Anniversary Daccordi that I just bought had very minor paint damage to the top tube. I walked the sell er through the packing prep and to his credit he did do an fairly good job. The trouble was instead of taking the q-release from the front wheel and p utting into the wrappings that the pedals or seat was in he tapped it to th e top tube on top of the foam insulation. Unfortunately it was right at the seam of the insulation and it got to the paint. Wouldn't mind so much othe r than that the paint was in such good shape. Would have been OK if it were on the bottom of the down tube.
I guess the bottom line is are you willing to pay the extra money as insura nce to make sure the bike arrives in good condition. Then one has to ask ev en if paying the extra price are you going to get what you pay for. As Tom pointed out many of us are not charging for the labor that goes into packin g a bike and or frame let alone to cover the costs of materials.
A few months ago I sold and shipped two bikes. The bike boxes were slightly different in size. The first on was around $37 to ship to St Louis. The se cond bike, being in a slightly larger box was going to be $95 to ship to Lo uisiana. I cut the box down by about 2 inches over all and checked again, s till $95 to ship. So I asked the gal to figure the price if I cut it 2 more inches over all and then the price dropped to $36.........bingo! This work ed for these bikes, but had the frames been 58 cm verse 54cm I would have p acked the bikes and wheels in two different boxes to keep the shipping cost s down. Now mind you these were being shipped UPS and not FedEx.
May all your bike purchases arrive in good condition,
Mark Poore
Slatyfork, WV
USA