We live in California, and planned a bike trip from Pittsburgh to Washington DC on the Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal trails. We planned to bring our Rans Screamer TR tandem recumbent with S&S couplers, and a SatRDay folding recumbent (fits in a standard suitcase) for my brother to ride.

First, in order to ship the Rans Screamer, we invested in a case from triall3sports.com, because the Rans Bike web site showed how you could pack a Rans Screamer TR in one of their cases. The case worked very well, just as shown in the pictures on the Rans web site. Of course, it requires an incredible amount of disassembly to fit the Rans Screamer into that case. It was worth it for this trip, but I wouldn't want to do it too often, even though I am the type of person who enjoys assembling and disassembling things.

The case alone weighs about 35 lbs., so with the tandem bike and other stuff inside the total weight was probably 90 lbs. To bring it on the airplane with us as luggage (Delta Airlines) would have cost us $25 (standard luggage fee) $175 (overweight luggage) $300 (oversize luggage) = $500 each way!!! Standard ground shipping by Fed Ex was about $230 each way for the tandem, but then someone told us about Shipbikes.com. I was somewhat wary of Shipbikes.com, finding very few reviews online, but they ship through Fed Ex and they only charged $127 each way for the tandem ($69 each way for the SatRDay), which seemed like a real bargain. We used Shipbikes.com to ship the tandem and the SatRDay (in its suitcase) from California to Pittsburgh, then we shipped the empty bike cases to DC, and then we shipped the bikes back home to California. Shipbikes.com worked flawlessly each time, and Fed Ex took good care of our bikes with virtually no damage to the cases or the bikes.

The way it works is you purchase prepaid shipping labels from the Shipbikes.com web site, and then you just call in to Fed Ex and tell them you have a prepaid pickup, and they come get it. Very convenient, much easier than dragging those heavy cases to the airport! We shipped to a bike shop in Pennsylvania, and then shipped the empty cases to our hotel in DC, both of which worked great. And no, I have no connection to Shipbikes.com -- I am just a dedicated bicycle tourist who was pleased to find this inexpensive and convenient solution to how to ship your bike around the country.

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