Hi everyone, I am pleased to say the bike has finally been sold. I had one potential buyer I met through this forum who was in France so I spent several hours searching for the best way to ship it to them. Unfortunately after I told them the shipping costs etc they stopped replying and I kind of gave up and then I got a phone call out of the blue from someone who saw the bike on Gumtree and offered me £400 cash along with an offer to collect the bike within the hour.
I am still thankful for the potential buyer here as it encouraged me to look into the world of international bike shipping. I thought I might share what I found here in case anybody else was after the same info.
Initially I planned to use the Cyclesent website to have a cardboard bike box and padding delivered (about £20) and then for them to handle the door to door transport. Unfortunately they do not handle international orders and recommended a different company called Bagsolo who wanted £60 for transport. Bagsolo offered to help me source a bike box but offered no insurance except through affiliate companies. I spent a while searching directly with the well known shipping companies and then ended up on the site:
https://www.p4d.co.uk which is like a shipping company search site. You put in the dimensions and weight of what you want to ship as well as source and destination postcodes and it gives you the various offers. The cheapest for me through that site from Manchester UK to France was with UPS Economy. Total shipping door to door with £500 insurance and online tracking was £60 with a 3-5 day turnaround.
When it came to the bikebox; I found a great suggestion online that I should try my local bike shop. Sure enough, one call to Fosters Cycles in Chorlton (where I live) and they said they had a spare box I could collect the same day for free.
One thing to note with shipping and bike boxes is that almost all the shipping companies refused the standard bike dimensions. Seems any box that is 150cm+ is a no-no. My plan was to chop the box down the middle, slide one half partially inside the other and then go crazy with lots of strong tape, bringing the box length down to 120cm.
In the end I haven't used the box since the buyer collected the bike in person but at least I still have it in case whoever buys the other bike I'm selling wishes to have it shipped.
I hope this shipping info helps anyone that is looking at sending things overseas, it took me several hours to piece it all together.
