DIRTY DOZEN: packing up and boxing bicycles after a private MTB tour
Last week, Monday after the NEDBANK Gravel Burn, I was back to school and back to reality when we arrived at DOOLHOF in Wellington to pack up over a dozen bikes for a private tour group for riders from PTA and JHB who were down here in CPT for a boys weekend and riding MTB’s. How awesome is that? Unfortunately, Lorenzo didn’t make it to work that day (as he had been burning the midnight candle at the Gravel Burn week) and I expected same. So jolly old me and over a dozen bikes to box in one of the most scenic surroundings you can imagine… this was going to be a great afternoon!
Why are boxing bicycles like painting houses?
Because it is all about the prep work. We’ve recently had our house painted inside out and the final rolling of the fresh paint is just the cherry on top. The most time goes into the prep work. And the same goes for boxing bicycles. The most time goes into securing all the bikes and components first and then only it goes into the box and sealing that bikebox is the cherry on top in this case. This is how we (I) did it.
Start the assembly line
Boxing bicycles outside in nature after a long week on the bicycle certainly beats sitting in an office environment! And I love it that everything was at the same spectacular venue so we could work in peace and quiet and wheel out all the bikes into the lush garden below the mountains and start doing the necessary:
This is how to do it
- Take off all the pedals. This is quick and easy and not to be overlooked as the items are expensive especially with power meters and it goes without saying that you immediately match the pedals to the bike by bubble wrapping them and placing them inside one of the bottle cages in the respective bike’s frame. There you go. Easy does. Nice and neat. Just the way we like it. Boxing bicycles professionally.
- Take off or drop all the dropper posts. Yes these guys can stick out so high that some boxes will be difficult to close and especially on our tour group there were quite a number of giraffe-like bicycles in XL and 61cms plus sizes. So the drop the seatposts or remove them (so easy when it is battery operated!). boxing bicycles for the big guys in this instance.
- Remove all the front wheels. And place it next to the bike. Be sure to have a strong separate piece of cardboard or carton to slide in-between the frame and the loose wheel when it goes into the box. And when in doubt you can always wrap the disc brake on the wheel as wheel, however sufficient cardboard makes this point moot. You don’t want to spend unnecessary time when boxing bicycles. And make it easy for the recipient to build it again, in mere minutes.
- Loosen all the handlebars at those 4x bolts at the stems. Then Properly bubble wrap all the handlebars (use lots of wrapping, don’t be shy). And now for the easy part. All the prep work is done and the bikes can go into the boxes. First the frame with the pedals in the bottle cages. Then the loose front wheel with the frame protected by extra cardboard in-between. And finally the seatpost if loose or any other forgotten rider items (clothing, gloves, accessories, tools) that need to be matched to the bike and go with.
Boxing bicycles is easy and we love it!
And there you have it. Prep work done. Everything inside the box. Time to take final photo’s (yes, in this case I take before and during and after pics of everything to make sure no-one can come back and request or say anything without proof – we know the drill!) and then seal up the box for transport. Final touch is a fragile sticker over any previous waybill info and then the specific waybill for this boxed bicycle transport trip.
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Boxing bicycles and sending bicycles.
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