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Boxing your bike for travel to and from the ride

Should you wish to take a full car load of people to Taree with you can still box your bikes and for $60.00 BNSW will carry them to Taree for you.
The NSW Big Ride requires bikes be packed in a carton or otherwise protected for transit. While every care is taken when packing bikes onto trucks and buses it is difficult to prevent damage caused in transit if bikes are not individually boxed. It’s not difficult to pack your bike and costs next to nothing.


Here’s how:

Your local bike shop will usually have used cartons on hand. Please bear in mind that you may have to ask your bike shop owner to save you an undamaged carton as they dispose of them regularly to the cardboard recyclers. There are three sizes of cardboard cartons used these days by the bicycle and travel industries to pack bikes.  The smallest size (used by some bike importers) requires that both wheels be taken out of the frame. If you use this size box you will have to completely disassemble your bike to fit it in. The largest box size is sold by Bicycle Victoria or by Qantas and Jet Star. The preferred box (for efficient packing of our trucks and coaches) is the middle size 140cmL x 75cmH x 21cmW. This is the type most commonly used by bike shops, so you will have no difficulty obtaining one from your local dealer. This size box usually allows you to leave the rear wheel attached to the frame (unless you have a rear rack fitted) and offers minimal disassembly.

When picking up a bike box from your bike dealer you should also ask for a couple of plastic wheel keepers. These plastic fittings are designed to fit into your bike frame in place of the wheel axles to protect the frame or forks from being squashed when wheels are not fitted. If you do not use wheel keepers in your frame you run a very high risk of frame or fork damage in transit. These fittings will usually slide into most frames and forks but as there is a wide variety of fork and frame shape and design you may have to shape the keepers to fit snugly in your frame and forks.
Here is a checklist for boxing your bike (if you are not mechanically minded your bike shop will usually do this for you for a small fee):
  • Remove both left and right pedals; 
  • Remove the front wheel. If your bike has a rear rack fitted you may have to remove both wheels to fit it in the box; 
  • Fit wheel and frame keepers to replace the wheel axles; 
  • It is always wise if you are travelling by air to deflate the tyres to a very soft tyre pressure. Though this is no longer a necessity on most modern passenger jets, as their luggage compartments are pressurised, it is always a wise precaution in case your bike gets separately freighted on a smaller aircraft or stowed in an unpressurised compartment; 
  • Carefully lower your bike frame into the box turning the handlebars and forks 90 degrees so that they are in line with the frame. If the handlebars do not fit comfortably into the box you may need to loosen the clamp holding the handlebars so that they can be rotated to fit. You should not normally need to loosen the stem in the forks and frame. 
    Tape your handlebars to the frame so that there is no movement in frame or forks; 
  • Place your front wheel inside the box fitting packaging material in between the frame and wheel to prevent damage; 
  • Place your pedals and any other loose items from the bike (pump, empty water bottles etc) inside the box. These should also be wrapped in packaging or paper to prevent damage to the other parts of the bike; 
  • Tape up the box and with a black marker pen address your bike to: your name, 2007 NSW Big Ride, Taree. You should also write in a separate panel marked - Return address: your name, your home address, your phone contact number including mobile (if you are bringing a mobile phone on the event).

Hard cases

Riders who intend to fly into Sydney airport with their bike packed in a full size hard case should deliver these to the Bicycle New South Wales office in Sydney prior to departure to the start.
You will be provided with a cardboard carton to repack your bike for travel on our organised transport and your case will be stored in the office until your return. These cases are bulky and cannot be stored or carried during the event on our vehicles without prior approval.


Tandems and recumbents

For tandems we recommend you remove the pedals and turn the handlebars to flatten the machine. You should then fold stiff cardboard around the fame to protect the bike which should be capable of being wheeled onto a truck.
Tag-a-longs should be packed in a carton or flattened and wrapped with cardboard. Trikes and recumbents should be made as small as possible and packed to protect to machine. We don’t recommend boxing for these as this increases the size of the package. We usually load these larger size bikes last.
 

Boxes for the homeward journey

Boxes will be collected in Taree and stored for your use on the return journey from Taree. At the ride finish, you will not be able to reuse the same bike box you had at the start.