Bike delivery service - Virgin BikeMagic

[squeaker]

(Mods: feel free to move this to a more relevant board.)

On the face of it,this would seem to be an economic and useful means of freighting whole bikes, as there don't seem to be any package size restrictions. Not sure if you could get away with a trike, though

[gaz]

Read the small print* carefully:

All you'll need to do is pack your bike in a protective, padded, hard bike box.

There is a standard £50 insurance cover per order. Additional insurance is available, our customer services team will be able to advise.

I suspect a cardboard box isn't going to meet criteria, although I'd be prepared to risk it for a £50 bike .

*Other small print may apply.

[manybikes]

I've written to them for further clarification. The CTC weekly newsletter suggested it but didn't add any extra info or caution. £50 limit for insurance seems farcical?

[manybikes]

Had a reply already. They don't know and hadn't considered anything other than a bicycle. Will discuss it at next planning meeting (both the insurance aspect and non standard cycles). At least they admitted they hadn't considered it. I might have expected CTC to have asked as they advertised it to us.

[manybikes]

Mods, can this be moved to Touring etc please?

[Si]

From my reading of it I believe that you can't specify any sort of time for delivery. thus if you are using it to get your bike to the start of your tour you may well need up losing a day of the tour waiting around. Ditto when you are ending the tour and wanting to send it back.

[manybikes]

Agreed BUT if say you wanted to start a tour from Cape Wrath with a recumbent and intended to ride back to the South it may be possible but almost impossible using normal train methods. They have at least agreed to look at it.

[elPedro666]

Doesn't sound like £50 is the insurance limit, just what you get included as standard - imagine that you can pay for more...

[nmnm]

Looking for Bike Magic?
We’ve put the brakes on our bike delivery service but you can still send your luggage using Bag Magic.

You guys with your tricky questions have frightened them off!

You have to reckon though, the parcel courier industry is quite competitive and no-one is within a mile of this price. They can't last long charging £10 to move a 30kg box door-to-door within the UK, I reckon, even with Brent Crude so cheap!

[PH]

Looking for Bike Magic?
We’ve put the brakes on our bike delivery service but you can still send your luggage using Bag Magic.

You guys with your tricky questions have frightened them off!

You have to reckon though, the parcel courier industry is quite competitive and no-one is within a mile of this price. They can't last long charging £10 to move a 30kg box door-to-door within the UK, I reckon, even with Brent Crude so cheap!

I understand they were all signed up to use City Link...

[mr riff raff]

Looking for Bike Magic?
We’ve put the brakes on our bike delivery service but you can still send your luggage using Bag Magic.

You guys with your tricky questions have frightened them off!

You have to reckon though, the parcel courier industry is quite competitive and no-one is within a mile of this price. They can't last long charging £10 to move a 30kg box door-to-door within the UK, I reckon, even with Brent Crude so cheap!

My employer (a FTSE 100 company with 1000+ outlets) used to have a deal until recently with Yodel that would do any thing up to 25kg for under £4+ VAT so I wouldn't bet on it!

[nmnm]

My employer (a FTSE 100 company with 1000+ outlets) used to have a deal until recently with Yodel that would do any thing up to 25kg for under £4+ VAT so I wouldn't bet on it!

Very interesting. I wonder if maybe they do some big multi-parcel / single address pick-ups or deliveries, which'd bring the price down, whereas this new service will be all bitty at both ends - one parcel per location at pick-up and same at delivery.