In Which I Pack A Bicycle

Box and bike I intend to fit into it. Wish me luck.

My youngest son’s girlfriend is giving him a sweet birthday gift—she is arranging for his bicycle to be shipped from Iowa to the East Coast, where he lives.

Thus, I went to a bike shop in town today. Having them pack it would take $80 and a week. Frankly, I would be willing to pay the cost, knowing my incompetence with tools, but the week’s delay was the problem. Or, they could give me a free box and I could pack it.

Fortunately, I have a guide. I have two sons, and the older one lives on the West Coast. Sons from sea to shining sea. Anyway, the West Coast son has bike traveled before. He and his wife rode RAGBRAI a few years ago, and he packed their bicycles for the shipment to the middle of America.

So we had a video call Wednesday night, and the older son briefed me on the process. Today, after getting the box, I went to a Menard’s, purchased some pipe insulation, PVC pipe and tape.

The pipe insulation is easy to cut to size to protect parts, such as the front forks and the upper part of the frame, a cable-rich area on this bike. The PVC pipe—that I would cut to hold the front fork in place after the wheel was removed.

I started with two tricky jobs. Removing the handlebars was not difficult, but involved lots of fiddly parts, including nine hex nuts in all. That part was a bit detailed and fiddly, but didn’t require much muscle. The next part was both simpler and more difficult—removing the pedals.

Front wheel is off, axle placed through PVC pipe spacer, pedals removed. Front stoop rail is poor man's bike rack.

I don’t do a lot of bike maintenance because I’m a writer and professor and machinery is best left to more able humans. But I have swapped pedals before. It’s not hard to figure out what to do, it’s just that there are two issues. One is that the two pedals are threaded in different directions, so “lefty loosey” will only help you on half of the process. The bigger issue is that, for some reason, of all parts I’ve ever had to loosen on a bike, the one that requires the most brute force is removing the pedals.

Sure, changing tyres on a road bike sucks for similar reasons. But pedals? Bleah.

Still, it was not a complex process, just a bit of a time-consuming one. It’s an odd problem for me, because I tend to use my right arm for brute strength tasks and my left one for deft work—I’m left handed, but like most southpaws, I think I use my right wing more than most right-handed people use their left wings.

In the end, I think it was the dominant hand that won. On both sides, it was a final tug using my left arm that loosened the pedal. The thing about pedals is that the first 1/8 turn is the hard one. After that, it’s loose and easy to remove.

Bike fits in box!

I texted my oldest son several times during the process for bits of advice, and he was very helpful. In the end, the process of packing the bicycle was not all that bad. Not that I volunteer for it again. And yes, I would gladly pay someone else $80 to do it for me—the whole thing probably took me four hours (including time to run to two stores for supplies). I’m not quite like that movie character who won’t get out of bed for less than $500,000 (“mom, we are in a state of alert here”), but my time is worth more than $20 an hour.

Still, my bike mechanic life is not filled with all that many wins. Today was one of them.

And it is done. I hope it arrives safe and sound out east!