Pedaling.com

I got an email from Nancy Maier over at www.pedaling.com today. She was interested in selling me some advertising on her site. The concept behind the site is appealing. She's collected data for over 1000 rides around the country and in Canada. Visitors can write in their favorite rides. If you are new to an area or just bored with the rides you've been doing, go to the site and search for something new or enter in your favorite ride.

Also, before I forget...We get calls all the time at Bonzai Sports asking, "What's the best way to get my bike to a race in ______(insert foreign or domestic location here)."

On International flights, you can usually get them to take a bike box in place of a piece of luggage. Just make sure the box isn't too heavy and check the rules for your particular airline.

On domestic flights, you're pretty much screwed. Because of 9/11, rising gas prices, and the price of tea in china, airlines which can't turn a profit any other way try to squeeze out a few bucks by charging extra ($150, so much for that great Internet airfare) for bike boxes. In the past, you could usually get away with them, but not anymore. What do you do then?

You can ship your bike through the usual suspects: DHL, UPS, FEDEX Express(isn't that redundat? Federal Express Express), but not USPS. What's up with that???? They spend $10 mill to sponsor a cycling team and they won't ship bikes?

or

You can join the League of American Bicyclists. I get the snail mail from them all the time, you probably do as well, sometimes it looks like you've gotten a letter from Lance Armstrong. Anyway, besides the great work they do for cycling advocacy, membership also comes with vouchers so your bike can fly free. Those vouchers alone can cover the cost of the membership.

or
while on the LAB page, they have a link to
Sports Express a company that specializes in shipping sporting goods. While I haven't checked it out specifically, I'm pretty sure their rates are cheaper than UPS/FEDEX/and DHL, even though they are using these shippers.