Katherines Look
Posted by: Adam Fuson @ 2007.12.01.0129

Katherine Robinson moved to San Diego this past spring and without knowing her exact end destination she took as few things with her by arranging to have items shipped to her at a later date, when she was settled. I stored her Look carbon bicycle in my garage for several months, until she arrived in San Francisco and found a semi-permanent place there. After about a month of requests from Katherine to ship her bike, I acquired a bike box from Reser Bicycle and started fitting the bike into the box. I called UPS and quoted a price for the box at about $70. I spent a day or two taking my time packing the bike, using old hubs to protect the frame from being squashed and wrapping parts in towels, tape, bubble wrap, etc. Then I called a few UPS centers and decided to take the bike to the nearest UPS store on Beechmont, but when they measured and weighed the box, I was quoted about $120 to ship the box to San Francisco! I must have mis-communicated the dimensions to the previous agent. However, the lady informed me that if I were able to trim 8 inches from the box, it would only be about $75.

So I returned home with the bike in the box with hopes of trimming a few inches from the box. I spent another few days trimming the box and repacking the bike to fit the new smaller space, which mainly involved hiding the handlebars. Finally, at the Rookwood Pavilion UPS Store I was able to ship the bike for less than $80 to San Francisco and to Katherine. Unfortunately, in all the excitement of the multiple attempts to ship the bike, I misplaced the seat post bolt. The missing part was not realized until John was assembling the bike in San Francisco. Katherine was naturally disappointed with me, but did buy a new bolt and is hopefully enjoying her Look road bicycle on the streets in the Mission in San Francisco, finally.

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