About Bicycles > Online Bike Sales Shipping and Assembly

Online bike sales shipping costs, delivery options and assembly considerations.

Buying bikes online is easy and gives you a larger selection of bicycles and bike brands to choose from but you need to consider the shipping costs, delivery options (home delivery or delivery to a store near you) and what kind of assembly and adjustments will be required.

Online Bike Sales Shipping and Assembly

There are a few shipping and assembly options to consider when purchasing a bike online. The online bike stores, or merchants, recommended on this site offer different options for online bike sales at different costs and with various assembly considerations.

Ship to your home or to a store near you.

When you select your bike online (giving you a much larger selection of bikes and bike brands), you will often have the option to ship your bike to a local store to be picked up or have the bike delivered directly to your home.

In most cases the merchant will assemble the bike if it is delivered to their store, in other cases you will just pick up the bike and will be responsible for the assembly yourself.

For home delivery, some merchants, like REI.com for example, assemble the bikes before they are shipped (to your home) then partially de-assemble them (just the handlebars and pedals) for shipping. When you receive the bike there is a minimal amount of (re) assembly required.

Shipping Costs

Most sites will offer FREE shipping for orders over a certain dollar amount (most bikes fall into this category) or if you choose to have the bike shipped to a store near you.

If you have an REI store, Performance Bike or Wal-Mart near you, all of these retailers offer FREE shipping (and assembly) when the bike is delivered to their store.

In some cases, when you have a bike shipped to your home, you may need to pay for shipping and shipping costs will vary for each merchant but could include an overweight charge between $45 and $60 (for regular (non express) delivery) which is sometimes in addition to their normal shipping fee.

Assembly

Most of our recommended merchants will offer free assembly when the bike is delivered to their store for pickup.

If you do select a bike online, for home delivery, and the merchant ships the bike as they receive it from the manufacturer and if you are not comfortable with the assembly and adjustments, you can still elect to arrange with to have your local bike shop assemble and/or tune the bike.

In that case, you'll lose the cost savings advantage but still have the advantage of the large selection of bikes online (and you will still be supporting your local bike shop). 

Here are some more helpful bike sale resources:

Most popular bike brands in US - With so many bicycle manufacturers, bicycle types and popular brand names sold in the US, that it can be difficult to find a comprehensive summary of the top 20 bike most popular bike brands.

See Online Bike Stores - for a complete listing of where to purchase the most popular brands for all bike types online.

See Best Buy Bikes Online - for the latest sales and deals on quality brand names bikes for sale online.