Just a thought....if you want to ship your bike in a hard case, but do not want to spend that kind of money on investing in your own case...check with your LBS. they may rent them out. That's what I did when flying with my bike from London to San Fransico last summer. The cost of the box rental for three weeks pluss the $25 charge for oversized luggage still came out cheaper than shipping with UPS or anthing similar and still cheaper than buying the box myself and saves me the trouble of finding storage space for the box.