Home Shipping

Shipping

How We Ship

Parts and accessories

Our processing time for most orders is two to three business days. Carriers only work Monday to Friday so that’s our business day schedule too. This time is for us to consolidate all the items in case they’re at different stores and/or our warehouse, and for our team to package things and have them picked up. We’re a two-to-three-person team working this department these days and have a lot of pans on the stove at once but we can almost always make that timing work.

You’ll always get your tracking info (if applicable) and shipping notification the day your order leaves C&L, we hate it too when a label gets created as soon as you order but then the tracking just has it sitting there for several days.

Got addons? If your order hasn’t shipped yet we can usually combine orders. Email us if anything is unclear or isn’t working.

You’ll sometimes see an option for us to bill our bike shop dealers for the shipping separately. Don’t select this option, because we’ll still need to invoice you and it’ll slow down your order!

Local Shipping

If you’re in Montréal, you’ve got three options:

  • In-store pickup at 978 Rachel is always free. Sometimes we’ll need a day or two to prepare your order, but once you’ve been notified it’s ready pickup can be anytime during opening hours. Make sure you bring your order confirmation and ID matching the order. You wouldn’t want us giving your order to someone else! Let us know ahead of time if someone else is meant to pick it up for you.
  • We encourage you to have your order delivered by bicycle in most central neighbourhoods of the City. Chasseur Courriers deliver for us, and they're true professionals, not to mention good friends of ours. One or two delivery days a week, for a very affordable rate, or free for non-oversized orders over 100$.
    Check the map to make sure your postal code is on it! Otherwise your order may be delayed.
  • For all other deliveries, we use Canada Post tracked services, with signature for larger orders. Local isn’t really cheaper than anywhere else in Canada, but even the slowest services are usually only one or two days transit time.

Canada Shipping

We use Canada Post ground tracked services for mostly everything. The flat rate is pretty representative of what it costs to send most of what we sell. If you need your item real quick and you live far from us, you can select the calculated Xpresspost option, which goes by air and has service guarantees. We'll require a signature for high-value orders.

We usually have some sort of promotional offer for free shipping for orders over a certain value. This is where C&L pays for the shipping instead of you. This promo excludes oversized items, which we've recently relaxed the definitions of, so it's mainly stuff like wheels, frames, and bikes.

USA Shipping

If it’s a non-XXL item, shipping via Canada Post and USPS is pretty reasonable! Sometimes you might need to pay sales tax to the carrier before you receive the item, since we don’t charge you any.

If it’s too large for the post office, we’ll do UPS, but that might delay us shipping out your order, since we don’t have them picking up packages from us as often as the post office. Same caveat there for sales tax, except UPS will also probably charge a brokerage fee for the cross-border paperwork.

We realize it’s uncommon for folks in the US to have to order from small retailers internationally, and many of our customers aren’t sure what to expect, so here's more info: you'll be responsible for any duty, tariffs, and local taxes. All that is usually billed to you by the carrier just before they drop it off to you. There can be processing delays when a package is crossing the border, both at export and at import. That's the government, and we're not responsible for those delays, nor do we guarantee delivery times.

International shipping

For international orders, we use Canada Post International and only offer their tracked options. For larger parcels we ship via DHL Express. Local duty, tariffs and sales tax are your responsibility. Please make sure to be as complete as possible with your mailing address, as we’re used to the North-American way of doing things. If in doubt, email us with the address formatted in a way that you’re sure will make sense to the local postal carriers.

We unfortunately cannot ship any orders to non-wholesale clients in the U.K. due to post-brexit VAT collection requirements.

Frames and bicycles

In Canada

Frames ship to the provinces for a flat rate of 75$. Generally this will be via Canada Post, with signature. We usually cannot add many/large parts to a frame box and prefer not to, since they may damage the frame’s finish no matter the precautions we take.

Complete Bassi or Rivendell bicycles, and custom builds purchased at C&L, ship for a flat rate of 200$. This is by our choice of carrier which tends to depend on the region of the country. If very rural, keep in mind some carriers may only deliver to the nearest larger service town. We can’t deliver a bicycle to a P.O. box. Tracking will of course be provided.

USA

Frames ship for 150$CA flat rate. This will usually be via UPS, or a Canadian carrier who’ll hand it off to UPS for the final part of the trip. The carrier will contact you prior to delivery for payment of duties, tariffs, taxes, and brokerage fees, which we do not bill you for and you are responsible for paying.

Complete Bassi or Rivendell bicycles, and custom builds purchased at C&L, ship for a flat rate of 450$CA. Complete bicycles are made here in Canada and we declare them as such, so are typically duty and tariff-free, but taxes and brokerage may still need to be paid by you. The carrier will contact you prior to delivery for payment.

If you live somewhere that certain carriers don’t reliably deliver to, please advise us in advance, and we’ll see what we can do, but the flat rate may not apply.

International

Frames and bicycles ship via DHL Express. They are the only relatively affordable and predictable carrier for such large items, as most others refuse to transport oversized items internationally without extremely high fees. The price of sending a frame is usually 550$ to Europe or Asia, and a bicycle around 1000$ or more. Please contact us for an order, as we do not offer flat rate shipping outside Canada and the US.

For all US and international clients, we recommend when possible to contact one of our Bassi dealers near you, who may be able to order you the frame you want along with a larger order of theirs, which will likely be much more affordable. All our dealers can build you a custom bicycle to a very high level of quality and personal attention.

A general note on the concept of free shipping

We all wish it cost nothing to send things everywhere, believe me. Nobody likes paying for shipping, which is a great reason to support your local bike store if you’ve got a good one!

Unfortunately carriers charge for sending things from one place to another, so there is no free shipping, just a difference in how it’s presented. Certain big companies on the internet named after major rivers in South America have heavily promoted free shipping, but that comes at a cost: either the products you buy are more expensive, or there’s a human cost at a massive scale for the workers. We don’t love that, and anyway we’re a company with a couple of bike shops and a local-to-Canada online store run by a few employees, we don’t have the logistical oomph to compete in the free-shipping game.

We just hope you appreciate our bike expertise and the time we put into making sure we have unique and high-quality parts and accessories for your beloved ride, even if we have to ask you to pay for most of the costs to send them to you.

FYI we never make money on shipping costs and it usually costs us a bit or a lot more than you paid, we just ignore that to keep things going smoothly and so that you get your bike parts that you need in a timely fashion. For full transparency there, on a representative week we pay Canada Post about 500$ more than we’ve charged on orders. We’re OK with it, it works for us that way right now.

For the same reasons, we don’t really do free returns in a lot of circumstances. Please make sure to understand our returns policy before ordering if you’re far from Montréal.