Tourist in MSN

Fully agree, in my post above I stated:
If I was packing up a bike in a full size box, I would be tempted to leave the rear wheel on, that is how manufacturers ship bikes to dealers.

I can help a little bit with what a bike looks like when a manufacturer packs it, I bought my road bike from Amazon, not a dealer, I took photos of it before I did very much unpacking as I thought I might want to replicate that some day.



And the other side, they had a large sheet of cardboard between the front wheel and the frame.



In my previous post, I suggested removing the rear derailleur and the chain. When I bought this bike I was a little bit surprised that these items were on the bike, but they packed it well enough that it would have been difficult to damage the derailleur or the hanger, this bike does not have a replaceable hanger, it is a steel frame.

I cropped the photo below from the first photo above, note the large plastic thingy on the end of the axle, that held the rear derailleur far from the box. In other words, if there was an impact to the side of the box, that big black plastic thing on the axle would have taken the hit, not the derailleur. Also note that the chain was on the big sprocket, that meant that the derailleur was angled inwards.



That said, if I was packing the bike, I would follow the advice I gave in my previous post, to remove the rear derailleur and keep the rear wheel on. And if you want to take the wheel off, if the hanger is removable, consider removing it.

I used to work as a mechanic in a bike shop, most of my bikes I built the wheels and built them up from parts, so I was quite comfortable with buying a bike from Amazon. This was actually the first complete bike that I have bought in several decades. But, I would not recommend buying a new bike from Amazon to someone that lacks appropriate experience, unless it is a really inexpensive bike.

In the photos, no, the canoe did not come with the bike, that was there before I bought the bike.