Travelling w/bike on planes

[EinZwei3]

I will be travelling with my bike at the end of the month and I wonder if anyone has suggestions other than the very costly, heavy and bulky bike cases? Im actually in the process of moving so #1 I cant rent one from my LBS as Im going 1-way #2 I have a cap of how much weight I can bring without being charged extra-freight. If need be, I will chuck out all the extra shoes, blow dryers and make-up for the sake of bringing my road bike along. Selling it and buying another has never been an option!

I would appreciate any and all advice. Apparently, most people have been tagged an 80$ fee from going, like me, from Canada to the US; however when flashing ones racing licence, the fee can be waved.

Cheers...

[DeniseGoldberg]

You can go the cardboard box route - most bike shops will give you one of the boxes their new bikes come in. That's what I did on my first tour...

The box included a stiff sheet of cardboard that slipped inside and matched the size of the box. I used zip ties to attach the frame to that so it wouldn't shift inside the box. Another thing I did was attach some pipe insulation (from the hardware store...) to the frame, just a little bit of protection.

On the bike fee front, I always had to pay in the days that I traveled with my diamond-frame bike - that's why I bought a Bike Friday, which fits in a legal non-oversized suitcase.

--- Denise

[Nanci]

A bunch of people at Ironman Florida shipped their bikes by Fed Ex or UPS to either their hotel or the LBS. Maybe you could ship it to the LBS at your new city. Maybe someone on here is from your new city!

Nanci

[DirtDiva]

Dunno about costs, but in terms of bike safety the cardboard box thing can be fine. My friend's baby sis got her bike from NZ to Europe to UK to Europe to NZ with the bike in perfect shape. The only dismantling she did was to take off the pedals and the front wheel so it would fit in the box.

[pkq]

I would get a bike shop to box it and ship it FedEx to a bike shop in the new city. I'd prefer the tracking and insurance of FedEx or UPS to that of airlines.

[DeniseGoldberg]

The only dismantling she did was to take off the pedals and the front wheel so it would fit in the box.

The amount of dismantling that needs to be done depends on where you get the box - in my experience the bike shop boxes require you to remove both wheels, the pedals, and and either turn the handlebars sideways or remove them. It's my understanding that the boxes you get from the airlines are wider and can accommodate the bike as tlkiwi describes.

The suggestion to ship the bike by UPS or FedEx is a good one, but if you do that be sure to have the appropriate paperwork for customs (since your original post talks about flying from Canada to the US) so they don't charge you duty on your own posessions.

--- Denise

[DirtDiva]

I'm sure she had to turn the handlebars, but I'm pretty sure it was a bikeshop box. I'm also pretty sure the box had to be retired after that trip, but it did it's job admirably. I hate to think what it's going to cost to ship my bike back to NZ when I leave here. At least I don't have to think about that until 2007!

[Joan]

It looks ilke I"m probably too late, but....

In Portland-Metro (oregon) you can go to a bike gallery store and they will box it for you in a cardboard box for $50 packing fee. It's WELL worth the money! I had them do that on one trip and then went to a bike shop to have it packed to return home--they did a much inferior job to the Bike Gallery.

Also, You can pick up bike boxes onilne at E-bay and then rent them through bike stores to pay it off or go to the bike store to see if they have rentals or know someone who does.

Be sure to check each airline's rules as they are different!

Joan