Starting point logistics - advice please!

[NadiaMac]

For such a short tour, you may want to try and rent bikes. It's a pretty big hassle to travel by plane with a bike, plus lots of added charges at various points for oversized luggage. But, it is always nice to have your own equipment..

I did a point to point loaded tour a few years ago in the Canadian Rockies, and here's how I handled the logistics:
1) flew air canada, with my bike packed into a cardboard bike box that I got from my bike shop (free). No problems with Air Canada either way, as an aside, and the bike was fine. $50 fee each way.

2) I packed the bike, and put soft luggage (sleeping bag, clothes) into the bike box (making certain to stay below luggage weight limit, 50 pounds I think but might have been 40). I carried my rear panniers & helmet onto the flight (see note above about not putting tools/lubes, etc in your carry-on) and packed surplus gear in a cardboard box, which I checked as checked luggage. Heavy gear (tools) and anything that could damage the bike went into my cardboard box "suitcase".

3) I took a cab to hotel at the other end (as we had further travel by bus to our start in Jasper). You could consider cabbing or taking a shuttle (if there is one) to a hotel or to the ferry building, then building bikes there rather than building bikes in the airport. Warning, there can be a surcharge for oversized luggage in cabs/shuttles. I paid about 15 bucks for the bike for this type of transit.

4) do you have somewhere to store the bike boxes? (in a friend's car?) If so, store the boxes. If not, recycle the boxes (you then need to figure out where to get new boxes)

5) On the return, procure boxes if necessary (I had prearranged with a bike shop at my terminating town to get a bike box, and I grabbed a cardboard box for my "suitcase" at a supermarket). You will also need packing tape, of course. You could also arrange to have the shop pack your bike.

6) re packing and rebuilding the bikes: I had never done this before, but it was very easy to learn. My BF supervised my packing of the bike and I rebuilt it myself at the starting city. the handlebars and pedals are very easy. The derailleuer was a bit trickier to reinstall for me (i removed it for shipping, which I think is a good idea). Note that when you box up the bike, your rack(s), if any, generally need to be removed, so you have to be set up with the appropriate tools to reinstall them.

have fun!