03.03.09

Travelling with bikes

Posted in Gear that We use at 12:32 am by Administrator

Rated M (this one has a few rude words in it)

There are lots of people that are shitscared to travel with their bikes or they think that it’s not possible.
Well it very much is possible as I’ve done it bloody heaps.
The first thing is the packing of the bikes and the packing medium.
I know of 3 things that you can pack your bike into

1. The good old and simple, cardboard bike box. The kind that the ‘brand spanking’ new bikes turn up to the bike shop in. They are available free from all bike shops. Well unless the bike shop owners are real tight arses. I have actually had a guy try to charge me once but I laughed and went to another shop down the road.
To prepare your bike to travel in one of those you need to take off the front wheel and remove its axle. You’ll need to leave the back wheel in place but remove its axle. The pedals are pretty important to take off and chances are you’ll need to make sure the handle bars are off and only attached by the cables. To do all this you’ll need your fingers for the quick release axles, a set of allen keys for the handle bars and a suitably thin, open ended spanner to get off your pedals. (See the soon to be posted tips on taking off pedals for which I’ve only just figured out a surefire method) Make sure that the pedals, nuts and axles are tied up tight in a placky bag so that they don’t fall out of the holes that inevitably form in the box during travel. I also duct tape a bike shoe under my front forks to make sure that they don’t punch through the bottom and I wrap the rear derailleur in foam or soft goodies and I stick something protective under the front gear crank. You can then pack the rest of the box with all your other gear, as it fits, but make sure to wrap it in placky so that it doesn’t get grease and crap all over it. Nic prefers the bike box method (comment veto used by nic on what I was going to say) The box does offer a fair bit of protection for the bike and the chuckers (or luggage handlers as they call themselves) tend to treat a box with at least a smidgen of care. Also if you put a nice strap around it then it is much easier to carry. One problem is that you need to use a mountain of sticky tape to seal them up and if you fly through the US the arseho.. I mean.. customs officials tend to want to rip them open then in their lovely manner, not seal them up again which leaves your possessions free to explore as many airports of the world as they can.

2. Bike Bags. This is the current way that we are getting our bikes on and off of planes and I think that they are the schniz dingle. We bought a soft, padded bike bag each for $150 CAD. They can cost anywhere from $100 to $300 and the quality can vary greatly. Ours are a little on the lower quality end (and as such, I got a great deal on them) but with a padded base, special wheel pockets and other pockets for all the goodies they do pretty good. The process to put the bike in the bag is to just take each wheel off and remove the axles from each and then slot it in the bag and zip it up. The shoe duct taped to the forks and some extra padding around the rear derailleur are recommended (Nic’s copped a fair knock on one flight). There is loads more room to put all of your extra junk in with the bike bag and with both wheels being on the side of the bike it means that the whole thing fits within standard airline luggage size requirements and so you don’t need to pay excess baggage for it (well provided that it doesn’t weigh a ton with all your crap wrapped around it). It helps to make sure that the bag is covered with fragile stickers and has “THIS IS A BICYCLE” written all over it as my back wheel recently endured a pretty nasty buckle from the wonderful staff at jetstar when they mistook it for normal luggage and stuck it on the moving belt in Townsville.
The bike bags are mainly good because they pack down into a sack that you can carry with you. As such we can now ride to the airport and put the bikes in the bags in the departures area and then go and check in.

3. Proper bike box. This is the way that will most protect your bike but it is also the most expensive. These little beauties will set you back at least $400 (some are over $800) but your baby should arrive undamaged. (Your bike will be ok too). I’ve not travelled with one but I’ve seen them being trollied and pulled around airports and they seem all the go if you are willing to outlay all the cash to get one.

Also if you need packing tips on how to get the rest of your gear into your hand luggage then please see the marvellous tips presented by couchsurfing guru, polyglot and good bloke Benny http://www.irishpolyglot.com/travel/how-to-take-as-much-as-you-like-in-your-hand-luggage/en/

Permalink