BigFinner

I apologize if this has been discussed before but I searched and could not find much on it.

Essentially this thread is all about peoples experience and advice on the best way to pack a bike for air travel!

I'll start it off:

So I have cycle toured all the Hawaiian Islands, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore Vancouver Island, San Juan Island, Gulf Islands and I think a few other trips I currently can't recall. These have been over many multiple trips and most of them involved air travel.

First ever cycle touring trip for me was Maui. I used a hard shell clam shell case and experienced damage. From what I was able to figure out baggage handlers dragged the case along the tarmac and somehow my large ring popped out of the shell and ground the cogs flat on it.

Second trip Kauai, Maui, Molokai, Lanai and I used a bike box for the long international flights. Again I faced damage, this time on the trip home. From what I could tell from the look of the bike box after the flight the baggage handlers must have figured my bike box was the best thing to stack every other piece of baggage on top of! HA! However on this trip as I took quite a few short small plane inter-island flights. These small airlines gave me thin clear plastic bags for my bike. Surprisingly enough this worked without a hitch.

After I got home from that last trip with the bike box damage it got me to thinking about the clear plastic bag method of flying a bike. So the next trip I took i stopped by a big furniture store and picked up 2 clear twin mattress bags. These bags are thick, sturdy and clear. I got one for the trip there and one to stay clean and folded neat to pack with my stuff for the flight home. I purchased some bubble wrap. Removed my rear derailleur, taped it between my rear triangle and then spun my bars taping them to the frame, removed the pedals, taped bubble wrap in key sensitive locations, as well as the wheels which were off and taped to the side of the bike and then placed nutted ready rod between the front and rear dropouts just in case of crushing. Well that trip went flawless. I have since followed this method for every trip I have made (Minimum 20 flights since then) and never had 1 single issue with this method. From what I can tell it's like baggage handlers pick it up and because it's light and they can see it's a bike they decide "Hey this is a fragile bike I should lift it up and place it at the top of any other baggage".

Now I am sure others have horror stories or will tell me my method is crazy but at this point it has worked very well for me. I would love to hear everyone else's method and advice on this as for me the flights and fear of the holiday being messed up by discovering a destroyed bike upon landing is often the most stressful part of the trip!

Cheers
Daren