Originally Posted by
staehpj1
Yeah, I am excited about that too. I most often use a cardboard box since I tend to fly home from a different city than my point to point tour starts from, but the soft case isn't too bad so ship ahead or ship home so it is still an option that I have used a couple times.
Since I am an ultralight camper I have even managed to keep the total baggage under 50# and in one soft case plus a little personal item sized backpack. It was super nice to be able to use a shoulder strap on the soft case and carry my entire set of baggage at once.
I'd say that couplers are still great for some folks, but now make sense for fewer of us than before (never did for me).
I'm pretty much in your same boat. I don't struggle to keep my bike box under 50lbs, and ride a smaller frame. With the great news that the US airline companies are Finally getting on board with bike travel, there's just no reason to get a coupled bike anymore. I'd even go as far as to say that with the work of assembly, difficulty I've heard of packing, bags arriving having been abused by the TSA goons, etc, I don't even long for a coupled bike anymore.