balindamood

Thought I would try out my new Nashbar garment bag. I hope my bike is still there when I get back tomorrow.

balindamood

And it was!

dalmore

where did you park and lock? And how did the bag perform for you?

cyclezealot

Glad you had good luck. Maybe your airport is on the small side. They can be really busy places. Anyone remember the thread here a year or so ago. Some guy rode his bike out of an airport. Bikes were prohibited from the roads leading to the airport. The cyclist was arrested. Don't know how he resolved his dilema. Seems he was a member of the car free community./ Seems like it might have happened at the Minneapolis airport. ?

balindamood

Anchorage has a medium-sized airport. It is in the middle of a multi-year refurbishment. The old bike rack was near the doors and one of those /\/\/\/\ types embedded in the side walk. The new one(s) are the old grill type, about 1/2 as long as I am used to seeing, not attached to anything on the island between the taxi/bus pick-up and the curb-side passenger drop-off. Infact, I think my bike fully loaded weighed more than the rack. The only thing holding it down was another bike locked to it. We are lucky here that there is an actual bike path whihc leads almost directly to both the north and south terminals.

The bag did OK. It is basically a standard fold-over garment back with pannier hooks. It is at the low-end of quality when compared to Samsonite or some other known brand, but it worked just fine. I am not sure if it is waterproof or not. It has those rumbber-covered zippers and it seems to be some sort of plastic fabric, but it should at least be resistant. Eitherway, it was relatively inexpensive ($79 on sale) so I tried it. Will try it again in a week or so.

jamesdenver

I've never biked to Denver's airport. Its almost 25 miles from my house on the high windy plains. BUT -- bikes are allowed on the freeway leading to the airport, and there's some parallel less traveled roads that connect close to the terminal too.

I'm always glad when I see this sign upon leaving. Notice the small sign far right even designates it as a bike route.

Closed Office

The airport has to be one of the most cost effective places to bike. In Calgary there is a bike rack about 50 yards from the main entrance. While every one I know pays big money for parking the bike rack is completely free. Of the times I've been there, at most there has been one bike at it besides mine, and usually none. I have a Mountain Equipment Co-op back pack for luggage. The straps zip up behind a flap and then it is a fabric suitcase with a handle. I always travel light and so far my carry on bag has always been able to fit in that for the bike trip. If I am telling someone about it face to face, sometimes I do say that my luggage is a suitcase on each end of the handlebars. (but I'm lying)

It gets you a good bit of exercise before sitting down for a few hours, which is one of the best ways of avoiding deep vein thrombosis. (I just happened to run across that while going over the PhD papers at Harvard Med, ...or maybe it was on the back of a box of cornflakes.)

I always allow extra time, and one winter really needed it. About a third of the way there, snow started sticking under the fenders, and in the rear gears making shifting difficult. I wasn't expecting that because it was about 10 C below freezing (18 F), but I've noticed that happening since down to that temperature and even a bit lower because of the salt, which makes it damp. The sticking really slowed me down and it didn't look good for awhile but after another third of the way in my 2 lowest gears it quit happening and I made it.