Me and a friend of mine are flying out to Cali for vacation for a few weeks this summer and plan on using our bikes for the primary mode of transport while there. Has anyone had any experience with flying with their bikes? Or if it would be just easier to ship them to say an lbs there if they agreed to it.

Any thoughts on this would be great

I would suggest asking this in the touring forum- there are many people there that have shipped bikes- touring bikes with large frames and racks- and can probably give you some suggestions. Are you and your friend both riding fixed-gears, and what city will you be in?

I have a question along the same lines. What bike case are all the guys using in the MASH SF to Austin video and garret had one on the Macaframa blog. It was a compact case requiring you to take off your fork. Video here, from 0:25-0:31
https://vimeo.com/4503482

I use a Trico Iron Case. Flying American Airlines internationally and domestically, it gets treated as a pieced of checked baggage as long as it's less than 50lbs and 118 dimensional inches (L + W + H). The Trico case weighs 29lbs by itself, so that leaves 20 lbs or so for the bike, floor pump and a handful of tools.

im most likely going to ride my single speed, all tho im not sure of the topo of the area, might use my geared bike, not exactly sure what bike he is gonna use. we are gonna ride along the pacfic coast highway hiting camp grounds along the way for 2 weeks and head on home
ill post this up in the touring area thanks for the info tho!

Any Idea about the cases anyone? someone here has to know.

I'm not sure if it's true, but I've been told if you tell the airline it's a wheelchair they won't charge you extra. I think shipping would cost more than the $60 fee the airline charges, I can barely ship a frame and fork for $60. Another option is to send it by Greyhound and pick it up at the local station.

I think you can not *lie* and ship it by boxing it and stating that its a wheeled movement assistant. In an x-ray, its just a bunch of tubes and wheels.

Someone do it and get back to us :]

https://freightbaggage.org/?page_id=118

is this the one you're talking about?

awesome

i read that most domestic flights will charge you a "bike" fee because of limited cargo space (i read was like $50ish?)~ and international flights usually allow you to check in a boxed bike for no fees (maybe "tariff" tho) because i just called my airline JAL over the weekend to confirm that i can ship my bike to china from san francisco.

I'm pretty sure I can make that box. I just gotta find corrugated plastic.

They sell that stuff through plastic supply companies, or they make lots of signs(election and otherwise) from it, so you might find some "lying around"