Tour Logistics
 

I am planning a ~300 mile bicycle tour from around Denali and onto Anchorage next June or July. I already have the transportation from Anchorage to Denali worked out. My issue is storage. Any ideas on where to leave my bicycle transport case and suitcase during the tour? I plan on a 7 day tour, spending a couple of days at Denali. The only thing I have thought of is maybe renting a car for the week, leaving it at the airport to store my case inside it.

certainly have no local knowledge of those places, but my first reaction is to contact a store there, or a hotel, or who knows what, even the police station or something and ask if you could leave your case with them for a week. If its an establishment that you are actually spending money at, that tends to be better imo.

I'm sure you could find someone to hold it for you, just have to get some personal contact with people, be friendly and see what happens.

If you stay at a hotel on the first and last night of your time in Alaska, they might be willing to hold stuff until your return. If that doesn't work, perhaps you could connect with someone via warmshowers.org or couchsurfing.com? Warmshowers.org, in particular, is targeted at bicycle tourists so it can be a good place to find bicycle-related help even if you don't need lodging.

and you buy them a bottle of wine or something.

Thanks. I never thought about approaching the bicycle shops. I will google some in anchorage and see if they might be willing to let me leave my bike case there. If they don't I will check with couchsurfing and warmshowers. Thanks

A shop might be more inclined if you throw them some business, like having them re-assemble and/or repack your bike. Personally, I enjoy not having to deal with that at the start and end of a tour. I ship to a bike shop so the bike is waiting for me ready to go when I arrive. At the end of the tour, I roll the bike into the shop and I go have a beer.

Look at that! There is an REI in Anchorage:

REI Store ? Anchorage, Alaska - Sporting Goods, Camping Gear

I did a loop tour out of Missoula, MT in June. I shipped to REI. They re-assembled the bike
($40), held the box for free for 9 days, and repacked it at the end ($40). Call the local store number to see if they offer the service.

You might look into shipping using bikeflights.com. I had a good experience with them for my MT trip. However, shipping to Alaska may not save you a whole lot depending on what your airline charges.

Many of us travel with our bicycles in cardboard boxes which we can dispose of when we arrive at our destination ... and we travel with a compact duffle bag rather than a suitcase, which can be folded down to almost nothing and carried in our panniers. Travelling like that means that there is no need for storage.

However, even with cardboard boxes, sometimes it is handy to store them rather than having to hunt down a new cardboard box the day before departure. We usually stay in a hotel near the airport upon arrival in a new place, and we have asked if we can store our boxes there. So far, the hotels we have stayed in have agreed. :)

Don't laugh. Cycle a few km out of the city to the middle of nowhere, put your bags in the middle of the forest and mark the location on your GPS. Come back for them when you need them. It works fine.

Warmshowers


Shops in small towns tend to be small they might not have space to spare.

At nearly 2,000 square miles, the municipality of Anchorage is roughly the size of the state of Delaware.

I've left my truck with warmshowers hosts before when I went on a short loop tour. If there are any warmshowers types in Anchorage, I would try that first.

You can mail things to a post office addressed to yourself and General Delivery. The post office will hold them for 30 days. If you pack lightly this is a very convenient and inexpensive
way yo get your bags to the other end of a tour

https://www.usps.com/manage/forward-mail.htm

I have done that when mountaineering. I will leave the bulk of my stuff before proceeding to the summit.

Thanks. I didn't know the USPS had that option.