At the end of August I am flying to Scotland from Texas to take on the Pictish Trail: https://bikepacking.com/routes/the-pictish-trail/
I am trying to decide if it's prudent to take my bike as carry on or to ship it via bikeflights. Bikeflights is considerably more expensive but may reduce the odds of a disaster happening (lost bike, lost critical item etc)
I have flown domestically with my bike many times. On this trip, I have 2 layovers to contend with and the possibility of customs rifling through everything.
What is your experience flying with your bike internationally and what do you think is a good idea for me?
by SWDDDD
3 Comments
If the start and end of your bike trip are in the same place I’d recommend getting/renting a hard case. It’s difficult for an airline to destroy a bike in one of those. Of course many people travel using cardboard shipping boxes just fine and can pick up a used box at the end of their journey. I’ve only flown with and never shipped, if it’s not too cumbersome for you to get to the airport and back with a boxed bike (one advantage of hard cases is the built in wheels) then using the airline to transport is usually cheaper.
I’ve flown between Australia and NZ and found, international but short so can’t speak to layovers. But our boarder security was very interested in my bike and took it out of the box to examine for bio security risks. My recommendation is have a very clean bike.
Bikeflights, and a hard case for your bike. They were on time, bike and case arrived in perfect condition. More expensive? Yes, and totally worth it.