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I’ve changed my attitude towards taking bikes on airplanes. Putting this in perspective, I started traveling with bikes when it cost $30 to take the bike on the airplane (which I thought was a lot then). So I took my bike along on quite a few business trips and vacations. Now it costs almost as much to take your bike as to put your kid through college.
There was always a certain amount of stress associated with travelling with a bike. Usually you had to budget about half an hour for arguing with the airline personnel. After many years I finally figured out that the only things that were truly non-negotiable were taking off the pedals and turning the handlebars around. If you were willing to do that, and sign a release form to the effect that they could drop kick your bike from here to your final destination and you wouldn’t sue them, all would be well. I generally tried to avoid putting the bike in a box, since it then stopped being a bike and became merely another projectile. At least if they could see it was a bike, the baggage handlers might feel a pang of guilt when they hurled it at the rest of the baggage (or maybe they’d just had a more interesting story to tell their wives). The only time I nearly lost the box argument was on our trip to Costa Rica. My theory is, it doesn’t matter what the airline policy is, you are at the mercy of whatever the person at the ticket counter decides to do. Generally, you need to be obstinate enough to advance far enough up the chain of command until you get to talk to someone who realizes it’s more of a collective pain in the butt standing firm than just saying yes (as long as you sign the drop-kick clause). This time, the head honcho hadn’t figured this out, and there was no way on heaven or earth he was going to let me on the plane without putting my bike in a box. Just for fun, I had checked the airline web site beforehand, and found that in fact you weren’t required to do this. I pointed this out, whereupon he said he didn’t care about no steenking web site, this is the way he ran his airport (proving once again the Donohue Theory). As I was starting to stuff my bike in a box, he came out and sheepishly
admitted that he had read the web site and I was right. Another blow for freedom, justice and the American Airlines way.
The other problem with bike flying is damage to the bike. The first time ever I took a bike anywhere was a flight out to California. They made me put it in a flimsy cardboard box and the fork got somewhat mashed. It was rideable, but it had a pronounced tendency to steer to the left. I expended almost as much energy counter-steering as propelling the bike forward. This was the beginning of my aversion to boxes. Fortunately, I have a collection of bikes that are more or less disposable. They are rideable bikes, but they’ve been completely amortized for some time, and I would not shed many tears if they met an untimely demise. This sort of bike is excellent for air travel. When I used to live in Malden, I was about 7 miles from the airport. So I would ride my bike to the airport, wheel it in, spend the obligatory half hour arguing, take off the pedals, turn handlebars, and I’d be done. That was
the golden age of flying.
Lately, I seem to have lost my edge. I don’t have the spirit for the mano a mano with the airline people, and even if you win they still charge you upwards of $100 each way.
So I’m looking at alternatives. I’ve heard a lot of recommendations for sending your bike via UPS. This sounded like a fine idea initially. The only time I did this was on our trip to Moab. Since we were going with Peter White, who sends stuff UPS every day for his business, we went over there, packed our bikes, and off they went. When we got there, we went through the unpacking and reassembling bit. Same thing on the return. It was a lot less expensive and less hassle than bringing them on the plane, but in the end, I had spent a good part of a day of my precious vacation just taking the bike apart and putting it back together. In fact, the outfitter we went with rented bikes, which looked to be a lot better than the one I had painstakingly shipped out, and this would have been the way to go.
Seems like the only truly seamless way to fly somewhere and ride a bike is to rent or buy one. Like a sailor that has a woman in every port, I’d like to have a bike in every country I’m likely to visit. A round trip charge of $200 could go a long way towards buying a bike at my destination. Just need to find a local who’d be willing to store it until my next visit. Maybe an international bike exchange program...
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