Have you considered the Scicon Evolution? I looked at all top rated cases three years ago including the BikeBox and decided on the Scicon. Have used for three years now.....always ship (about 15 times in past three years) using FedX with never a problem. Also flew by plane to London once....again no issues. I get a company discounted FedX rate but there are a couple companies out there like ShipBikes.com that will also give a decent discount. Just my opinion....but I feel more comfortable with FedX than an airline....and I don't have to worry about transport to airport on travel day with a car full of luggage. The Scicon is priced a little less than the BikeBox and is top quality. Plenty of reviews on this site if you research. You might get a better shipping price on the Scicon if you check around....I bought mine from ProBikeKit. Good luck.

You could ship the hen house fedex if you put it inside cardboard boxes. I guess it would be two separate items, which would add to cost, but it shouldn't be that hard to come up or make boxes that fit.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

Will fedex not ship the case or do you not want to ship a soft case?

I flew with my armored henhouse a few days ago for the first time, it was great. Flew southwest so i did not pay any fees. You can really dump a lot of clothes in the bags once the bikes are in.

I'm just concerned shipping a soft case.

I'm also looking at the EVOC.

Have not considered it yet. Do you pay bike fees in airlines with it? I'll do some research on this too. Mahalo.

Ahhh...its a hard shell. I'm leaning towards a soft shell for storage and travel with cases (for two bikes). And trying to avoid the bike fees charged by airlines. All flights out of Honolulu charge for bike boxes. :-(
Denise

I really like my Biknd. For me, the air bladders work well and the soft sided case allows me to rent smaller cars compared to hard sided cases.
If I could break down my bike enough to fit in a henhouse, I would definitely go that route. $200-300 round trip for a bike impacts the travel budget significantly.

I have now used an Armored Hen House three times (two US domestic flights and one from Chicago to Stockholm).

Simply, it has been awesome.

Not a big deal breaking down the bike. Never have had a whiff of trouble/fees with airlines. My opinion, bike is very well protected. Plus, you can fit a ton of gear in bags and still be under weight limits (granted, that's with a carbon frame, etc.).

I plan to fly with my bike at least 4 times in 2015. That's a lot of saved fees…

Highly recommend the Scicon Evolution or Bike Box Alan... they are essentially the same thing.

Scicon has great customer service... and super fast shipping. I have the Evolution and I love it. I replaced my wheels on my case. It took about 3 days to get the wheels from Italy. One latch broke on a trip, I had the latch in 3 days. Crazy good service.

The Bike Box Alan has a few extra things that make it a little more secure in my opinion. My friend just bought the Bike Box Alan and using right now on a trip. Seems to be same quality as the Scicon, maybe better.

The good thing about these cases besides the excellent quality is the ease of packing. Pedals off, wheels off, seatpost off... handlebars stay attached. You just loosen the stem bolts, rotate the bars and turn them down. Easy as pie!!

I'm traveling this weekend... and just got done packing my bike.

Here is a quick shot as I pack..

Nice Helix! I also travel with my Lynskey which make me feel a little better since it will not crack like a carbon frame.

I have the travel box from performance bike. It was cheap and certainly not the best but has worked great for me.
It pack similar than the picture above but with the wheels on each side. Have always paid the airline though.
A case that wouldn't get charged would pay for itself in 1 trip easy.

Yup... bought the Helix this year after a crash on a Trek Madone cracked the carbon...

As you can see in the pic above... the S5 is my other bike, and non travel bike.

I've had both the Hen House and the armored version. While I liked them I eventually switched to the Scicon Aerocomfort bag and couldn't be happier. Mechanically I had no issues with the breakdown required by the Hen House bags but in the end I go tired of the chore. It was never a big deal preparing for a trip but it was annoying to have to do it at the end of a trip to come home. The Aerocomfort is a dream to pack up. If it takes me 5 minutes I've done something wrong.

Btw, while most of the time I was able to fly free with the Hen House there were a couple of occasions where I got hit with bike bag fees. It's the reverse with the Aerocomfort. Most of the time I have the fees but occasionally I get some good karma/mojo/nice baggage agent and the fee is waived. It's like a little bonus that makes me smile.

My bike is a Lynskey ProCross. Gotta love Lynskey. They are +10000 on awesomeness.

And due to storage issues and travel issues, we are going to rule out hard shell cases. :-(

Denise

Recently bought an armored hen house and have flown twice with it. My two cents:

*It's not a big deal to break down. Really only removing the fork is out of the norm compared to a normal bike box. It take a little longer to wrap with the foam and Velcro straps but I don't hold my breath opening the case up at my destination praying to sweet baby Jesus that a TSA agent has opened the case and made a huge dent in my carbon bike.

* you absolutely cannot utter the word bike or they will nail you regardless of the dimensions. I says it's an ergometer and quickly change the subject to the fact that it's 62 linear inches. They measured once and conceded. Sky caps seem to care less as long as you tell them it's not a bike.

* maybe I'm packing wrong or maybe my large Shiv is a little bigger than what the case was designed for but I could fit a pump and wasn't able to fit much more than a regular helmet, bike shoes and a few pieces of clothing.

All in all I'm pleased. I think it'll break even after a couple of seasons of flying.

I have the BikeBoxAlan and it was great for my Cannondale Slice. Minor downside versus Scicon is that TSA agents seldom replaced the center brace bar correctly.

After buying a Shiv, I decided to get a Scicon Aerocomfort Triathlon bag. It's super easy as you only remove wheels. Have flown to 4 races using it, including to Roth from Denver, with no problems (other than replacing the bike case caster wheels). Also invested in the Albopads set which provide some added protection. As mentioned above, you will almost always pay airlines fees this route.

I couldn't be happier with my Armored Hen House. Flown with the bike six round trips so far this year (12 flights). Charged once. The first time, breakdown is a bit of a process. Once you figure it out, though, it's super simple. I'm impressed with the protection if offers, and there's a surprising amount of room for your other "stuff" inside, especially the wheel bag. Plus fitting it into even a very small car is a no brainer.

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Not a specific opinion on which one but If you have the opportunity I'd always go for a hard case. You're never quite sure what happens to the box once it leaves your hands and there are losts of possible situations in which you wouldn't want a soft case. Padding and packaging are great for reducing impact forces on the bike but if the box or bag has a lot of weight stacked on it you want something other than your bike to take the load - a hard box.

Iain

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i've a biknd jet pack which has done a shade under 30k miles in the last 18 months containing a long travel enduro bike, a AL road bike and a carbon TT bike

its held up remarkably well, their customer service has been awesome - so good in fact that I lost something and they shipped it next day but I'd left for another flight so they shipped another one to me in the next destination - all at no cost, super helpful, great product

i've looked at other options and have friends that rave about BBA and would actually consider one when I need a replacement or something catastrophic happens

most of these cases are designed to disappate forces away from the frame through the structure - even soft ones - the far bigger issue I worry about is a penetration of the case

When you got charged, did they charge you just for the frame bag or did they charge you for each? Just curious.

When I had and used a Hen House the times that I was charged it was for the frame bag.

I recently sold my bike box alan and bought an armoured hen house.

The bike box alan is GREAT- awesome box - I used it for over 20 fights and my bike was never damaged. When I used to live in the UK, flight cost was not an issue since British Airways never charged me for a bike ever. However, in the US is completely different. I think I was charged $150 each way to Hawaii, and even from SFO-LAX was about $100 each way. So I went with the Hen House since it pays for itself with just a few flights. In terms of the main differences:

- bike box alan requires a bit less disassembly: you remove the seat post, pedals and bars. The hen house you need to remove the fork, and I think they suggest you remove the rear derailleur too. For me it's worth the extra 10 mins of work, but just be aware that the BBA is less work to pack.
- armored hen house seems to offer enough protection. I haven't yet traveled enough to be able to compare, but it seems to be very rugged and offers enough protection.
- BBA is a single case, hen house is 2 x bags. However, I pack all my clothes etc. into the hen house bags too, and don't need to check any other bags in. With the BBA you can do this too, but because it's a single case, you can run into weight limits, so I would usually pack a regular bag too. So with both of these you're checking in 2 bags.

hope that helps!

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I did decide to pull the trigger and get the Armored Hen House. I was on the fence due to the fact that I have disc brakes and wasn't totally clear with how much removal needed to happen on the frame or wheel. I reached out to the guys at Hen House and was told I could leave the discs on the wheels. Fingers crossed.

I did a dry run disassemble and reassemble 1 week before Ride the Rockies. As I'm a Retul Bike Fitter, I know my way around the 3 contact points pretty well. However, the headset concerned me as did the disk brake removal. I followed all the instructions, reviewed the YouTube video, googled "Headset" and reached out to my LBS mechanic to confirm I didn't screw it up. I learned there are 2 ways to take disk brakes off a frame!

In all, it was a good hour and 45 minutes to disassemble and pack my bike the first time. Yikes.

Only an hour to put it all together 3 days later.

Once it came time to travel, it only took me about 45 min to break it all down. Confidence and knowledge help! I was able to stuff my frame bags, nutrition, and some clothing in the bag. Put most of my bike clothes in the wheel bag.

Speaking of wheels - I used the large plastic disk brake packing "bumper" on my wheels. Loaded them disk side "in" and had no issues at all with the wheel bag. I do wish it had a shoulder strap though. Would make hauling it around the airport easier as I'm at a height that requires me to lift it up or drag it on the ground.

Check-in at United in Honolulu (to SFO): They didn't bat an eye. Told me to go drop it off in "oversize" even though I told them it was under the 65" - they said it would get caught up on their belt. So we dropped it off. No extra charges. I DID check bags online before I got to the airport and I am Premier Silver. Not sure if that makes any difference.

At SFO the bike came out in the oversize area. No issues. Took an Uber to Amtrak in Emeryville. Fit everything easily in the standard size car. 6 bags total and 2 adults. My luggage had to go in the front seat.

At Amtrak, we checked the bike and wheel bag. Lady asked what it was, I told her a frame. She said "bike frame?" I said yes. She said it was a $10 charge to check that. I was fine with that. I'd rather have it safe in checked baggage than just hanging out in the sleeping car. No charge for the wheel bag.

Disassembly at our hotel room only took me about 40 min. I took the bike to a LBS to have them tighten all the important stuff. Going to go do 450+ miles in Colorado and I wasn't about to risk a loose something to ruin my day or week. I could packed my Torque wrench, but didn't want to risk that wandering off.

Last day of the ride I had a bus to catch so I had to ride hard to get to the finish, find my bike bags, pack the bike, shower, eat, and be ready to get on the bus. Turns out that even after a week of HOT riding and climbing, it only took me about 30 min to pack down the bike and load it up.

Sub-compact rental car had no issues with the bags. Frame and Wheel bag fit across the back seats. If we had 2 bikes to travel with, I think we would have been in a bit of trouble. But nothing a compact or intermediate rental car couldn't handle.

Denver to Honolulu - checked with Sky Cap. She tried to charge me for a bag (not a bike - just a bag) but I showed her all my credentials, left her a big tip, and all was well. No charge there.

Bike came home without a scratch.

Bonus - I know A LOT about my bike now.

I've also rented out my case to some folks and made a little $$ on it that way too. 2 more flights and the case will be paid for.

Denise

I bought the bike box by Allan and had it shipped to Kailua, Oahu. I think it was six something or seven hundred all together with shipping.

Used it to go back and forth to Kona maybe ten times and it still works like it is brand new.

For Kona, you could have just used Aloha Air Cargo. Roll on, roll off. Super quick and easy. I fly over, walk to the cargo building, grab my bike and ride to Kona. :-)