Do you know how to take the front end of your bike apart?

You'll need a good case first. Look up Bikeflights.com and Shipbikes.com for the best FedX shipping rates. Do a search here.....lots of previous discussions on this subject "bike cases" and "bike shipping/transportation".

I take my Felt IA10 in a scicon bag. Super easy, only take off the wheels, no troubles at all.

I love the convenience of Tribike Transport. Check their website to see if they are going to your race and where your drop off shop is.
They are far from the cheapest, but sometimes you don't mind paying extra to get your bike their easily.
It is worth the few minutes to checkout their site.

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Team Zoot So Cal

Which bag exactly do you have? And literally just take the wheels off and it's good to go? Do you also foam up the bike?

I suggest looking at the new Premier bike case: http://www.premierholding.org/...cts/bike-travel-case

If you have electronic shifting and a connex chain it's easy-peasy: remove chain, remove rear derailleur, remove wheels, remove aero extensions, remove seatpost, and then pack it all up.

Aerocomfort 2.0, and yes, literally just take off the wheels and it's done. The wheels go in the bag, skewers off of course; the bike goes onto the bag's skewers/frame; hook up the straps to cinch it down and you're done. I add some pipe insulation foam around the frame pieces and bars just for good measure but I doubt anything would happen if I didn't. When I get to my hotel I unzip and unlatch, throw the wheels on and I'm good to go.

I'd expand on what someone above said: take off your derailleur hanger as well as your rear derailleur. I had a bike shipped to me boxed up (I had bought it off eBay.) They took the derailleur but not the hanger off and hanger snapped in transit. Most deraileur hangers are held on by two screws, it takes <1 minute. If you show up to your race with a broken hanger, good luck getting a replacement in a day!

I can't imagine the hanger catching on anything to snap off...but I do travel with a spare hanger, bolts, and seat clamp for my BMC.

I've snapped two... actually first one broke traveling via airline in my Thule box and the new one I installed (Two Trek stores in Omaha!) snapped on the way home... clean break. I remove the hanger now.. two screws and no broken hanger. Now that I think about it, it may have happened before but my bike shop received the bike and put a new hanger on for me... so make that three!

I'm a big fan of Bikeflights and will be getting a Ruster Hen House for the races I need to fly with my bike and Bikeflights isn't the best option. It counts as luggage.. I paid almost $700 getting my bike to/from Cozumel in a regular bike box.

I would be looking at the newly released scion 3.0 collection of bags.

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blog

Incredible bad luck OR it is the design of your bike hangar and the way it fits in that case. I've been flying with my PikaPackworks since 2008 and have never had any damage.

All I can say is be careful with the Aerocomfort 2.0 - particularly with overseas travel lots of reports of damage using that bag.


Either figure out how to work on your bike really well and get something like the Biknd case (I love mine, and I've had a number of cases over 35 years) or use TriBike Transport (see disclaimer below).

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

I've never heard anything bad about scicon bags and they do make a rear derailleur protector if you want something extra. I padded all around it. I got a bopworx protector as a gift. I will try that sometime. Either way, I doubt the airlines treat my bags any better or different and they arrive just fine.

This is one of those instances where if it is good enough for pros to travel all around the world with scicon bags then it's probably okay for you too. Version 3.0 sounds even better.

Or you could learn to take everything apart, travel with tools, and still have something randomly damaged anyway.

Has anyone here had experience with the Orucase Ninja? It supposedly fits within normal airline baggage dimensions, so you do not get charged bike or oversized bag fees. The packing looks similar to PikaPacks, and you have to remove your fork (piece of cake on non-superbikes).

https://orucase.com/...port-ninja-bike-case

I bought a Ruster Armored Hen House last year. Love it. Saved me some bag fees and ultimately made me more comfortable breaking down / assembling my bike.

Hello Ngarrett and All,

Remove rear derailleur ... and wheels ..... put inserts into fork slots and rear drop out slots to prevent crushing .... remove pedals ..... AND when available ...... Fold the Morf bars (or their clones) down next to the fork .... pad everything .... close up the bike box or shipping container .... and go. (Oh ... and buy some insurance.)

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

Anyone have any personal experience with the Thule Round Trip Sport bike Travel Case - Hard Shell?


I really like the idea of the AeroComfort 2.0 and only having to take the wheels off, but handing off a soft case like that to the airlines just makes me so uncomfortable. Is there a reasonably priced hard case comparable to that one?

I ALWAYS take the bike with me, and have traveled to Europe numerous times as well as many destinations in the US. I recently had another trip, and it went incredible. I have an awesome bike case that requires little teardown, so I'm riding 15 minutes after opening the case. This is what I prefer. http://www.triall3sports.com/cases-bike.php Some prefer soft or smaller cases, but my theory is since I have to pay the fee, why not use a case that requires the least amount of tear down, takes the least toll on the body of traveling (4 wheels means you have your own luggage cart with you) and protects the bike exceptionally well. I also have recently started using Southwest as a carrier, as many airlines are simply too expensive. I was not even charged for one way of my roundtrip, and the return was only $50! That's very low to have the bike with me at all times and not wondering if it will actually make it to the race site. This is simple and very low stress.

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Gary Geiger
http://www.geigerphoto.com Professional photographer

TEAM KiWAMi NORTH AMERICA http://www.kiwamitri.com, Rudy Project http://www.rudyprojectusa.com, GU https://guenergy.com/shop/ ; Salming World Ambassador; https://www.shopsalming.com

I would love to hear feedback on this Orucase Ninja. Avoiding airlines oversize fees seems very useful. But how painful is disassemble and reassemble the bike?

I have one and used it taking my 29" MTB to Maui and back for Xterra. Cost me $75 each way on Alaska and made it there and back damage free. It has wheels and is pretty easy to move around. I was there for the Xterra race and there were all variations of bike cases on my flight, from cardboard boxes, soft cases as mentioned in this thread, to hard cases like mine. Whatever you get, make sure it has wheels and is relatively easy to open in case the TSA wants to look through it for CO2 cartridges.

Big time and mega +1 for Scicon Aerocomfort TSA X.0 bags. I have the 2.0 versions for both road and tri and am super happy with my experience. Before this, I used an S & S Machine hard case with a Ritchey Breakaway cross bike (that I still have and travel with), but it definitely adds ~2 hrs to my trip because of the teardown and rebuild process (which really couldn't be easier with the Ritchey Breakaway, but is still time consuming). If you don't mind paying the airline bike fees, the Scicon bags add about 15 min (tops) to each end of the trip and I've never had any issues in the past 18 mo. and 8 trips for which I've used the bags.