I'm curious: how confident are you with your soft cases? My regular luggage is replete with stab wounds, busted castors and bent frames from traveling the past few years. And I've had plenty of contents crushed or broken even when protected with foam/bubble wrap. I'm wondering how a carbon fiber bike/wheels would survive normal (read: rough as hell) handling by baggage folks. If you saw a dude on the tarmac grab your hen house and throw it onto a conveyor and then lug another massive suitcase on top of it, would you be assured that your bike was perfectly safe?

The thing is, hard cases really rely on everything being packed correctly and secured. The second TSA opens it up, which they will because it won't fit through the x-Ray machine, they're not going to pack it up as carefully as you did.
With a soft case, sure you're susceptible to stab wounds, but last I checked bikes don't bleed. If you break down the bike correctly, it's just some metal and carbon parts, both of which are pretty strong materials. You're not packing eggs here. Also, there's a decent amount of padding in the Hen House too, so that provides some peace of mind. A lower quality soft case I wouldn't feel comfortable with, both because of the lack of padding and also due to lower quality workmanship, so abrasion would be a serious concern, but it's not with the Hen House
It also helps that I don't pay a dime to fly with it most of the time because even not on orders, most airlines don't chargeiltary for regular checked bags. The Hen House was designed that it's still cheaper to check two regular bags, which it is, but the trade off is less there when you're paying 25 for bag 1 plus 35 for bag 2 instead of say 150 for a bike

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IG: idking90

Thanks for the insight. I'm getting tired of shipping my bike to races and ^^^ that's what's most appealing about the soft cases.

I have the biknd and havent had any issues with it. Have travelled overseas and all over the US, at times with P3, zipp disc and set of 404s (you can put in 2 sets of wheels). I havent had to pay fees when flying domestically but that is more so because i am active duty military. I like it because it rolls very easily, your bike is locked into the base so if tsa opens it less stuff will shift and when not in use it folds up very small (relative), about the size of a set of golf clubs. I did a review a few years back on here with some pics if you do a quick search.

I just picked up Rusters armored hen house and think its the best of both worlds. I went and looked at the new Thule before I ordered and here are my thoughts:

1) That sucker is big, and I don't think it would even fit in my car.
2) It seemed really heavy, and I would assume you would have the oversize fee in addition to an over weight fee (I think the case alone is over 30 pounds)
3) As far as ease of packing the bike I think its the best one out there. It would be very quick to get your bike packed.

would you 100% recommend the armored over the soft case? I have decided to get the hen house, but would like to not spend 200 extra if they are both reliable.

There are two reasons I went with the Armored, the obvious is more protection, the second is that it has wheels so it can be rolled.

I purchased mine through TriSports and used Thomas Gerlachs (on this site) code for 20% off. Price came out close to the non-armored.

  Just listen to the guys who and have worked in the airline industry. Like LazyEP... I worked on the ramp also in a past life. My brother worked in a ketchup factory and took him 5yrs after he left that job to ever use it again! He saw how it was made!!
You may travel many years with a soft side case and never have any thing happen! BUT.... just that one time and you are out of pocket the cost of your bike. read the ticket baggage refund if it gets damage. goes by weight if I remember right? You can correct me on that.
Have you ever seen a baggage jam on a belt system? OH it's not pretty, and it happens. The high end bikes with the areo front ends just do not travel will. you have to take some of it apart.
I use the hard case I will pay the fee cheap insurance to say....

The thing that is happening today in travel is TSA they can open your case look in it then just close it with out any responsibililty for there actions, that is not right! They are getting away with this...

Go to a LBS that KNOWS how to pack the bike in the case you bought and pay them to teach you.. you will learn a lot about your bike.
All my suit cases are hard shell that I check in... only my carry on is soft sided.
my 2 cents...

I did buy the new Thule Round Trip Elite hard sided case. I posted my reason on a hard case vs a soft case about a month ago...bottom line on my decision to go with a hard sided case was a conversation I had with a customer of mine, who happens to be a top executive at one of the largest airports in the nation, and was a former exec at a large airline. After all of the time he has spent in baggage handling, etc. he told me, "you'd be crazy to put your multi-thousand dollar bike in anything other than a hard case!" He said the soft cases are often tossed around, most certainly if they don't appear to be a bike. Hard cases are heavier, so they are not tossed around...if you label it as fragile or bike, it WILL be treated much better and with care 99% of the time. I'm happy to pay extra to ship my bike and have a better chance of my bike arriving in perfect shape.

As for the Thule case and your comments:

1. Yes it is big, but it does fit in the back of my Prius with the rear seats folded down...was also able to fit a few suitcases and duffle bags as well as my transition backpack into the Prius with it.
2. It is somewhat heavy (about 30 pounds by itself)...with my bike (Felt DA), cycling shoes, aero helmet, Zipp 808's with wheel cover (inside the supplied padded wheel bags), wetsuit, water bottles, nutrient for run and bike for IM Los Cabos as well as bubble wrap and 2 pieces of medium density foam between the outside of the case and the wheels, the total weight was right under 60 lbs. Flying on AirTran, they charged me just a flat $75 to ship my bike one way....and didn't charge me anything the other way.
3. Ease of packing the bike is amazing...the workstand that comes with it is very cool (The frame, attached to the stand, "locks" into the bottom of the case with the legs of the stand secured inside the bottom of the case by velcro straps.) So easy to set up the stand in my hotel room, with the frame attached, then reattach my handlebars, (I only had to remove the 4 screws from the top of the stem and then allow the bars to "hang" to the side of the frame. I bubble wrapped them to the side of the frame.) Total set up time from the time I opened the case in my hotel room, until I was done was maybe 15 minutes...much of that was just unwrapping everything.

Some other comments:

• Overall it is well designed, the handles are great, one one the top and one on each end...wheels seems very sturdy....my one complaint is the two latches to secure the top are not as well throught out and a bit confusing to operate when I first got the case. (The instructions were inside the closed case, so I had to figure out how to open it to get to the instructions...not so smart.) There is a velco strap that goes over the two latches...somewhat useful to keep the latches from opening up, but a little odd.
• The stand is very cool to have...VERY handy for traveling and works "ok" as a workstand on it's own. (You can't rotate it or change the height)
• I like the fact that the frame, secured to the top "tray" of the workstand locks into the bottom of the case vs just being placed into the case
• The 2 wheel bags that are included are decently padded with an interior zippered pocket for your skewers are nice...they are oversized, however, so they would fit wheels from a "29er"...
• Plenty of room inside for my full size pump, wetsuit, cycling shoes, long tailed aero helmet, etc.
• Did not have to remove the pedals, but if I had, there would be a bit more room...but it worked out fine leaving them attached
• Being a little "anal" I covered all of the main frame sections with pipe insulation that I bought from Home Depot...As mentioned before, I bubble wrapped the aero/base bars and secured them to the side of the frame...I also bubble wrapped the rear derailleur but did not remove it
• I did not use a rear dropout protector...while I didn't have one to use, if something were to put that much pressure on the case so as need a dropout protector to prevent damage....the wheels and other things would most certainly be damaged as it would take quite a bit of force for this to happen
• Rolling the case through the airport, etc was pretty darn easy.
• I did write "Fragile" in big letters on white duct tape that I put on each side of the case...
• Overall I'm pretty happy with the case...and most importantly my bike traveled back and forth safely!

PIctures - sorry, some are rotated incorrectly!





























Happy to answer any other questions about it.

thanks for that link, had not read it before. I made the same calculations as DCRainmaker:
"On a trip this summer the derailleur hanger got bent a bit, and had to get a new one. Had we been using the hard-shell case we would have been charged $300-$500 round trip. The bike fix costs? $40 at the LBS."

I have an Aerus soft-sided case, flew to Budapest and back with no bike fees. On the way back the baggage gorillas put a hole in one of the carbon wheels. I replaced the wheel for $200 on ebay, and it's a better wheel than I had.. plus a net profit of at least $100.
;-)
Not sure how I could have stopped the gorillas, looks like they used a bolt gun on it..

I had used my friends hard shell case the last year and got away with no bike fees on 12 trips. Always used "its work" when question and no one ever argued with me. The case was nice but heavy as hell to travel with and then transporting it was even worse. Hard to handle in the airport, and else where, no handles on it, and ever time it was opened by tsa and would be thrown back in and the derailer hanger was bent twice.

So this year I finally decided to get my own case and did a ton of research on it. Decided to go with the Ruster Sports "Hen House". The service there is awesome, and I got it a day before I flew last week. Have to say I will never go to another case again. Super easy to pack the bike. Fits under the airlines oversized bag fee, and easy to get around with. I did not get the armored one and with the bag straps I was able to carry the wheel bag, bike bag a back pack and roller bag with no problem. Best part I still could pack a ton of bike extra in the 2 bags and wasnt a pain to lug around. Bike had no damage and TSA didnt bother it. Best no question when it came to checking it, and then it was litteraly first off the plane at baggage claim. I am 100% solid and would do it again no questions asked. So if you are looking I would highly recommend going with the Hen House. Save yourself the ease of traveling with a bike and the bike fees.

big fan of Pika Packworks for my TT bike

FWIW, I used to play golf competitively... very competitively. I stopped traveling with a soft case after my driver's shaft got broken for the third time (in a ~4 year period).

You could build your own, 50$ been to Aus 3X Kona 3X Maui 3X, basically around the world 6X or so. Two rubber maids plus ty downs and a few castors and a bit of ply-wood.

Never an issue, fits two bikes at under 70 pounds (usually under 75$) Fits floor pump, tools clothes etc.

Yes they will always put your bike box/bag on its side, expect this. Having said that no issues in 14 years with this set-up

Maurice






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Another vote for the hen house. I have the armored version. It is a really well designed and well built case!

Once the bike was all packed and in the case, I had absolutely no worries about any part getting damaged. Of course you may need to stay around as TSA checks the case.

Disclaimer: I might have been a little OCD during the packing process! :-)