I used Tribike Transport to ship to Hawaii. All I had to do was remove pedals and roll bike into bike shop. They installed the pedals in Hawaii. Just repeated that coming home. They use large cargo shipping containers with heavy blankets wrapped around the bikes. The downside was I was without my bike for about 4-5 weeks before and after the race. I'm sure the distance shipping depends on drop off date. It's was nice not to worry about anything, but in hindsight I would have liked to have my bike to train on. I only had a gravel bike to use. Moving forward, I'm interested in taking my bike on a flight with me instead of using a transport service.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

I don’t know if you have ordered tickets yet, but almost all airlines have waived excess size charges (the 62” rule). For those airlines, the packed bike counts only as a second checked item (or as first checked item if you can fit all your cloth in a carry-on), as long as the packed bag is under 50 lbs.

Standard economy to Europe includes one checked bag, and second bag is $100 each direction of travel. Premium economy (even when intra-Europe is in economy) or above includes two checked bags. Prem. econ. tickets are usually $200-300 more each direction of travel, which makes for a decent value proposition when travelling with a bike, considering that extra legroom seats usually cost that much each way.

Travelling with hydraulic disc brakes will be PITA regardless of whether you ship or take the bike with you, and i’d recommend bringing rim brake bike. Both PostCarry Transfer and OruCase make soft side bags meeting your needs, and both should be reasonably maneuverable on taxis and trains.

Oh, and dissemble your bike no later than the penultimate day before the trip. Ask how i know… and feel free to reach out if you want to know more about packing a PostCarry.

Also make sure to pack tools. I don't recall the procedure for the OruCase, but PostCarry requires pulling the fork, which means one needs to retension the expander plug and the stem. These steps sound easy enough in writing, but I got seriously flustered when pulling the fork (top cap of my CK NoThreadset flew apart, leaving me having to figure out how to reassemble the four pieces) that I decided not to go ahead with it. Torque wrench and a chain quick-link removal tool would be the minimum tools I'd pack, but you might need more. Those also increase mass.

ETA: sounds like OP is flying either United or Lufthansa. I'm not as certain about how things work on LH (especially if the ticket is sold as LH tickets), but the relevant info is here. Expect to pay 200€ each way regardless of whatever class of travel is purchased. Really shitty policy in this day and age.

I just traveled from Atlanta Airport to Scandinavia. I was nervous about this until I found this thread here, and read Thailandultra's two posts (Nos. 2 & 5).

My son in Boulder found me a used BikePro USA bag for $50 (shipping that to me cost more than the case). Cost me $100 to Europe and 85 Euros coming back. My son, who flys alot in US with his bike says the key is to make sure bag is less than 50 lbs, otherwise you pay more, so put tools, shoes, etc in other luggage.

My bike arrived a day late, which based on the tracking data, I believe is due to the inspection guy in Atlanta not doing his job and getting the bag out quickly (there were not other bags for him to inspect so no excuse).

I saw dozens of bike bags at the airport in Scandinavia. Most all were of the style (which my son uses) where you leave the handlebars on. Thus, hydraulic brakes are no problem (my son has them). (This may not apply if you have tri bike).

You need to air down your tires. To avoid the hassle of reseating tubeless tires and draining/refilling sealant, I used latex tubes. This allowed me to function just fine with my frame-pump (I'm a dinosaur).

As noted above, packing the bike is a time consuming process (even when you leave the handlebars on). I'd say allow two hours to do this leisurely and even more for the first time.

Regarding shipping fees, I think budgeting $400 to be safe is a good idea, even though I paid only half that. I checked my luggage online coming back and paid just 85 Euros for an extra bag. There was no option to pay for oversize of a bike. However, my son ended up paying about 200 euro and another guy 250 Euros (both on same airline to same destination).

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

On my trips to Europe, the cost to ship was above $600 each way so I took my bike on the plane.

A few years ago i got quoted >$650 for shipping my bike via fedex or ups to the EU.

It's going to be less expensive to fly with it.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

A year ago I investigated the 'ship to Europe' option. It was very expensive, maybe lower cost now that we are emerging from the global transportation/supply chain meltdown. It was also confusing with multiple potential shipping partners and slow - some estimates from the bike-specific companies required many days for a response. IIRC, however, the least expensive round trip was well over 1000 USD! As others have mentioned in this thread, if your bike box is under 50 lbs and not crazy sized (even for light boxes there are dimensional limits to 'baggage' vs. 'cargo'), you are looking at 100 USD each way on the aircraft you travel on. I just did this on American/Iberia from Nashville to Ibiza through Miami and Madrid.

One more important point - if your flight plan might include small jets (probably not from DC to Europe, but if you require a 2nd flight in Europe, for example), try to choose a plan that includes only 737-sized aircraft or larger. The smaller aircraft sometimes have a limit on the number of bike cases they carry, so if you are going for an event and lots of folks are flying bikes in or out around the same dates, those little jets can be a bottleneck that delays transport of your bike.

Lots of info already. I’ll only add that my wife and I have been taking bikes on flights to and from Europe for the last 8 years. We’ve never found a reasonable option for shipping. Your airline and bike case can make a difference so if you follow up with these there may be more info available.

For triathlon races we’ve taken the bikes in hardcases. For cycling trips we use EVOC cases for road/gravel bikes. These are soft sided with an internal frame mount. These offer a bit less protection. But they can be collapsed for storage or transportation with the bikes unpacked.

We’ve never had a problem with hydro brake bikes. I guess this probably comes down to how the bike is built up with hose slack and what case it has to go in. If there was ever a place for disc brakes up it is the mountain roads of Europe:)

I looked into this for Spain (StrongLikeBull Training Camp). Traveling from Buffalo to Malaga using any service other than the airline was crazy expensive. It would have been cheaper to rent a bike for the week.

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Human Person

thanks for all the input.
i think this confirms that bringing it on the plane is still the reasonable thing to do. i'd have preferred direct flight but 1 layover seems the norm to Pyrenees.
i'll hope not to get raked over the coals on the price (but let's face it - airline customer service training probably spends weeks knowing how best to frustrate the traveling cyclist).
i have a pika works soft but very padded case and wheel bags. i'm ok with packing it and padding it as best I can but know that doesn't always foil the irritated baggage handler. i'm also traveling with a bike shop owner. he's usually able to rescue me from too much self inflicted stupidity on the packing and re-assembling (usually).
i plan on being a helpful sounding board for others planning a pyrenees trip after this!
pre trip top 3 climbs we're planning - port cabus (andorra), port de bales, spandelles/soulour/aubisque (litor) combo. we'll see if they hold up after 2 weeks over there!

thanks again for all the helpful tips/thoughts - sincerely, rick

Port de Bales is so hard. Like so, so, so hard. Like the only climb that has completely broken me, leaving me trying to zigzag on a "road" barely wider than a cow path in order to keep from toppling over due to lack of speed. Of course, it was like 105 out and the final climb on a day with two HC, two Cat 1, and something like 200km of incredible terribleness, but all I really remember was having 6km of 10+ grade still in front of me, barely able to make forward progress, and desperately hoping a helicopter would swoop in and take me away to anywhere else but the Port de Bales.