At work and will look at mine tonite but is the 1 long one already in the bottom of the bag and you are just not seeing it? (bc it is already velcroed along the bottom?)

Good thought but its just a single strip of the velcro along the bottom of the case to attach the missing piece.

There are three pieces - two short and one long. The long is probably already in place all along the bottom of the bag. The short ones attach to the ends of the long one, and then to each other. You really need all three and you should have all three. I have the Armored Hen House but I'm assuming these reinforcements are the same for all versions.

Yeah that's what I feared. I'm definitely missing a piece then, and still haven't heard back from Ruster. Seems like my chances of bringing my bike on this flight are pretty slim. At least it isn't a race.

I'm pretty sure I've never used the top two inserts with my Hen House, they never seemed to stay in place for me. I do use about 15 feet of pipe insulation, even more bubble wrap, and most of a role of tape...

I looked at mine and it all came back to me. Mine has the 3 pieces, 1 long and 2 short as in the video. However,
bc my TT bike was a tight fit vertically in the bag (hard to zipper it), I never used the 2 short pieces. What i do is use the foam piping and then set the frame in the bag with no strip at all along the bottom. I then use the long piece across the top. I use a couple of the extra velcro straps to strap that long piece to the frame so that it stays in place. As some have mentioned it will move around if you don't and TSA will definitely f it up if you don't.
I have used my HH bike and wheel bag for over 3 years and dozens of airline trips and never had an issue. Best of all, I have never been charged an airline "bike" fee. You can not say that it is a bike. I say that it is wake boards and ski equipment and bc they are under weight and basically under size, no one questions it.
If you are gonna pay the airline fee, you might as well get a different case where you don't have to disassemble your bike. The Premier Bike Case is the best one IMHO.

I mostly use the Armored Hen Houses (I have the original and the new camo) for my Dimond, which has its own padded cases for the different pieces, but I've also transported other bikes in them. For the other bikes, I just went to the hardware store and got that pipe cover stuff to pad the frame and fork.

Regardless, I've traveled dozens of times with mine and never had an issue with any bike. When asked about contents, I always say exercise equipment. If my wife is traveling with me, I'll have her check her bags separately and take the wheel case. Some airlines (United) definitely are out to try and charge you, and they're keyword driven in that respect. If you say bike, they're going to charge you for a bike.

I've only been charged once - this year coming back from Kona after the Honu race. The check-in agent was determined to suss out the bikes, and was going to either charge me for oversize or for a bike. Reading the situation, I decided to fight it out later with United when I got home. I did, and not only did they refund me the $150, they threw on another $100 on top of it. One factor is likely that I'm a 100K/year, lifetime 2M+ flyer on them, but the other thing I pointed out is that my bags came out on the regular conveyor belt in SFO, so how can they have been oversized or required special handling?

I go back and forth pretty regularly to the Big Island now and am gradually moving there, so last trip I was bringing two bikes over to stay there, and given my recent United experience I decided to try Alaska. They were totally cool about bikes - all they care about is number of pieces. So Alaska is going to be getting more of my business.

Ian

I see your hen house, but where are the chickens?

Another Hen House question - how do they take the measurements to say that it isn't oversized? I had mine measured when travelling with my bike and they measured it as oversized - is there a diagram with dimensions so I can make an argument next time?

They're slightly deceptive about this. They argue that the only part that should be measured for purposes of determining the size is the part that touches the ground (i.e. about 30 inches) rather than the full length of the case. However, when I had a Hen House, I never ran across a gate agent that agreed with that interpretation. My success rate of not being charged a fee with the Hen House was about the same as it currently is with the SciCon bag - about 50/50.

EDIT: Here's what they say about it:

you have to check in 2 bags to fly with the hen house, correct? The wheel bag and the frame?

Yes.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

Not necessarily. I heard of people that only checked the frame bag and brought the wheel bag as a carryon. I never tried it though.

Okay. I have been trying to convince myself into buying a box/or hen house. I just looked at Delta and United, 1st bag checked $50 second $70, so I’m @ $120 with luggage fees and I haven’t even packed a suitcase yet.... assuming I can throw some clothing into the hen house bags and throw the rest of my clothing in a carry on. I’m in for $240 baggage fees. Cheaper than the $300 round trip bike fees, and cheaper than $350 for TBT.

Am I missing anything else here?

Like I said, I’m just trying to make sure it’s a good investment.

Delta credit card gets you a free checked bag, I think. U.S. airlines are mostly a-holes about bikes, except Alaska was like $25 last time I flew them.

You have to consider that avoiding bike fees won't always work. That was the big deal when the Hen House was launched but that doesn't work all too often anymore. That said the bags have always protected my bike very well - never an issue. You can add lots of stuff in them and they will fit in any size car which can save you much more money for your rental car compared to the savings in bike fees.

Same here, my Armored Hen House has been measured quite a few times and that argument never flew, it was always oversize and not even close to the 62 linear inches thing...

You could look into shipping your bike via ups to a bike shop. Generally they are pretty cool about it. Or get a delta AMEX CC and you get a free bag I think. It all just depends on how often you fly and fly with your bike.

I check both. I would say no way to carry on a wheel bag IMHO.
The measurement thing never works. If they are going so far as to measure it, they are going to charge you.
I have found in the last year that bc of the self tagging and bag drop procedures now in most airports, the bag people are less likely to make an issue of it. They just want to move you through as quick as possible.
They may ask you to carry it over to TSA or the oversized bag area, bu they are not challenging you like they use to.

Same here again. Ruster is definitely depending on an interpretation of a rule that no ticketing agent will ever agree with. The fact that it only "works" if the bottom portion of the Hen House (the part that's literally "on the ground") is what's measured as length kills it. Luckily, in 2 round trip flights we haven't been charged, but last time from PHX to SFO they REALLYYY wanted to. We talked to the guy's supervisor and she looked at it and was like "That's a normal shaped bag, don't charge." And totally undercut the ticketing agent, much to our pleasure.

The thing with the Hen House is, you have to be ready for some sort of "argument" EVERY. TIME. Which is or is not worth it, depending on the airline's bike bag fees and how much time you have. With an AAdvantage Citi credit card you're only charged for 1 checked bag in that scenario ($25) which is pretty nice compared to $150.

Ruster should have mis matched the bags and made the wheel bag more square/octagonal.

Just to close this out, Ruster is going to send me the missing piece. On the topic of whether the bag is usable without the insert, they said this:


So I guess the trick is to make sure the bike is well protected and not really rely on the bike bag for any protection of the frame itself.

Hope that helps anyone who discovers this post in the future.

I hear you on the planning for an argument thing. That happened to me multiple times in Phoenix. It didn't help that my case said "Ruster Sports" on the side. I sold it but now I see they came out with the camo version that probably makes it lot easier to get through without a charge.

Agree with the comments above about getting into argument. Really, it takes 1-2 times depending on what you get hit with to make the purchase of the bag worth it. Usually (in my experiences) if you self tag, and just have it behind you, have all your stuff ready, and are generally nice to ticketing agent, you'll get by without the fees. Sometimes this takes some strategy.

As long as you come with the attitude that you could get knocked but the one time you don't, you've made the money on the case, you should be ok - just depends if you want to deal with that among other things.

On big overseas flights they can slide it into the business class suit closet, but I don't see a wheel bag ever fitting in the overhead compartments.

And if you're flying business class you're not going to be hit with a bike fee or checked bag fees 99% of the time anyhow.