Planning to ride from San Francisco to San Diego during the 4th of July weekend and the following week. I wanted to get some advice for how to get the bike back. I think there are at least 2 options:
Get it shipped from a San Diego bike shop (use 1 of their old boxes and hopefully have UPS/FedEx pick it up from their place)
Get it checked on the airplane. I’m planning to take Southwest. Does anyone have experience with this? Is it easy enough to just ride up to the airport and pack the bike there (get a box somehow)?
Sounds good depending upon the price to ship. They will more than likely pack it properly and it can be sent directly to your home insured with no worries.
It was about 40 bucks for me to ship my bike out of Oak each way on Southwest last year. No hassle.
*“Is it easy enough to just ride up to the airport and pack the bike there (get a box somehow)?” *
Helll nooo. Unless you are planning to disassemble the bike at the airport and safely pack it somehow. Depending no time it could be a pain. I left the bullhorns and aerobars together (but turned the aerobars inward so that they were flat), took off the peddles, removed the seat from the seat post, plus the cages and the wheels of course. I used one of those Trico cases, put a bunch of bubble wrap around each section of the frame and components, and finished it off with foam pipe housing. Read: think of those old samsonite commercials with the gorilla and the suitcase. Good luck.