Travelling on a plane with your bike can be nightmare . The worry and stress most of us go through envisaging the damage incurred on your pride and joy by the baggage handlers is second only to moving house. Having undertaken quite few overseas journeys with my bike and also hired out bike boxes for 3 years i know a trick or two. Here are some tips to making your trip a little more stress free.
1. Choosing the right bike box - Not everyone can afford to buy a decent bike box or have room for one so hiring one is sometimes a good alternative. Whatever you do, don't use a bike bag, it's like saying to the baggage handle 'destroy my bike'. We recommend 2 types of bike boxes - either the sci-con/ bike box alan boxes which are hard cases or the polaris eva pod which is a semi-rigid foam pod. All of these do the job perfectly well if packed correctly.
2. Preparation- Give yourself plenty of time to pack your bike, doing it the night before only to discover you cannot get your pedals off or your seatpost is stuck in is only going to raise that blood pressure. Give yourself a week to check all these things and to give yourself time to recitify any issues with your bike.
3. Check your weight allowance -some airlines require your bike to booked on under sports equipment, others it can be included under baggage allowance, whichever you need to double check that you have your bike booked on and that you know the weight allowance. Airlines are getting strict with weight of bike boxes because of people stuffing all there normal luggage into the bike boxes.
4. Big enough car? -Make sure that your bike box and luggage will fit in the car or taxi that you are using either end. The amount of times people I know have not thought about this and can't get their bike box into the car.
5. Packing the bike -
6. The other end - think about the tools you will need to put the bike back together - so torque wrench, pedal wrench and a track pump etc... and pack them.
7. Checking in your bike - 99 percent of the time you check in as normal but then you will be asked to put your bike into the oversized luggage drop-off point. Sometimes the conveyer belt where you are checking in is big enough.
8. Any Damage - when your bike comes out the other end always check for damage. If there is and sign of damage, take photo's and ask for a claim form there and then.
9. Cycle safely - Always carry ID and a european healthcare card and take it easy on those descents.
10. Returning Home - Don't forget the important duty free for the loved one - otherwise the next cycling trip might not be for a while.
More exclusive pictures from the Tour Of California 2010 by Enzo Bici.
The last and final ATOC installment from Enzo Bici.
By Enzo Bici
If Floyd sucks then do the rest of them blow? More crucially, did the artist responsible for this particularly apposite graffito choose the colour of the chalk to match Landis’ ridiculous goatee?
I agree with Samuel Johnson on a number of things, but his attitude towards patriotism is particularly bob-on. Yes, there was a piftul of chalk used on the tarmac to give support to Big George, Levi, DZ et al., a few more wished Lance a speedy recovery but a great many more swapped the flag waving for whistle blowing. Very few I think, have been as articulate or exhaustive as Padraig at Red Kite Prayer on the subject, but where it seemed to matter most, cycling fans made their feelings felt most eloquently. In the local vernacular.
As far as canvasses and forums go, the steepest pitches of the Rock Store Climb on stage 8 of the Tour of California were a pretty good one; leg-burningly steep and to be tackled four times it also helped make for a seriously good day’s racing. Amgen’s bold decision to go heads-up with the Giro d’Italia, downtown LA TT aside (poor access and bigwigs paying to race the course before the pros), proved to be a hugely successful, calculated gamble. Just as the organisers had hoped, the switch to May brought better weather, higher fitness levels within the peloton and as such, fantastic racing by a very motivated bunch across some stunning scenery. As a result it was the race, quite rightly, that took centre stage rather than the poorly timed allegations of a self-confessed liar. For once.
In hindsight, it was watching this clip before I went out on my usual two hour loop that started it all off.
Lemond (or Lay-mond if you’re French) talks with typical candour about his pre tour form saying that he still isn’t sure of his condition and that he is waiting for the moment when his legs feel good in order to be totally confident and motivated. Except he doesn’t say that because he is, of course, speaking his own Reno Nevada version of French. What he actually says is “ le moment que j’ai des bonnes sensations dans les jambes”
which in terms of expression and terminology is about as euro-pro as it gets. It’s the idea of having been blessed with a set of lower limbs so other-wordly and brilliant that they are sentient beings in and of themselves, totally apart from the rest of the body that can transmit intelligent thought, conjecture and muses. Jens Voigt knows all about it:
Mere mortal that I am, I don’t get anything as poetic as “des bonnes sensations dans les jambes”, my legs simply get more sore as time and exertion increase. At least 98% of the time that is… I’m not saying that there weren’t extremely strong tailwinds in play but yesterday a 
phenomenon occurred that I tend to experience only once every 49 rides. I won’t go so far as to suggest that there was any kind of intercourse between pins and bonce, but I felt, well not to put too fine a point on it, er, good. The aforementioned gale/tailwind may well have been blowing me along, but the Cateye was making pleasant reading for once, where normally I sit I was out of the saddle pushing, it was the 19 instead of the 23 sprocket and guilty glimpses at my reflection in shop windows and black cars had me thinking that I wasn’t actually looking that bad.
To give you an idea of just how good I was feeling, I didn’t even check to see if the brake pads were rubbing against the rim. Not once. Don’t make a big deal out of this either but David Duffield was providing commentary for the last 5k; he was comparing my performance yesterday to Vandenbroucke’s ’99 Liege, and even though perhaps the utter dominance of my ride that afternoon had perhaps surprised me as much as anyone else, yesterday’s victory was announcing me as someone to watch out for come July.
It is of course for these days that we ride, where the limitations of the physical are mitigated by “des bonnes sensations” of the mental.
Our man on the ground at the Tour of California, Enzo Bici, has a snoop around.
