While some of us are spoilt for choice with numerous races close to home, many triathlons require a fair bit of traveling with our bicycles. We’re not talking about races where you can simply pack your bike into the back seat of your car; triathlon as a destination sport requires travel and checking your bike into the hold of a plane, a ferry, a train, and/or a truck.
Flying with a bicycle doesn’t have to be difficult! There are many airlines that make special allowances for bicycles as part of your included baggage allowance. Other airlines might charge a special sports equipment fee for them. But there is no reason you won’t be able to take your bicycle along with you on your flight.
Now all you need to do is figure out how to pack your bike. You could take it apart and pack it into an old cardboard bike box for transport to your race, but then you face reassembling it at your destination, and vice versa heading home. Cardboard boxes can also run afoul of airline baggage rules due to their size and weight, which could result in extra fees. And lastly, cardboard boxes can fall apart with indiscriminate handling, especially when wet.
For this reason, if you plan to travel with your bike a lot, it’s worth investing in a bike bag. There are soft bags made of reinforced canvas and fabric, and hard cases made of tough plastic. Wheeled bags are practical since you won’t always have use of an airport trolley to lug the bag from one point to another.
