Travelling with bikes

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May 22, 2012, 02:13:28 AM

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[rugbyred]

Hello,

My better half and I are leaving Friday on our dream bike trip to British Columbia.
Was wondering if you could advice me if I need to let the air out of our shocks and forks before loading the bikes into the plane.

Do I need to let ALL the air out of the tires as well? I am running them tubeless and don't want to clean all the Stan's fluid before packing.

Thank you,
Eric

[idsport]

You do not need to change air pressure. As you know, if you run 2bars, tires can easily handle 5bars (but the difference will not be so high). The same is with suspension (pressures under load are at least 3 or 4 times higher).

[Karen Davies]

We've just had a biking holiday in Spain and took ours with us - didn't change the pressure in anything but it took us a little while to work out the best way of packing the bikes to minimise scratching and damage from knocks.  Used lots of zip ties, some neoprene sheeting cut to fit round components like the handlebars and some good foam padding in appropriate places.  Bikes got there and back in one piece even though the baggage handlers managed to damage one of the bike bags.

[gravity-slave]

Take your disc rotors off unless you want them buckled!

Shim your brake pads to stop pistons popping out.

Remove your rear mech too - I take the hanger off with the mech so there's no chance of it getting bent.

Pedals off.

I take my bars off and zip tie them to my forks.

Another tip I do after seeing bike bags walked on - I replace the rear skewer in the frame and use a 135mm tube (copper pipe) to act as a dummy hub and stop any crimping of the dropouts.

Regarding air pressure - 1 atmosphere is only 15psi so no need to let the tyres or shock down.  If the check in staff ask you to do so, ask them if they let the tyres down on the plane! (just have a standby ticket on another airline incase they get the hump )