Heading down to the Alps soon and need a good quality bike bag for my downhill bike and wheels. Not too worried about cost but would like to keep my bike in one piece. Needs to be tough and strong and big enough for a downhill bike and 2 wheelsets.

Recomendations

for a flight? a properly robust bag is gonna cost you in baggage weight, I’d just shove it on as is.. it’ll get damaged less than an uplift day here.

been flying bikes with sleasyjet since they first started flying in late 90’s, and they now require a bike bag or box. They used to let you fly the bike with the bars turned and pedals off, but you cant fly it as-is with them anymore. Cant speak for other airline’s policies. Most of the bags out there are identical to the ubiquitous Planet X bag, which dependent on colour and time of year can be found for as little as 40 quid. Used em for years and never had any serious damage.

On our recent alps trip half the guys used cardboard bike boxes. Lets face it your bike was shipped to the shop in one. They have the advantage of being significantly lighter, and if you use a bit of pipe lagging or bubble wrap your pride and joy should be ok. Some really nice bikes went out in boxes and survived unscathed.

I have a DHB bag which is a planet X alike, however it is quite a bit longer. The extra size is a pain, its not needed for the bike and adds weight, and is just too long to fit easily through lift doors etc.

Wheels which allow you to drag it without trashing the base would be useful on something so heavy-mine doesnt, other newer DHB/planet X ones Ive seen have, like this one

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/dhb_Marsden_Wheeled_Bike_Bag_And_Wheel_Bag_Set/5360031436/

My coiler, spare DH tyres, full face, pads and tools in my DHB bag weighed 30lbs. Mrs M-C’s small Reign, with similar extras in a regular planet X bag was 28lbs. A mate with a bagged Glory weighed in at ~34lbs was charged excess baggage-Easyjet’s single bag allowance is 32lbs (which is also your overall weight allowance with them if you pay to fly sports kit, regardless of what others may rant in other threads).

Bike bags are a pain to lug around, and from what I’ve seen the baggage monkeys (singes de baggages?) chuck them about a lot more than bike boxes.

A box can be more easily reinforced as well – last couple of years my bagged bike has come back dented, whereas the box users have been fine.

Yeah second the comments about weight. I have a really good Dakine bike bag, designed specifically for Free Ride and DH bikes, but the bag alone weighs eight kilos, so with bike you’re looking at around 28 kilos easily.

This whole weight of bags thing is a real pain though because the rules seem to be utterly inconsistent. Some people never seem to have a problem, others have nightmares. I’ve gone from Gatwick to Geneva on Easyjet and had no problems with the bike on the way out, only to find that the Swiss **** insist that you total allowance has been exceeded. On that occasion it cost me £180 to get my bike back.

I’ve also heard recently (from the wife, who works for them) that BA will no longer take bags in excess of 23kg, including sports equipment. That pretty much rules out any kind of DH bike in anything other than a box.

I think the limit is 32kgs not lbs! The bike box sounds like a good idea if I can pad it out a fair bit, I suppose it’s no les flimsy that a bike.
I am flying with Easy and there T&Cs are confusing for cycles. They state that my max limit is 32kgs for all baggage as I paid extra for a cycle. Then in section 10 it states that cycles are exempt from excess baggage charges. Hard to work out but 32kgs is 70.4lbs so even subtracting 40lbs for bike that’s a fair bit of weight left for baggage and kit.

There was a debate on here recently about weight and allowance. I think we came to the conclusion that the staff don’t really know the T&C’s and ultimately it is down to speaking to the check in staff nicely and politely and whether they are in a good mood or not! If you go Easy jet from Gatwick they don’t even have a facility to weigh the bike bags! BONUS!

good luck with a DH bike & spare wheels weighing less than 50lb, never mind 40 😛

(mr m-c posting) duir yes my bad, I meant kg where I typed lb. blame it on the pain killers. The figures were right though.

I know someone championed Section 10 as a get-out, but our riding buddy who flew from bristol got charged for going over 32kg on his bike bag. I read the rest of it as you did ie. 20kg standard allowance, upped to 32kg with sports kit, 32kg for any single bag. Despite using a bag Ive had for years I reckon a well-packed box is the way to go with the new weight limits. It soon adds up – my extra DH mud tyres were 1kg each, my 661 full face is heavy, my big camelback with trail tools probably weighs best part of a kilo without bladder,etc etc.

Get or borrow some bathroom scales or fishing scales. They wont be mega accurate but you can calibrate them with a known weight (I know my true weight from medical scales) and it’ll give you a ball-park idea. If youre going with a group get organised with workshop tools, there’s no point 8 of you flying out track pumps, cassette tools, BB tools etc etc.

gutted when BA dropped their allowance (september of last year I think). we had flown BA to geneva last couple of years and they were cheaper than sleazyjet when you factored in the extras Sleazy charge (the bike cost more to fly than we did).

And as MC and geetee72 said, different airports enforce it differently- gatwick couldnt weigh bike bags, Marrakech went with “if she could lift it it was okay”, geneva are arsey and have got wise to the “support the end of your bag with your foot” trick which is good for losing 5kg or so 😉