At some point over the next few weeks I’m going to have to drag myself to another part of my employer’s business, which is in California, near SF.

In the past I’ve ended up spending the entire time either in a hotel, an office, or in a car between the hotel and the office.

I’m thinking this time of seeing if I can put a bike on the plane, and then using it to (a) commute and (b) go and do some sightseeing.

I think I can get one of those giant bike-sized polythene bags for the bike rather than a proper bike bag.

Should I take the MTB? Or my regular commuter fixie? The latter would be quite hard for baggage handlers to break (which they probably wouldn’t anyway). Both are steel anyway, so can always be bent back into shape.

Worth doing? Or should I just resign myself to another week of being bikeless?

do it bikes like holidays too !! you havent got a bike bag id be happy to lend you one if your anywhere near north london

If you can get it there easily enough, it sounds a good plan to me. If you are going round San Francisco, I’d take the commute bike though – If you can get it up hills easily.

Sounds a good idea – can you get your work to pay for the bike carriage (I doubt you can take it for free)?

fixed up here?
take a spare pair of knees.

just to add , mountian bike .. over the bridge .. Marin County a chance to ride where it all began ! cant pass that up !

take two bikes….. your employer should pay the fare as part of your relocation costs.

go to your LBS and pick up two normal bike boxes and chuck your bikes in those using clothings and bits for padding.

why wouldn’t you take your bikes with you….. it’d be stupid if you didn’t.

city is hilly and WINDY in my very limited experience – gears all the way

you could easily ride out to Mt Taramasalata, as makkag says

Your considering putting your bike in a giant jiffy bag?
Just go a bike shop, get a cardboard bike box pack it out and happy riding San fran is an amazing place by bike

Don’t bikers get eaten by Cougars in Cali? 😆

I have no doubt that there’s some highly dangerous cougar akshun in SF

Just hire a bike, over the bridge and up into the hills..

Right, I’m going to do this then. Life is too short to be sensible and boring.

@alpin – this is just for a week, I’m not relocating!

Flights are likely to be with BA – as far as I can tell, they take a bike for free if it’s within your allowance (both are, though not together).

I’m going to use one of those CTC poly bags. That’s because part of my plan is to avoid hiring a car and use the bike instead, just so I don’t spend the entire week cooped up indoors.

But that means a conventional padded bag is no good – I’ll have nowhere to put it apart from possibly crazily expensive left luggage at the airport, so I would have to somehow get it with me from the airport/train station to/from the hotel.

That hill looks fine on a fixie, no worse than anything in Cambridgeshire :-). But I take the point. Geary MTB it is.

Bike hire seems to be amazingly expensive. A quick search showed I would be paying around $60/day.

So, I need to make sure I can get from the usual hotel to the office without being forced onto a freeway. A poly bag. And some good routes!

Oh, and, what tyres for Marin County? 🙂

Buy a bike bike there – 29er obviously – sell it on here when you get back.
Prepare to prefer the clown wheels and sell your old bike though (unless it’s already 29)

fixed up here?
take a spare pair of knees.

Fixed up wouldn’t be a problem. It would be coming down that would frighten me!

Now heaven forbid anything should happen, but would your employers travel insurance (if they provide it), cover you for a cycling accident on a business trip…? 😐

I went there for a few days work last year and the cycling looked great. Loads of people out riding – it a place that will make you wish you had a bike with you. Mine unfortunately was in a gym.

Buying out there’s not a bad shout. Mike’s Bikes near Union Square is well worth a visit.

Take a BSO out with you and return with aforementioned 29’er or whatever you can afford. Thus negating paying any taxes….

You don’t need to take one out.

Some streets in SF are ridiculously steep, I doubt a regular geared fixie would make it up them.

take an MTB and be sure to ride offroad at some point. buy a second commuter when out there if for some reason you just can’t ride a mountain bike to work (?)

oldnpastit – takisawa’s point is boring, but well worth checking out. quick phone call on Monday morning.

Take a BSO out with you and return with aforementioned 29’er or whatever you can afford. Thus negating paying any evading taxes….

FTFY

You taking the moral high ground aracer?

Flights are likely to be with BA – as far as I can tell, they take a bike for free if it’s within your allowance (both are, though not together).

Well, you get more allowance if you get to fly higher classes, but on scum class you only get one hold bag – fine if you fly with cabin baggage for yourself only, otherwise it counts as taking an extra bag. BA is pretty cheap for this though – £30 for an extra bag IIRC.

BA specify a recognised bicycle bag. Having said that, I flew both my bikes back from the USA in December, one boxed and one bagged, no problem.

And I got to watch Life Cycles on the in-flight entertainment too 8)

as above, either on the first day or go a day early buy a tasty bike at a bargain price. ride bike. bring back. complete win win win. 🙂

You might need to check this, US border people have been serious about importing plants and such, dirty kit might ring alarm bells. They were rather serious at the time of the F & M outbreak.

I’ll definitely clean the bike before I go. Good point about insurance. Very tempting to buy a bike out there but sense must prevail at some point.

You taking the moral high ground aracer?

Just calling a spade a spade.

Bike seems to have survived intact. I took the fixie in the end because the MTB would have put me way over the 20kg allowance (I’m always amazed by just how much clothing weighs). But I’ve got a freewheel for use in case of emergency.

Took the train – BART then Caltrain. I think it’s just about quicker than cycling.

Very jealous…I love that place.

Go visit Chris and the team at Roaring Mouse Cycles it is down on the Presidio. SF is a great city.

Well, that was entertaining.

Bike on plane in giant plastic bag = awesome. Virgin were completely unfazed and the bike was fine (although there’s not much could go wrong anyway).

Cycling round Silicon Valley was a lot more fun that being sat in a cab or a hire car. It puts the UK to shame for bike friendly roads: there are lovely wide smooth cycle lanes almost everywhere, the train has an amazing dedicated bike carriage, and car drivers could not be more courteous.

I managed some lovely rides up to Skyline during the week (46:16 is a bit too high it turns out). On the Saturday I gave up trying to get anywhere interesting – it was raining heavily, the forecast for Marin County was hail/thunder, and the local bike shop were not going to rent anything out in that weather. So I just went for a local ride up a huge hill in the rain.

I’d definitely take a bike with me again. Gears might be nice next time, although the flip-flop thing worked better than you might expect.

Glad you had fun…

It puts the UK to shame for bike friendly roads: there are lovely wide smooth cycle lanes almost everywhere, the train has an amazing dedicated bike carriage, and car drivers could not be more courteous.

Pretty much everywhere puts the UK to shame for that sort of thing. Where I live the drivers are totally fine with waiting for bikes, roads are mostly billiard table smooth, the train staff help you with your bike (if you need it) and a 45min journey is only about a pound on those same trains so one-way road rides are quite easy.