I am looking at the bikeboxalan for taking my bike abroad on flights. I also note in the blurb that it can supposedly be mounted on a car's roof bars?
Does anyone have experience with this as if it will swallow an Orange Alpine 160 whole without too much faff would be a great way of transporting my bike around when kids are in the car too, ie. not having to bother with roof rack or rear mounted rack.
I used an Alan bike box last week for a flight to Spain, not the easiest to fit an 150mm large size bike bike into, I had to remove the wheels obviously but also the rear mech, bars and forks. Saved the bike from damage but no where near as good as my pals evoc bike bag!!!
I'd say far too much faff for day to day use as a carrier.
I'm selling one at the moment! They're a great product but I wouldn't recommend it for day to day use, way too much faff. I've a 16" Orange Five and to get that in I need to remove:
- Wheels
- Pedals
- Bars/stem
- Fork
- Seat/seatpost
- Rear mech
Takes about 30 minutes to pack/unpack but it's not the kind of thing you want to do regularly IMO.
I've not tried using it as a roof box but to do so you need to drill holes in it. Probably fine but not sure I'd want to do that after spending all that money.
Cheers for all that, Tony - just wrote on your for sale thread too. I want to get my bike to Whistler in one piece so was looking at this box but may just hire one for £70 for the week instead.
I hadn't realised you had to strip it down so much to fit in the box. Agreed, way too much faff to consider it for day to day use getting a bike around on UK roads, cheers anyway.
The question I guess is will I fit an Alpine 160 18" frame into one of these boxes even if I take pedals off, bars etc..?
Welcome. I think you'd be able to get an 18" Alpine 160 in there without too much issue. It is a pain having to strip the bike down quite so much, but when you consider how much smaller the box can be it's not so bad. Less bulk to wheel around the airport and around mountain resorts!
It's still for sale, just went on Ebay last night as no real interest here. If you're likely to go on more trips then I'd consider buying one but if it's more of a one off then rental is probably the best way to go to be honest. Unfortunately I'm unlikely to be doing much overseas riding in the short/medium term so there's not much point me keeping this, but if it's £70 (inc postage?) a time to rent then if you do 4-5 trips I'd say you've got your money back on a new one.