Bike bags being overweight at airports

Experiences? I’ve managed to squeeze my road bike and my mtb into a bike bag (yes, really), but the weight limit is 23kg, and it all comes in at 24.5kg ish.

Don’t really want to buy a lighter bike (although it is tempting).

Already emailed the airline to ask them but I wondered what’s happened when to you lot when this has happened? Do they just make you pay extra?

Depends….a lot

I have had 2kg free been charged for 1 etc. Knee under bike bag can help.

I got charged about 40 euros for my bike bag being over the limit coming back from the Alps as I’d stuffed all my dirty riding gear in there as well…

cant you squeeze 1.5 kg of bike stuff into your hand luggage?

a friend of mine once flew with the rear subframe for his citroen which had broken down in Spain as hand luggage – they just asked him to put caution heavy stickers on it

Depends who you are flying with

Takes the tyres and tubes out and whack them in your other bag? Might just about make the weight difference up?

Put the cranks in your luggage? They’re usually the densest part of the bike.

Both times I have flown out my bag has been under the 32Kg restriction but the X-ray chap at Luton wanted to know what every shadow on the screen was ‘as you are not allowed to put anything extra in your bag’, mind you it was stuff with clothes (bike packing), spare odds and sods (they are need to make the bike work). Mind you on the way back the Spanish couldn’t have cared less, thankfully as all my dirty kit was also in the bag along with some duty free.

I suspect as already said it really does depend which airport, who’s on shift at the weighting machine and what sort of day they have had.

Yeah the densest part of my bike is me..

Which airline has the 23Kg weight limit?
Some good suggestions on taking bits off the bikes above – some airlines do specify a single bike though so could pull you up on it but probably unlikely to.

Give them a photo of a bag that weighs 23kg telling them its nearly like your one?

🙂

No problems with Monarch. We were on a bit of a red-eye though. Think that may have helped.

Flying with BA next month. Let’s see how they compare.

Heavy bag = 2 handlers who just pick it up and chuck it 🙄

There really is no set scenario. Pretty much every time I’ve flown with bikes and kayaks, a different approach has been taken and it depends on who is on the counter you walk up to.

Mostly I have flown in groups and so whoever has the lightest bag we get weighed first. Several times they have just assumed that the rest of the bags will be about the same and just weighed the first.

I always wrap my clothes etc around the bike to show they are part of the packaging. I’m not really sure why they don’t like clothes in the bags but to be honest I have never been checked.

Smile sweetly, be very polite, what could go wrong?…

Put the cranks in your luggage? They’re usually the densest part of the bike.

Just make sure you take the chainrings off them otherwise they’ll definitely be classed as an offensive weapon!

Never had any problems with mine. Bike has always been wrapped up in clothes, no-one has ever said to unpack it (in spite of the T&Cs saying it should be bike only).

On that note, it’s worth taking a copy of the T&Cs to check in – a lot of the time the staff there are contract workers who might not know the exact rules which that particular airline has. And if you’re worried about it being overweight, stick your shoe under the bag and raise your toes a bit. 😉

Oh one point best of luck with Co2 cartridges, despite the fact that there are usually 100 to 200 of them on a plane they still question the safety of them.

Was thinking about taking the tyres off and putting them in my other luggage. Don’t really want to take the chainset off and have to take it apart, but will bare that in mind if I really have to. Thanks 🙂

30kg limit with Easyjet never come close to exceeding it even with camlebak, shoes etc in the bag.

I spent ages getting mine under 20kg for Jet2. Pedals in luggage, etc. They didn’t weigh it at Edinburgh, and they didn’t notice that my mates were overweight at Toulouse. I felt like complaining tbh 🙂

What are mates for if not for grassing on.. 😆