We have decided that we are going to see my family in Oz in 2018 ( yes need to save up) and my uncle is a mad mtb’er , so would be rude to not go for a ride or 10 while there. So, would it be sensible to take a bike or, although not asked yet, about borrowing someones out there, which I would feel uncomfortable with doing. Anyone else taken a bike to Oz and have any idea on how much it may cost to do ?

Its basically included in your baggage allowance, most decent airlines will give you 30Kgs + 7Kgs hand luggage. I’ve taken my bike from Oz to UK twice last year with an Evoc bag. Filling the bag with all my bike kit and some clothes and then maxing out the hand luggage with more clothes.

It depends how heavy or light you travel but you don’t want to be paying excess baggage at about $80 a kilo it gets expensive quick

most long haul airways let you take 30 kg luggage so just take less clothes and more bike, when I moved there (not there now) I had my mega airfreighted, trouble was they insisted for the insured value it had to go in a wooden box (weighed more than the bike I found out after they had collected it!) so I ended up selling it out there rather than pay to bring it home, was almost 600 quid all up to get it flown there, so if you can take it on your luggage. It depends where you are going though, I thought the riding in western australia was pretty poor compared to the UK.

Family are in Sydney. It will be me, the wife and young son, who will wear the same shorts for the whole time there, so should increase my luggage allowance. I will probably take my Cannondale F29 which weighs 25lbs plus bag. Seems a probability of taking my bike which I would prefer.

Make sure your bike is spotless. I put new tyres on my bike and the customs man was very happy with me.

Just hire a bike out there, much less faff than dragging a bike round the world

Have you checked the type of riding? I don’t think Sydney has that much good stuff, worth bring a bike. You’ll have to take a 3hr trip to ACT to find some good stuff 🙂

As above, the bike needs to be spotless, especially tyres, they do check at Customs. Everytime I’ve have wheel and frame checks.

My uncles retired ( at 50 !!) so, I guess traveling 3hrs is just up the road for an Aussie !! I would take new tyres with me anyway and my bike would be mint on arrival.

I’ve just done exactly that (and have done before). I find that with a 22lb steel road bike, kit (helmet, shoes etc) I need to buy 5kg extra on top of the 30kg limit. Which, with Emirates, is 238 quid more each way. For me it’s worth it as I love the riding around Melbourne but frankly it would be more cost effective to just buy a bike out here and keep it in Oz for my annual winter trips!
Otherwise, pretty straightforward – I use an Evoc bag, pop new tyres on, and cross my fingers. Steel is pretty fought – not sure if I’d do it with a carbon bike.

Done the UK from Oz twice in the last 12 months with a bike. It’s easy just make sure it’s very very clean.
However for the weight limits and compromising on taking other stuff I’d consider shipping it. I flew 6 bikes when I moved cost about 200quid for 32kg. No stipulation on wooden boxes but it was covered by house insurance.
These days I end up with a generous luggage allowance so it’s easier.

Riding out here is good and varied, up the coast from Sydney is good, act is good.
Probably better to have a chat with your folks and sus them out, should be able to hook up a demo or maybe a loan bike if it’s only a few rides.

Steel is pretty fought – not sure if I’d do it with a carbon bike.

Carbon is tough, steel bends…
A properly packed bike travels well.

Carbon is tough if treated in the way that it has been designed, which probably doesn’t include being crushed side-on or any number of other possibilities when in transit. Steel is good for travel precisely because it does bend. Can you bend the chain stays back of a carbon bike, as I once had to do on a steel mtb?

Can you bend the chain stays back of a carbon bike, as I once had to do on a steel mtb?

No but having taken Carbon bikes round the world, flying every couple of months with them packed nicely in my evoc bag I’m not that stressed about it. The only bike I have seen damaged was a steel HT that had rear end squashed, some bending out but still a few mm narrow in the drop outs.

I’ve also seen some very good carbon repairs for all sorts of damage that Alu/Steel wouldn’t come back from.

On International long haul your luggage will end up in one of the packed crates which generally get packed well and not unpacked until the end of the trip – UK to Oz would be packed and the container transferred at the stop over airport. Domestic down here in Oz they pack the holds by hand and do a good job, most flights I see at least one of 2 evoc bags on the tarmac in the airport. They know how to handle them.

Something like the Evoc bag has the structure in the right place to protect from a lot of potential damage, if it’s going to crush the carbon then it’s going to do some nasty damage to the Steel too.

The Carbon bike is going back in the bag next Sunday so I can go and race on the mainland.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xreZdUBqpJs[/video]
5 mins in

What time of year will you be going? This could play a big part in how much riding you actually do.

We are going in the Easter of 2018, due to school holidays for 3 weeks. The F29 is alloy, so I wont have to worry about carbon damage or steel weight.

Read this ! http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/showthread.php?268286-Snakes
Watch this ![video]http://youtu.be/Y3sdjL0cWWQ[/video]

Yay, well my uncle is still alive , even with the funnel spiders in his pool and sharing the garden with a brown snake.Plus I’d be on a 29er so will more ground clearance to missed cheeky snakes !

He He, part of live out here a bit I guess, but out of a couple of thousand miles i’ve ridden in the last year or so i’ve seen two brown snakes on the trails. Both just wanted to get out the way when they felt me coming. It doesn’t worry me one bit really.

Keep your eyes open, carry compression bandages and a phone 🙂

As for easter, not sure when it falls that year but I was road tripping from Hobart to Sydney last April, was somewhere between 5c and 25c, there was also a mega storm so expect anything 🙂

My wife is from Oz and we’ve been back many times, last year we were there for 6 months and so I decided to take a bike as we were going to be travelling all over and I had time to ride. It was completely amazing getting out to places and exploring the countryside and even just doing some local rides for a bit of exercise. Travelling for that amount of time with a young daughter it was well worth it but we had time and didn’t need to rush but I will say it was a fair amount of hassle, e.g. going through airports carrying all the bags, bike bag, pushchair, car seat etc. Getting a hire car big enough!
If you’re going for 2-3 weeks then you need to have a think about whether its worth it vs borrowing one?

I took an Evoc bike bag with an alu 29er hardtail and it was brilliant, as well as the long haul flights it went on several internal flights and got thrown in and out of plenty of cars/hire cars etc with zero issues. Bike with minimal kit, shoes, helmet, camelbak was about 28kg I think so not a huge amount left.

As others have said, make sure it’s clean, (don’t need to worry about new tyres just scrub them up) and make sure you declare it on your landing card as they are pretty strict and get really peed off if you don’t. Customs guy was really friendly, checked the tyres, commented on how clean it was and we were off, took 15 seconds.

Snakes, as I said I think we’ve been back 8 or 9 times and in all that time I’ve only ever come across one snake, (that wasn’t splatted on the road).

I had ridden up this trail and my left leg passed within 12″ of it on the grass, it wasn’t bothered by me and I stopped, turned round to take the picture before it slowly went on its way. Big bugger too!

I was in Melbourne and Perth for a few weeks over Christmas and New Year’s with my family, and decided I had to take my road bike. It was totally painless and hassle free, the only issue was the extra rather large bag to transport to and from the airport for each flight.

I got an Evoc bag, with the bike in it + a few tools and accessories it was about 16kg. My suitcase was less than 20kg, at no point did any staff member question or ask what was in it, and there was never any discussion or need to pay additional cost. I was amazed at how easy and painless it was, and it was massively worth it – as soon as I hit the roads in Victoria and WA I knew I’d done the right thing taking it! Recommended. 🙂

[url=https://flic.kr/p/DH3oRv]Top of Mount Misery[/url] by theflatboy, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/CKwPv9]At the Eagle’s Nest[/url] by theflatboy, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/DEJ69L]Perth Harbour[/url] by theflatboy, on Flickr

as soon as I hit the roads in Victoria and WA I knew

I had been hit by a bogan is the normal way to end that one…

Looks good

Haha, I was a bit worried about that having heard tales of dodgy drivers all over the place.

I have to say, at no point did I ever have a worrying moment, nothing like as bad as I’m used to back on the roads in and around London and home counties etc. I asked a few of the guys I was riding with on both sides of the country how they found it, mixed response but I was pleasantly surprised during my stay.

OK

I don’t know if the rest of Oz is like this, but often (most times) I’m out on the road, some rat-tailed, stubby swigging ute passenger, wearing the obligatory “Monster” type hat, feels it necessary to scream at me as they drive their 6.4l supercharged work ute past me.

Not. Even. Funny.

Just hire a bike when you get here. We actually have shops that do that service. We’re not THAT behind….

The only issue with riding (MTB) in Aus is that others have stated, it’s a portion of a day drive away to get anywhere worth riding – it’s very flat anywhere near the city.

The cycle shops are great tho, and have good hire fleets

Facetimed my daughter today, who is staying with my family. Uncle can sort a bike if I need. He mentioned going to Canberra for a few days riding. Hardly spoke to my daughter, too busy sorting the riding out 😆

plyphon – Member
The only issue with riding (MTB) in Aus is that others have stated, it’s a portion of a day drive away to get anywhere worth riding – it’s very flat anywhere near the city.

What Sydney or in general?

I’m riding off a decent mountain 4 times a week from home or the office 😉

If you do Canberra do some of the other stuff too, War Museem is excellent and a really big eye opener to the normal UK/Euro telling of war history.
Parliament is worth a tour and the national gallery.

Oh and Bent Spoke Brewing

Cheers Mike. Where are you living?

Hobart 🙂

only issue with riding (MTB) in Aus is that others have stated, it’s a portion of a day drive away to get anywhere worth riding

I don’t know what the cool kids are calling categories now but there’s OMV in Hornsby for example. Plenty of cheeky trails in kuringgai. and that’s not talking about belanglo and whatever the place next to it is called. It depends where you’re starting from in Sydney too obviously

I flew out to NZ via LAX for the ?40kg? allowance with AirNZ.

It could probably only happen to me, but do check the person who inputs the data books the same baggage allowance onwards….

(Thanks STA travel, real well done)

If you book flights in one go you get the luggage allowance for the route.
If the bookings are separates – ie multiple tickets not on one booking then you will get the individual allowances. My folks did South America on separate flights as that was the only way they could, there was one link in the middle with a 18kg allowance so that was their lot!
The states is/has always been a bit more generous, think I had 70kg when I went last time

Internal OZ and Trans Tasman (NZ) you can buy extra for not very much on Virgin & Qantas. I think it’s about $25 each way on Virgin for another 23kg.