Getting Your Bike There
If you’re planning a local cycling trip, you may only need to think about getting a bike rack installed on your car to get to your cycling route. But if you’re planning to begin your cycle touring or bikepacking trip beyond your local area or abroad and you want to ride your own bike (and not rent one when you get there), you’re going to have to figure out how you’re going to get your bike to the starting point of your route and back home again when your trip is over.
Bike Boxes and Travel Cases
To transport your bike to your destination, you can either use a free cardboard box with lots of padding around your bike or you can spend some money and get yourself a specialized bike case, which offers way more protection. You can usually get a free cardboard bike box from your local bike shop. Just ask them. We’re talking about the bike boxes that the bikes come in when they arrive at the bike shop from the manufacturer, and the bike shop typically throws them out, so there’s no reason why they wouldn’t give you one — you just have to ask. Specialized bike travel cases come in both hard-shell and soft-shell versions. Both are widely available and can be pretty expensive, running upwards of $1,000 CAD (around $750 USD). They’re perfect for getting your bike to your route. For maximum protection, a hard-shell case is your best option, although they’re generally heavier than soft-shell cases and can cost you more in shipping or excess luggage fees. Also, hard-shell cases are a pain to have to store when not in use. Soft-shell cases provide excellent protection and are much lighter than hard-shell cases, and they’re also much easy to store when not in use. If your start and end point of your route are different locations (i.e., you’re not riding a circuit), getting your bike case from your start point to your end point can be an issue. If you don’t have a means of getting your bike case to your end point, we recommend that you design a trip that enables you to get back to your start point with your bike by another means (e.g., by train). This strategy will allow you to store your bike case at your start point. Most major hotels and train stations have storage solutions for this.
Packing your Bike
You can quickly and easily learn how to pack your bike yourself. Check out these two excellent videos that provide detailed instructions on how to partially disassemble and pack your bike for safe and secure travel.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to pack your bike yourself, take it down to your local bike shop and pay them to disassemble and pack it for you. Be sure to check with them in advance whether they offer this service. In addition, you can ask whether they will also ship your bike to a shop at or near your destination so a professional bike mechanic can put it back together for you and check it to make sure it’s all good for your trip. You can do the same thing on the return journey.
By Air
If you’re flying to your point of departure, you’ll need to fly your bike there, too. Flying with full-size bikes is not as awful as it sounds. You’ll need to break down your bike to some degree and pack it safely in your bike case. We recommend getting some pool noodles and cutting them down to size so you can wrap the bars of your bike frame with them. This provides excellent extra protection en route. The rules and prices for oversized baggage differ from airline to airline. Some treat a boxed bike as regular luggage and charge the same as regular checked baggage, while others treat them as oversized luggage and some charge quite a lot. Check your airline's rules carefully before you get started.
By Train
Train travel, including frequency, capacity, accessibility, and network reach, is quite different from country to country and continent to continent. In particular, there is a stark difference between North American and European rail networks, but it’s still a great option for some tours in both cases. The rules for bringing bikes on trains vary between them and from train service to train service. In North America, free carry-on bike service is available on certain trains. On others, your bike or your bike case must be checked for a fee (which can also vary quite significantly). In Europe, local, low-speed trains often accept fully assembled bikes, while high-speed trains typically require specifed reservations for your bike that you need to make when you purchase your ticket.
By Courier
Another good way to get your bike there, if you’re not interested in lugging a bike case through an airport or train station, is to ship it to your destination by courier. You’ll need to do this ahead of time, so you’ll want to coordinate this with the courier company as well as the recipient at the destination. We recommend that, if you choose this method, you schedule your arrival before that of your bike, so you can pick it up when it arrives. This option is not cheap, but at least you’ll know your bike will arrive safely and there’s less of a chance that it will end up as lost luggage. Most international couriers will ship your bike and some will also insure it for you. Be sure to enquire about these services. There are also service providers out there that will arrange for your bike to be shipped for you domestically and internationally by courier. They’ll take care of the whole thing for you (for a fee of course), including picking up your packed bike and shipping it for you door to door.