5 Tips for Traveling With Your Bike | Tech Tuesday #197

Recently, Calvin and our video guy Dane and I visited our friend Seth. We planned to do some riding, so I packed up my bike and the three of us flew to North Carolina. It was a fun trip. We had a blast, but also it was the first time I'd ever flown with my bike. Along the way, I thought of some tips that might be nice for people traveling with their bikes. What tips do you have? Leave them in the comment section. Remove your rotors. A slight bend in a rotor can be very annoying. Removing reduces this risk from happening. Remove your rear derailleur. This makes additional space and protects your rear derailleur and hanger from damage. Do not pack CO2 cartridges. These are a no-no on airplanes. They may not always be found, but they should not be brought in with. You can and you should pack more than just your bike in the box. Shoes, helmet, tools, and maybe even some stinky clothing are all common items. Make it as easy as possible for the TSA to inspect your bike. This will make your life much easier. This brings me to what to expect when unpacking your bike after a flight. So we're back from our trip. We've got our bike back, so we have not been into this box yet. These boxes are always opened by the TSA. They will always go in there. There's going to be usually a slip in there, so we'll probably see hopefully a little baby slip in here letting us know that they were in here. Another point is that just because you knew how to put your bike in a box nice and cleanly doesn't mean that they know how to put it back in the box nice and cleanly. This box is a little messed up. They did not know how to get it back into the box. So on that, let's get into this. Looks like one wheel's good. Second wheel's good. I spy with my little eyes something white and tag-like. The Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, is required by law to inspect all checked baggage. As part of this process, some bags are opened and physically inspected. Your bag was among those selected for physical inspection. Fun. So these bags were strategically located here and here. Looks like all the parts for our bike is here. All of it is in one piece. No damage anywhere. A couple things out of position. That's to be expected. They're going to inspect inside of it. I think one of the things that I really enjoyed about this trip was it was a great way to kind of kick off traveling on an airplane with my bike. And what I really want to emphasize to you is don't be afraid. Just go out there and explore. Go new places with your bicycle. Find all the cool places that a bike can actually lead you. And on that, we'll talk to you next time.