tirsdag, november 04, 2008


I'm just about to fly with the Birdy for the first time. A friend of mine has a Bike Friday and kindly lent me the Samsonite F'lite 31" case for this trip.

Packing the case went pretty well. Getting the bike disassembled/folded was the least of my problems - once it was in the case, there was so much room I had to do some head scratching on how to pad/brace it so it won't move around in shipping. Basically the bike took up only the bottom half of the case, and with a fair bit of room around the sides. Cunningly, once the wheels are off, the Birdy can be folded such that the derailleur sits between the fork legs - hence no chance of it getting bent.

Weight-wise, the bike + tools + shoes + helmet + case = 40 lbs on our probably wildly inaccurate home scale. So I put all my clothes in too! Hope that our scale isn't too far off what they find at the airport, or I may have to do some last minute redistribution to my carry-on luggage....

UPDATE: one thing about packing my Birdy - the particular one I have isn't as fast to pack as Birdys are often made out to be. Mine doesn't have the height-adjustable handlebar riser, which means that I can't just slide the handlebars off to pack in the case. I have to unbolt the stem faceplate to take the bars off. Ok, it's just one more step, but it's a little fiddly and adds time.

Etiketter: