Originally Posted by
cyclezealot
... I bought it with couplings for travel.. But, since I'd like it to be set up for bike travel as soon as it's unloaded; I'd take the bike box option in an instant. ....
Everybody has different priorities. I am retired, so I do not mind the extra time to set up the bike and at the end of a trip re-pack it. And since I built up most of my bikes from the frame, I am very comfortable doing the mechanical work. If you are limited to a week or two for vacation, I can see where you would rather get going immediately. The next trip I am planning, I anticipate being there for five weeks, thus no rush.
Since I have one bike with S&S couplers that is a very capable touring bike, I saw no reason to get couplers added when I bought my Lynskey as I really felt that a second bike with S&S couplers was excessive. Friends of mine have had great luck shipping bikes by BikeFlights.com, thus if I flew somewhere domestically and wanted to use my Lynskey, I would likely use BikeFlights instead of taking the bike on the plane. But International travel, you pretty much have to take the bike on the plane so that it goes through customs with you. Thus, if I want to take my Lynskey somewhere domestically, I will use BikeFlights. Foreign travel, I will limit that to a coupled bike or a folding bike so that it goes into an S&S case.
I find that the S&S couplings and having a case that fits in the trunk of a taxi has great non-monetary benefits, a full size bike box would be a lot more troublesome to get to the airport and return from the airport later. Most of the taxis in my community are Prius cars and the S&S case fits fine in a Prius.
And my next trip, logistics are even more complicated as it will be almost impossible to get from the airport in my community to my destination. So my next trip is:
1. Take taxi from home to near downtown.
2. Take a bus over 100 miles to a bus transfer station.
3. Take a smaller bus to an airport. But my flight would be very early morning next day, so ...
4. Take a motel shuttle bus to nearby motel.
5. Next morning (really early) take a motel shuttle bus back to airport. Check bags and fly to next airport.
6. Pick up my luggage, go through customs. Check my bags again for next flight, which of course means one more round of security personnel looking at my bike.
7. Arrive at final airport. Take a bus to a city center.
8. Somehow move my luggage about two city blocks to where I am spending that night, there is where I will assemble my bike.
This would be an enormous hassle if I had to take a full size bike box instead of an S&S backpack case.
Photo has my luggage from my last trip like this. And second photo is me on my bike later.
I hope you have a great trip.
