jfarwell

hi Folks
In early June, Air France managed to lose one of the cases that were holding our True North titanium tandem. All we have left is the front triangle, the seat-posts and saddles, the rear wheel, the stoker bar, and the fork. Enough time has passed that we are pretty sure we will never see the rest of the bike. If you happen to see a partial frame come up for sale (or just sitting around somewhere), please let me know. I have posted the a photo of the bike below.

On the plus side, we did end up buying a couple of single gravel bikes, so we are re-discovering the joys of riding single. That said, we really miss our big wheel tandem, and plan to have another one built.
Thanks for now
Joe

act0fgod

Ouch. Really sorry for this.

Hopefully you used a card with good lost luggage insurance when purchasing the flight as I've read Air France is terrible with lost luggage claims and the max liability, they'll take without additional insurance is under $2k right?

Have you tried to contact True North and see if they'd be willing to fabricate just the missing half for a discount?

reburns

That’s heartbreaking. Such a beautiful bike. I feel your pain. Lufthansa did the same thing to us back in 2017 when we landed In Berlin during what we discovered was an airport strike. Fortunately we were able to complete our trip on a rented tandem, and the lost half of our bike ended up making it home before we did. I hope your new bike turns out to be the best yet.

jfarwell

Thanks (Act0fgod) it’s a good reminder that airlines have very limited liability, at about 1600 euros under the Montreal convention. We are lucky we live very close to True North, and I am already communicating with them. This fall I’ll bring the remaining bike parts over to the shops and see what they can do. We are leaning toward a full rebuild; the drivetrain has 32,000 kilometers on it, and we were planning on some changes after our France trip.

jfarwell

Thanks (reburns). It’s good to know you got back the missing half of your tandem, and that you were able to rent a bike and salvage the trip. We were lucky to rent singles in Bedoin, and ride the Gorges de la Nesque route a couple of times, did not want to take unfamiliar bikes up Mont Ventoux ( or down it).

scycheng

I have started putting AirTag (or equivalent tags) in all our check-in luggage. Let me track where the luggage is. It should at least be in the same airport as I am. Worked well for flying from Shenzhen to Ottawa with a bike-in-case which involved a ferry, 3 flights and 4 airports.

LV2TNDM

So sorry to hear! Man, that's horrible.

Seconding the above advice, not that it's any help for your lost bike at this point. But for future trips. I put AirTags in our tandem cases last year and sure enough, one bag was misdirected. It was nice seeing the location of our "lost" bag. It made it back to us. However, it was frustrating not being able to determine the condition of our piece of luggage, as we couldn't reach anyone at the airport it was sitting in. So had it been run over by a baggage cart? Fell out of the plane? Turns out it just accidentally went to baggage claim in our layover airport. It was delivered two days later intact.

Were you able to make an insurance claim on the loss? Not much good with a $5-10k deductible, I realize.

Radium226

Hi Joe,
There is a case with a True North tandem on sale by the french customs, ministry of Justice next week and it seems to be the missing part of your tandem. I cannot send photos or share link because I am a new member. The website is MoniteurLive, item 273. I can help you if you wish.

Kind regards,
David

obrentharris 

@jfarwell see above post regarding missing tandem half.
Brent

jfarwell

Hi David
Thanks very much for bringing this to our attention. That is most definitely the other half of our tandem. I sent a private message to you a few moments ago. We would appreciate any help you can provide. If you are in France and able to pick up the bike at the auction house, we'll figure out a way to pay for it and get over to pick it up in April.
Please let me know if you received my private note. thanks
Joe

Radium226

Joe,
I will do my best to to get it back to you. I've sent a private message to you.

David

due ruote 

Wow. Would love to hear that this unlikely star alignment/internet miracle works out. Please report back!

Radium226

Hi,
I heard from Joe that it should be successful!

jfarwell

Things are looking pretty positive. The bike frame has been pulled from the auction, and we are cautiously optimistic about getting the shipping sorted out. Special thanks to David for letting us know about this one. Will give a full account when we get the frame parts back home. 😀

jfarwell

I am happy to update that our tandem case has been returned. We are in Rio de Janeiro now, but we have news from home that our tandem case has arrived. French customs was very helpful. We had Bikeflights.com arrange for UPS pick up the case and deliver it to a friend's house while we were away. Again, special thanks to David for identifying our bike. Looking forward to re-assembling the bike when we get back home.

JanMM

Love a story with a happy ending!

PromptCritical 

That's awesome!

LV2TNDM

Amazing! Big kudos to David for tracking down your half-bike! (Ha, ha! Sorry, couldn't resist.)

So I'm curious how everything wrapped up for you. Were you out of pocket on any expenses for the return? Did Air France pick up the cost of shipping? I assume since it was YOUR property, you didn't have to pay anything to "buy" back your stuff, right? So, did you not have any identifying information on the bike and in the bag? Or are they just too stupid to figure out something that comes from an airline, appears to be rather expensive, would probably have a name and contact information? For them to just send off what I assume are cartloads of "unclaimed luggage" is beyond unacceptable. Sounds like they're too lazy, hurried, or "profit-oriented" to devote a microgram of care and/or due diligence to get luggage back to their customers. Looks like Air France will NOT be my airline of choice for future travel!

Given the cost of this "lost" item, AF owes you big time. If they don't offer any contrition and compensation, I'd say be sure to express your displeasure with them far and wide on the interwebs!

I printed out about a million little paper squares to tape in my bikes (and other personal property):
"This belongs to:
LV2TNDM
DL License #
(123) 456-7890"

(Cops say your DL# is the BEST identifier to track owners of stolen property. Oh and for travel, it occurs to me that I should probably add an email address so I can be reached easily from foreign lands.)

I use clear packing tape from Costco that's super beefy and put these on my BB spindles, my steerer tubes, and just about anywhere else I can think of. In addition and as I said previously, I'm using AirTags whenever traveling.

Thanks again for following up and spreading the good news.

jfarwell

LV2TNDM: Thanks for the tips on including measures to identify our luggage when we travel. We have also added airtags to our security measures.

I am happy to pass along some additional information. There were some minor incidental costs, but the outcome is so positive, we are okay with that.

We learned that when baggage is delayed the airline will compensate you for reasonable out-of-pocket costs that result from the delay. In our case our claim included the cost of a rental car, renting a pair of single bikes for a couple of days, and a few incidental costs.

When 21 days passed, the bag was declared "lost". We rolled the cost of the lost tandem into the claim, along with our camera, GPS and everything else we had in the lost case. In accordance with the Montreal Convention of 1999, airlines' liability is limited to about 1700 Euros for lost baggage, and Air France provided that compensation without hesitation.

Getting the bike back was not too complicated, but it did take some back and forth communication. Bikeflights arranged for UPS to pick up the case in Paris, and deliver it home. We are still in Brazil, but we know the case is at a friend's house. The cost for the delivery was around $225, which is much cheaper than flying over to pick it up ourselves.

When we get home I'll rebuild the bike and get serious about selling our other tandem.