Barrettscv 

I'm traveling from Chicago to Milan next week. The 62 in linear box size limit on United has me stumped. Forget the wheels for now, I can put them in a separate box. I can't imagine fitting a bike in a box limited to "62 total linear inches", please see the wording directly from the United website.

"If the bicycles are packed in a container that’s less than 100 pounds (45.3 kilograms) and less than 62 total linear inches (158 centimeters) (length + width + height), they’ll be subject to a flat service charge of $150 each way for travel between the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A service charge of $200 each way applies for all other travel. Service charges for first, second and extra checked bags may apply."

How in the world can anyone with a adult male touring bike with 700c wheels meet this requirement?

Tourist in MSN

S&S coupled bikes. Frame splits into two pieces with couplers.

I have heard that some people have to remove the tires from the rims to fit 700 rims, but I have no first hand knowledge on that. My S&S bike uses 26 inch wheels and I can keep the tires on.

My S&S bike and the case exceed 50 pounds, I have to carry a few parts like pedals and saddle in a different bag to keep my weight below the limit.



I believe that American Air and Delta both dropped the bike oversize fees for bikes and hopefully have not raised them yet. Do you already have your United ticket?

Barrettscv 

Yes, I had United frequent flyer miles I wanted to use up. This is not intended as a touring trip, but I was hoping on bring the bike for sightseeing and exercise.

AngeloDolce

I couldn't even fit a folding bike into 62 linear inches.
Without United frequent flier miles (and company paying for a business trip), I had no problems with American (126 inches allowed)

Note that TSA opened my bicycle box both times, and retaped it. Items inside were rearranged, a bit of damage to the box on the flight out.

softreset

I explored flying a bike with United about 2 years ago and spoke with their customer service team on the phone about clarification on their policy. Because as you said, 62 linear inches is impossible with a non-folding bike and 700c wheels. What I was told (summarizing) was the following:

$200 + $200 for the overweight/oversize fee (each way) if I couldn't meet the size requirement.

Ironically I met a buddy in Vegas last week (who flew United with his bike) and he was well over the 62" requirements and was only charged the $150/each way fee (domestic bike charge). We both agreed that the prospects of a round trip without incident was a fluke and not the norm.

JohnJ80

United's writeup on bikes makes no sense. So, it's going to be up to the baggage agent.

The alternative is to fly Delta where there is no charge for a bike.

Before Delta changed their policy, they charged the same thing that United did, which is ridiculous. We went and bought Orucase Airport Ninja bags and did many flights without getting charged once. You disassemble the wheels, bars, and fork. The resulting bag is very close to 62 linear inches - I think mine, for a large frame, came out to 65 or near that. That's without couplers and with a standard frame. They also have a B2 case that collapses smaller without the bike in it. Also look at Post Carry for their bike case. If I were doing it again, I'd look hard at that one.

Given that it's not square, you can make the case for it being 62" depending on how you measure. At any rate, we checked it through like normal baggage and were never asked to be charged for a bike. One baggage agent asked me what it was (in Norway and KLM) and I said "sports equipment." At any rate, we flew for many segments over several years and were never charged. They're not going to want to get into a measurement argument and just eyeballing it, it's close PLUS (and this is the big plus for them) it will fit in their normal baggage handling system. My personal theory is that they are more worried about weight for fuel costs and lifting injuries/worker's comp than they are about size. So if it's close, less than 50lbs, and fits through their automated baggage handling, then it's all good.

So a lot of how it goes depends on how you deal with the agent. One pro-tip, do curbside check in and tip $20 a bike or something. The Skycap will grease the skids for you for sure. Act like it's normal. Be pleasant. Don't show up looking like a cyclist. I'd guess with the way it's going for airlines right now, the last thing they want to be doing is getting in conflicts with customers. They need all the customers they can get and they need them to be repeat flyers.

Anyhow, being retired now and million milers, we travel with our bikes whenever we fly.

philbob57

You might check-in as late as you dare. When pressed for time, the staff cuts corners. If you check in early, they'll have plenty of time to collect extra fees.

JohnJ80

Just be ready to have your bike show up on a later flight though.

Tourist in MSN

I have talked to some Ritchey Break Away bike owners that say that the airlines are focused on the weight, they generally do not pull out the tape measure. The Ritchey case exceeds 62 inches by a few inches, but it is close enough that airlines often let the case pass through. One owner told me that he had to pay the fee once, another owner told me that he never paid the fee.

To make an extremely long story very short, the dealer where I bought my folding bike told me after I bought it that it would not fit in a 62 inch case. (I won't go into detail on what they told me before I bought it, but it was a different story.) I had bought that for air travel, so after I bought it I was quite angry that I built up that bike and could not use it for the purpose that I built it. But, my anger was at a pretty low level because I changed jobs, I was no longer flying around the country every few months, I was suddenly not flying at all so the lack of a folding bike on non-existent trips was a non-issue.

But, after I got home with my S&S bike after my first trip with that bike, after I unloaded my bike I was looking in this cavernous case and decided to see if I could load my folder into the case. It required a LOT of disassembly (remove both crank arms and fork), but I was able to pack my folder into my S&S case. So, I of course had to fly somewhere with it. TSA opened the case but did not do anything that I could see. They left a note with some scribble on it that was unreadable.

My folder, below, it uses 24 inch wheels. The wood center support in the middle is my creation, the S&S Backpack case lacks a center support.



And the folder was used for a week in West Texas including Big Bend National Park. On this trip I flew Southwest, they give you two free checked bags so my bike flew for free both ways.



The savings from oversize fees for the S&S bike and the folder have now paid for the case and for the optional S&S couplings on the S&S bike.

But more important to me than the fees is the ease of travel with normal sized luggage. When I go on a bike tour I can put both checked bags in the back of a Prius, that car is commonly used as a taxi in my community.

I never hide the fact that I am a cyclist, I do not want baggage handlers to bust my helmet in one of my bags, so I wear my helmet onto the plane.

indyfabz

Uh…The TSA has been screening above pre- pandemic levels. Tried the curbside check in gig once. Guy never asked what was in the box. Imagine my surprise at getting paged after I cleared security. Agent was waiting at the gate to collect my bike fee.

No way my 60cm LHT is fitting in 62”. This is my 83” box.

axolotl

My Bike Friday folder (20" wheels) is designed to pack into a hard plastic 62" suitcase (62" is the total of the 3 measurements). I've flown with it dozens of times, including many international flights. I've never had to pay any extra bike fees.

Tourist in MSN

Nice of them to collect the fee before the plane took off. If you paid the fee after you landed, you might not have gotten your bike for a few days.

***

I might bring a bike with me when I visit my niece at Christmas later this year, flying Delta so it would only be the cost of another regular checked bag each way. But would be picked up by family in a regular car so the bag can't be oversized.

indyfabz

Not if it exceeds 50 lbs. The 115” limit is generous though.

https://www.delta.com/us/en/baggage/...ting-equipment

JohnJ80

What airline was that? Delta and especially KLM (partner) used to be really anal about that but my Orucase cases went right through. I bet I've got 20-25 segments on Delta with those cases.

J.

indyfabz

Honestly can’t remember. At the time, whatever airline it was was charging $75 for a bike. I sure thought I had gotten away with one. The agent told me that the curb side check in guy saw it was a bike when security opened the box to check it after I had dropped it off. I told her that he never asked me what was inside, which was true. Only time I’ve ever been paged in an airport.

JohnJ80

I was always able to get it done with Delta but when we were codeshared on KLM, I always worried because they always seemed to much less flexible to me. But Delta didn't seem to care and KLM didn't either. That was when they were getting $150 a leg for a bike. We were cycling in Norway so it was Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Bergen. That could have been $150 per bike per segment but even then, they didn't charge me for anything. I had pretty high flight status at the time, but I don't think that mattered. Anyhow, we've done that internationally a bunch and domestically even more. Neither cared.

I think what happened is they finally looked at their baggage policies and realized that they were charging exorbitant fees for golf bags or skis and decided if bikes were packaged properly that they would be similar. Now, a bike (unless it recently changed) goes as normal baggage with some caveats (boxed, etc....).

Anyhow, it does seem to vary with carrier. At $75 for a one way trip, I'd be ok without that. That doesn't seems to be in line with normal baggage rules.

Tourist in MSN

On this forum I often comment that the travelers best friend is a luggage scale.

I often am at 49 pounds (or 23 kg when outside of USA) but never over. And those oddball airlines that use 20 kg or other odd numbers, have not flown them.

Three years ago I bought a Ritchey Break Away that has the Raleigh name on it. The case is not as good as the Ritchey case, but I added some reinforcements to it so I would trust a bike in that bag now. That bag exceeds 62 inches, but on Delta that is not an issue. The bike has not yet had an inaugural flight. Might get it at Christmas.
https://www.bikeforums.net/20320677-post87.html

Earlier today I posted a recent photo of it on another thread, repeat of that photo here:

Tourist in MSN

That does exceed the 62 inch criteria, but I can see where they would not charge as it does not look excessively oversize. Looks like a very nice case.

JohnJ80

Agree on the scale thing. That's the one metric that the airline can measure fast and accurately. If you're over then it's fee time. Fuel cost is an issue but I also think that they are trying to keep their worker's comp costs down.

More importantly, how did you like the Ritchey frame? I was contemplating building up the gravel version as a winter bike.

Exactly. It's pretty close, but it's also not clear how you measure it. They see that it fits on their conveyors so they just let it go. I haven't had any of the Delta/KLM people treat it as anything other than a normal bag. Seems big to me but I don't have any large suitcases and some of what I see people carting on vacation makes my bike bag look small in comparison. I fly primarily out of MSP so I guess I'm lucky that Delta is the predominant airline there as long as I like taking our bikes.

Tourist in MSN

Very happy with it. And the Break Away owners that I talked to that had a cyclocross version with canti brakes were quite happy too. But since I have only broken down the frame to test packing it, I do not have a lot of experience with it yet. Rides just like any other good road bike.

The seatpost could be considered a coupler, one seatpost clamp to hold it to the top tube, another seatpost clamp to hold it to the rear triangle. So adjusting seatpost height is a lot slower, but that is not a big deal over the long term. Disregard the black tape on the seatpost, that was my height marker. You can see the Ritchey logo on it, a bike shop manager here in Madison told me that Ritchey built the frames for Raleigh.




Mine has a steel fork, but many Ritchey bikes have carbon, I can't comment on the carbon fork.

Mine has a Campy drive train, some would find that a problem because they are addicts to Shimano or have some such affliction, but I do not like Shimano brifters, prefer Campy. The only downside is the cost of tools to remove the Campy crank if I want to. I considered converting it to a triple, still might some day but pulling the crank off will not be cheap. But if you are building up from the frame, you choose your own drive train.

Ritchey is quite clear on the downtube coupler that you need a specific torque setting, I bought a small torque wrench for that purpose.


You may be lucky now, but I moved from MSP to MSN in 1988, Northwest (before Delta took them over) had about 80 percent of all traffic in and out of MSP after Northwest bought out North Central in mid 1980s, the price of all flights across the board jumped a huge amount when Northwest had a virtual monopoly. And at that time their customer service was what you would expect from a company that had a virtual monopoly.

I still mostly fly Delta which flies out of MSN, but in MSN the airport is quite small and flight options are often limited. I have taken a bus to Milwaukee or to Chicago O'hare to fly other airlines.

mbusky

Leave it home see if you can rent a bike at your destination. www.milanobikerenting.com

Cinelli - Saetta Radical - Road carbon bike 60.00 a day

staehpj1

I'd suggest that you might consider whether you want to support airlines with heinous bicycle baggage policy even when not flying with a bike. When possible try to give your business to bike friendly airlines.

JohnJ80

Thanks for the info on the Ritchey frame. I was looking at the gravel version (don't recall the name) but it was a compelling price with both frame and fork and had gotten some pretty great reviews. Building that up as a 1x with some 40c studded tires would be a fun ride during the winter.

I traveled a lot for business (semiconductor industry) and started with North Central back in the day. Northwest bought them, and while you could always count on NWA for being operationally solid and safe, their idea of customer service was to hit you over the head with a baseball bat while punching you with brass knuckles. They were just awful. They also owned the hub at MSP with 400 more flights per day than all the rest of the airlines combined and prices were on average $100 more per segment than for other airlines. Fortunately the airport commission realized that and actively courted other airlines. Today, it's not as bad although still somewhat more expensive. At least on most of the consumer/vacation routes there is competition now so the Delta prices typically match.

For me, with permanent status now on the air line for the millions of miles I've flown, its easily cheaper for me to fly Delta especially if I have to take any luggage (i.e. bike or skis) since I don't have to pay for it anything other than crazy amounts of luggage. I also have so many miles banked after years of travel that if I need to mitigate a cost with some miles, it's not a big deal. I haven't had to use them much in the last several years as prices seemed to be pretty reasonable. With inflation and fuel costs both going up so fast, I do think that will change this year.

Delta is now top of the industry in customer service (which is a very welcome change) and their willingness to handle bikes and skis makes it kind of a big win for me. They go anywhere I want to go domestically or internationally so it's all good. It does still remain though, that anyone who says "getting there is half the fun" hasn't spent a lot of time with modern air travel or airlines.

Tourist in MSN

Yeah, there were a lot of people doing computer or electronic stuff back then in Minneapolis before silicone valley existed. Honeywell, CDC and MPI, IBM, Univac, etc. Since I moved out of MSP area in 1988 I am sure I forgot another half dozen names or acronyms.

Tourist in MSN

I am still trying to figure out why you want a coupled travel bike frame for a winter bike? Or, is it some other model that has nothing to do with couplers for travel?