Pamir Highway - Flying with the Bikes (theory!)

 

Introduction

To date, I haven't flown with my bike. I've always cycled from home to a port and caught a ferry across to France to start a bikepacking trip in Europe. But this year's trip will start in Tajikistan and end in Kyrgyzstan and so The Mule will be taking its first flight on a plane.

Airlines publish fairly general information about packaging your bike so that it can go in the hold of the aircraft but you're left to figure out the details yourself. Luckily there are plenty of videos on YouTube that cover the subject with people sharing their experience and recommendations. I watched several and knowing more about the subject, devised a plan for getting my bike to Tajikistan and later, home from Kyrgyzstan.

Airline Tickets and Cost

Airlines don't usually carry bikes for free (i.e. as part of the cost of your standard ticket). We're flying to Tajikistan with Turkish Airlines and had to pay an extra £160 for each bike. Our return flights are with budget airline Pegasus and it cost an additional 65 euros for each bike.

Baggage Items and Weight

Our standard ticket gave us the usual entitlement to a single item of luggage in the hold of the aircraft and two items in the cabin. It's worth remembering that the bike isn't the only thing that needs transporting that you wouldn't need to worry about on a typical holiday. Panniers and other bike luggage has to somehow go on the plane as well. 

On Turkish Airlines, maximum weight limits for the various categories of baggage are as follows:

Bike in box : 23 kg

Hold: 23 kg

Main Cabin Baggage: 8 kg

Personal Item in Cabin: 4 kg

Everything has to be packed into these four containers somehow and weight distributed such that the various limits are not exceeded. In addition, certain items cannot go in the hold such as batteries and power banks.

Pegasus Airlines have slightly different weight limits:

Hold: 20 kg

Main Cabin Baggage: 8 kg

Personal item under seat: 3 kg 

No information about the maximum weight a bike (in box) can be is published by Pegasus so we're bracing ourselves for an expensive shock on this point.

The Mule weighs just under 18 kg (The Mule is chunky) and the cardboard box a further 5.6 kg, so there's not a lot of spare weight capacity in the box. 

The Bike

Bikes have to be in a "sturdy box" and adjusted to ensure the bike does not need an overly wide or high box. More on how this is accomplished appears below.

Six into One?

I have six main bags that I attach somehow to the bike. At the rear I have two panniers and a large bag for the tent and other things that goes across the top of the panniers. At the front I have two fork bags and a handlebar bag. But I'm only allowed one bag in the hold.

I also have a "bum bag" I carry stuff I want to have immediately at hand such as money, documents,.sunglasses and so on.

I will be taking one pannier and the bum bag (as what Turkish Airlines call my personal item) into the cabin with me. That leaves the other pannier, the large camping bag, the two fork bags and the handlebar bag to somehow get into the hold. To solve this problem I bought a large nylon laundry bag. It only cost £5 but hopefully will do the job. Twice. Because I intend to carry it all the way to Osh in Kyrgyzstan and use it for the return flight too.

I might be able to squeeze a fork bag or two in with the bike in its box but this has not yet been tested and there's not much spare weight allowance in the bike box.

Preparing and Packing a Bike for Flying

We tried to get a cardboard bike box for free from a local bike shop but gave up when we couldn't get a box big enough. In the end we paid about £30 each for bike boxes from a UK bike builder called Ribble Cycles. They're good quality cardboard boxes of exactly the right dimensions. It's a shame we'll have to abandon them at Dushanbe airport!

Before packing my bike into its box I will need to undertake certain steps. I rehearsed the process recently and it went something like this:

1. Remove the front wheel

Removing the front wheel and putting it into the box alongside the frame makes the bike shorter. I wedged a piece of card in between the front brake pads to ensure it wasn't possible to accidentally apply the brake and lose a load of hydraulic fluid in the process!

There's a risk the box will have other items stacked on top of it in the hold so to protect the front forks from being compressed, I cut a section of plastic pipe and wedged it between them with the quick release axle pushed through to ensure the pipe couldn't get pushed out.

2. Remove the pedals 

Airlines indicate that pedals should be removed. This makes the bike narrower.

Pedals are tightened to quite a high torque so can be tough to get off. Even tougher if you forget that the direction to undo or tighten a pedal is the opposite to the norm on the non-drive side! The general rule is that turning the nut in the same direction the wheels rotate in will always tighten the pedal. Anyway, fortunately I didn't forget :-)

I wrapped the pedals in bubble wrap and put them in the bike box.

3. Remove the handlebars 

Also intended to reduce the width requirement, handlebars must be detached and fastener vertically to the forks. It's worth noting their orientation before removing them.

I screwed back into place the retaining bracket and bolts for safe keeping.

4. Remove the rear derailleur 

The derailleur is also potentially vulnerable to being damaged. I removed it (but left the cable connected) and taped it to the inside of the chainstay where it has some protection. I also wrapped a cloth around it.

5. Lower the saddle

To create more space in the box I removed my saddle bag and lowered the saddle.

6. Put everything in the box!

I needed to take care to ensure everything got packed, including the front wheel and pedals. It would be shame to arrive in Tajikistan and realise I hadn't packed my bike's front wheel!

I stowed the front wheel with the disk rotor facing inwards for protection and added some cardboard to cover the hub on the other side. Its sharp edges were snagging on the inside of the box.

And that was it. Voila!

The Return Flight from Osh to London

We'll have to go through the same procedure to get our bikes home from Osh. But we'll first have to obtain (or make) a box since the boxes we will be using for our outbound flight to Dushanbe will have to be left there. I've already identified a bike shop in Osh that other travellers have had success in buying boxes from so we'll try there first.

That's it!