Cycling and cycle-tourism has exploded globally! With more and more exciting events and exotic places to ride your bike filling our screens every day, why wouldn’t you want to pack your bike and disappear for a week or three?
As frequent bike travellers, we have learnt (often the tough way) how NOT to pack our bikes and ride gear. From cardboard boxes and packing tape to fancy schmancy German bike-bag engineering; glad-wrap to foam padding; 26” to 29” to 27.5” to 700c wheels; hydraulic disc brakes and tubeless wheelsets (with sealant) to FAT bikes with 4.6” tyres, we’ve seen and experienced it all.
Bike bags vs bike boxes. I am not going to enter into a debate on which is better and why, suffice to say both are perfectly fine as long as they are packed carefully – if you’re not sure how to pack your bike you can always leave it to the experts at your local bike shop (Bicycle Centre Cairns have been providing this service for years – 07 4041 1700).
Whilst heavier than a bike box at ~8.5kg empty, we love our Evoc Bike Travel Bags for their simplicity and ease of packing – a place for everything, and everything in its place. Sure they don’t come cheap, but then again, what’s your bike (and sanity) worth to you? Besides, you can use it over and over and over and over … again! There’s also no need to go searching for coins to pay for an airport luggage trolley, or battling with one once you finally find one (which invariably has a mind of its own). You calmly lift it up by its handle and happily wheel it to where you wish to go, smiling and whistling to yourself along the way.
As we’re off to New Zealand (again) next week, to sample the dirt with Biking Nelson, here is how we prepare our Giant Anthem Advanced SX for the trans-Tasman trip:
Clean thoroughly – including under the saddle and inside the fork steerer tube.
Remove the chain (it helps to have a quick joining link) and place it in a clip seal bag – some may argue and keep their chain on to protect their front chainrings (we use foam for this), however, we do it so we can remove our rear derailleur.
Unscrew rear derailleur from the hanger and affix inside the rear triangle – we’ve been inconvenienced once before by a bent rear derailleur during transit.
Remove disc brake rotors from both wheels before packing – again, due to a previous incident during transit.
Use wedges (not the edible savoury kind) to maintain disc brake pad integrity – whether the factory provided ones or a simple piece of plastic/cardboard.
It may sound a little extreme to go to such lengths as removing rear derailleurs and rotors, but one small knock can quickly change a great holiday into an expensive and/or time-consuming exercise before getting your tyres dirty.
For all your cycling needs, including Evoc Bike Travel Bags, drop-in and talk to your local experts at Bicycle Centre Cairns.
