In general I try to avoid traveling with a bicycle if i can due to the difficulty of transfers and onward urban travel on public transport. Now that we have a 6 month old son these issues have been further complicated. However, with some airlines I have found them to be very helpful and in several cases i have been able to bring my bike for no extra charge. This has either been on New Zealand internal flights or on International flights with a 2 bag allowance, where the extra dimension charge for the bike box was ignored.

Rental fees can make hiring a bike for an extended period prohibitively expensive. However with the increasing prevalence of networks such as this one, the idea of bike sharing is very appealing. Is there a community bike workshop in Columbia? If so you could contact them and see if they can help you. I know that in my own case, one of my main justifications for keeping so many bicycles when i can only rode 1 at a time, is that i often loan bicycles to visiting friends and acquaintences. I am hope to expand this arrangement - but not too much, as I depend on the familiarity of "word of mouth" contact to ensure that users are trustworthy. Anyway it could be as easy as an email to the ThinkTank: "I am travelling to Renaissance, Iowa for X days and would like to borrow a bike or hire one on the cheap".

At the last national meeting of the New Zealand Cycle Advocate Network (the CANdo) in November 08, local cyclists in Christchurch provided ~20 bikes for the meeting attendees to use for the 3 day conference. They even gave us the opportunity of picking our bikes up immediately on arrival at the airport, or a chauffered ride into the city on the back of a tandem! This really inspired me to make my bicycles available for other cycle advocates to use . . . so if anybody is coming to Rotorua, New Zealand and wants to borroe a bike for a few days . . . .

cheers, chris

Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 17:36:23 -0400
From: jesse.freedom@gmail.com
To: thethinktank@bikecollectives.org
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] bikes (and suits) on planes

I've heard of somebody paying $15 and bringing their bike as extra baggage. They had dismantled the bike, then stacked it like you would to put inside a bike shipping box, and just wrapped the thing in layers of plastic wrap. I'm going to try it when I fly to Seattle in August...it may not be worth the effort though, if you'll only be in MO for a week.

Jesse


On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Bob Giordano <mist@strans.org> wrote:

could try using your bike frame as a hanger for a jacket, put into a
hanging bag, hung at the front of the plane in the closet.  creative use
of 'bike parts' if one is asked.  wheels in carry on.  could it work?


Boson Au wrote:
> Hi everyone, sorry for this potential spam but I don't really have any
> other
> resources to ask...
>
> I'm going to be in columbia, Missouri from next saturday on for the week
> and
> was wondering what options do I have of renting a bike there?  will it
> make
> more sense for me to just suck up the large baggage fee and bring my own?


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