[amol4184]

Not technically within India but last week I flew in a road bike from USA to Mumbai. Having never carried anything in oversized baggage I was apprehensive about a bunch of things but in the end it turned out well barring a few surprises.

(Please note the pictures are all after I landed home but arranged to match the text)

Here is what I did and how it went -

1. Procured a bike box from bike shop. They are more than happy to give one away. In this case I got a Trek Madone box for L/XL sized bike. The boxes can be small for small sized bikes. The shop owner gave all the packaging material from original bike and then some more. Besides he also gave me some ingenious tips because the airline travel can be damage inducing as the baggage gets thrown around brutally.

2. Dismantled the bike almost completely. Only bits that were not removed were crankset, front derailleur and rim brake calipers. Small parts like headset bearings, derailleur hangar, stem spacers, top cap, rear derailleur, chain, quick links were individually wrapped and put inside a medium sized Amazon delivery box.

3. Wrapped every tube of the bike frame with thick foam. Extra care taken for the far ends of the frame and the part that was going to touch to bottom of the box. In my case I put the frame upside down (seat tube facing downwards) so an extra thick foam blob on the seatpost clamp area.





Shifters wrapped with only a bubble wrap since the handlebar was pretty much suspended between frame and other packaging.


Extra care for wheel axles. Those are the most common parts that punch hole in the box and come out getting damaged. Those little plastic discs fit perfectly onto axles and provide vital protection. Also seen is the heavily wrapped fork and wheel dropouts bolstered with thick duct tape


Everything as it was put in the box. I forgot to deflate the tires but no biggie. Qatar airways guidelines mentioned the tires should be deflated.


See that white plastic thing sandwiched between wheel and box? That's a plastic food container. Worked beautifully! This was a tip from bike shop who gave me the box.


More food containers! This time to stop rear wheel dropouts from poking hole in the box. Not seen, but similarly I placed those containers at the bottom of the box too where the frame rested on seat tube.




With some juggling the box fit perfectly on the backseat of Thar V1. The box is 48 inches long.


The box in its entirety. I bolstered the grab handle cutouts with extra thick duct tapes to prevent them from tearing. Worked well I guess.


The TSA tapes put on by TSA personnel at Seattle airport. Must say he did a pretty good job. Had a layover at Doha. They put this tag on. This is only present on oversized luggage and not on any other bags that we had. The oversized luggage does get treated differently.



Moment of truth. Frankly, even though the box looked fine from outside I was still skeptical and EAGERLY waiting to open it. Amazingly the TSA leaflet remained in its place even though it was just sitting on the top flap without any sticky tape.


SuperSix Evo in all its glory! Everything came out of the box exactly as it was packed. No damage. The box did receive a few holes and the corners of it have been mangled.


Few notes:

1. Rim brake bike is going to make life a hell lotta easier compared to disc. Hydraulic discs especially are going to be a nightmare to pack as you cannot remove the handlebar. If the bike is internal cable routed, then exponentially more headache.

2. I was surprised that the oversized luggage does not get scanned through scanners at Seattle. Instead you must personally take your luggage to oversized baggage section and hand it over. The people there will open it up and repackage everything! I almost gasped when he said he has to cut the box. I had spent around 3 hours packing the damn thing. All this because they don't have machines large enough to scan such boxes

3. Depending on your luck the baggage department can be empty (best case scenario) or busy (worst case scenario). If its empty they will repackage it nicely and tape it carefully. If they are busy, they will wrap it with a single round of tape and call it a day - this is straight from the mouth of the person who checked my box. I must say this I got lucky but could have been disastrous fairly easily.

4. Oversized luggage often has higher limit than other baggage e.g. 32kg v/s 23 in Qatar's case. My bike, box, packaging material all included came to 18kg. So I put a lot of my other stuff in it (e.g. clothes, shoes, laptop chargers etc) and reduced the weight from other bags. In the end my box weighed 25 odd kilos.

5. In Mumbai it took a solid 1 hour for oversized luggage to arrive and I kept getting nervous every passing moment. The facility is in shambles with hundreds of unclaimed items lying everywhere. There is almost no empty space to keep stuff. Make sure you go there and wait before time or else the employees will throw the boxes on ground outside the room.

6. Customs was fine. Two guys asked me what was inside and I told them its a bicycle. Mumbai airport thankfully has humongous scanners and just before I exited, they put my box through one of the scanners. My heart sank but nothing happened. An officer on duty seemed familiar with those boxes and said "jau dya, jau dya" meaning "Let it go". I don't know what would have happened othewise.


All in all, with some luck this can be fairly easy and cheap. Because the dedicated bike boxes are rather expensive. And despite my anecdotal experience I am still not convinced with the customs after landing in India. It seemed dicey and completely at the mercy of the persons guarding the gates.

[ebonho]

Nice bike Amol! I'm really agog with admiration and not a little envious of your ability to pick up such a steady stream of beautiful Cannondales one after another. I know you ride a 58, so even that slim opportunity of picking one up from you is gone.

Cheers, Doc

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by amol4184

1. Procured a bike box from bike shop. They are more than happy to give one away. In this case I got a Trek Madone box for L/XL sized bike. The boxes can be small for small sized bikes. The shop owner gave all the packaging material from original bike and then some more. Besides he also gave me some ingenious tips because the airline travel can be damage inducing as the baggage gets thrown around brutally.

Nice job. Had pretty much the same experience half a decade ago, but the only difference is I got the bike box and the packaging done by a nearby bike shop in NY city. Think I paid somewhere 40-50 bucks. Rest of the experience was pretty much the same, with the destination at Mumbai airport only. Think the only other advice I would add is not to keep the bike in a spotless state, helps argue to the customs guys (if needed) that this is a used and old bike.

Look foreword to seeing it in full glory once assembled.

[amol4184]

Originally Posted by ebonho

Nice bike Amol! I'm really agog with admiration and not a little envious of your ability to pick up such a steady stream of beautiful Cannondales one after another. I know you ride a 58, so even that slim opportunity of picking one up from you is gone.

Cheers, Doc

Thanks Doc! Cannondale bikes have been my favorite - the SSE is one of the best bikes I have ridden. I ride 56 and 58 both with some adjustments to seatpost setback and stem length. My CAAD 10 is 56. It might be a good idea to ride a 58 with smaller than usual stem and 0 setback seatpost - which is what I did on my earlier SSE for some time. Doesn't feel too big honestly.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Think the only other advice I would add is not to keep the bike in a spotless state, helps argue to the customs guys (if needed) that this is a used and old bike.

Look foreword to seeing it in full glory once assembled.

That is a good idea. Luckily it didn't come to that. I did have greased crankset and dirty bottom bracket just in case

Bike is ready now. Its a 2019 model, very last of the SSE with traditional diamond geometry before Cannondale went with the progressive design of dropped seat stays for model year 2020 onwards.

The colorway is such that even though the bike is in near time-capsule condition, it looks old its a rather inconspicuous bike that flies under the radar!

[neith]

I recently used 'Uplift Solutions' to ship my MTB from Nashik to Chennai and I'm happy to report that the experience was seamless.
I had my usual go-to shop to pack the bike in a standard bike box. The pickup was done from the shop the next day, and the bike was delivered in about a week without any damage.

I also discovered that a Gen1 Jazz can fit a large bike box in the back!