Travelling with a bike on VS
Posted: 07 Sep 2013, 22:20Hi all,
In case anyone is interested, we recently took our bikes to Washington with VS, and have to say i am really impressed with the service we received. I couldn't find many pages with people's experience so thought i'd offer up mine. I apologise in advance if it appears i am rambling on.
When talking to Virgin about taking them, the lady who i spoke to seemed very proud of their bike travel arrangements, especially as there was no additional costs.
I spent some time looking around on the web to see how other people transported their bikes, and the general consensus seemed to be to use the bags supplied by the CTC, virgin recommended the bag, but also putting the bike in a large cardboard box.
We chose not to use the cardboard box as storage whilst we were away would be an issue.
The bikes are insured for a nominal £10 per kilo, so additional insurance is required or you can take a chance. I chose to use a company called ETA, who stipulated the bike had to be specifically labelled as a bike on the manifest (Cost for an £800 bike was £60 for a year, but covered the bike in the US - I got a quote from Velosure, but they wouldn't insure the bikes outside of Europe).
On to the important bits.
The bags can be bought from either the CTC directly or via Wiggle.co.uk - am sure other places sell them. They are basically just a big heavy polythene bag big enough to roll the bike straight in. (Cost is about £14 each - they can supposedly be used multiple times).
We wrapped the main tubes of the frames in pipe lagging for protection, removed the pedals, turned the handlebars to line up with the top tube, dropped the seat to the lowest levels and removed most of the air from the tyres. Slid the bikes in the bag and wrapped with copious amounts of "fragile" tape.
Taking it through the airport was interesting, the bags have to be completely sealed, so theres no wheeling the bikes through, I couldn't find a way to get them on the luggage carts in heathrow, so ended up carrying them through to check-in.
We flew PE so there were no queues for the check-in kiosk, EC would have made it a lot harder IMHO, the bikes were checked, and we had to take them over to a chap with a trolley who told us we needed to be with him when they went through the x-ray machine. He wasn't massively helpful though, telling me to remove air from tyres, which were flat anyway, he took us through an exit that said staff only, the proceeded to ram my bike (the bigger of the 2) onto the conveyor belt, apparently my face went pale whilst he was doing so, and was noticed by another member of staff that informed him to do the check manually, colour returned to my face, and the bike were taken through. We then exited back to the main terminal, and everything went as normal.
On arrival at Washington DC the bikes were left on the floor at the end of a carousel, not wanting to drag them along we removed the plastic bags, folded them up and put them in the luggage, then wheeled the bikes through customs and out to our friends waiting to pick us up.
The bikes both came through relatively unscathed, there were a few minor scratches on the frames, but nothing that wouldn't happen with normal riding to be honest with you.
On our return flight back from Dulles, we used the Red Cap service at departures, before we dropped off our rental car. It worked quite well, a nice chap with a big trolley, took all the bags and the bikes, convinced the traffic warden (is that what they call them there?) that we were checking in, so not to tow the hire car, we checked in, the bikes were taken and we went back to the car, to drop off.
We didn't see the bikes again until baggage claim in Heathrow, I wasn't sure where the bikes would be, so spoke to the lady on the baggage desk, who went off and found them, 5 minutes later the 2 bikes were delivered to where we were waiting, by 2 smiling Virgin baggage handlers.
Again no noticable damage to the bikes, very pleased with the service, and will definitely be taking them again.
I hope this post is of use to someone else.
Rob
In case anyone is interested, we recently took our bikes to Washington with VS, and have to say i am really impressed with the service we received. I couldn't find many pages with people's experience so thought i'd offer up mine. I apologise in advance if it appears i am rambling on.
When talking to Virgin about taking them, the lady who i spoke to seemed very proud of their bike travel arrangements, especially as there was no additional costs.
I spent some time looking around on the web to see how other people transported their bikes, and the general consensus seemed to be to use the bags supplied by the CTC, virgin recommended the bag, but also putting the bike in a large cardboard box.
We chose not to use the cardboard box as storage whilst we were away would be an issue.
The bikes are insured for a nominal £10 per kilo, so additional insurance is required or you can take a chance. I chose to use a company called ETA, who stipulated the bike had to be specifically labelled as a bike on the manifest (Cost for an £800 bike was £60 for a year, but covered the bike in the US - I got a quote from Velosure, but they wouldn't insure the bikes outside of Europe).
On to the important bits.
The bags can be bought from either the CTC directly or via Wiggle.co.uk - am sure other places sell them. They are basically just a big heavy polythene bag big enough to roll the bike straight in. (Cost is about £14 each - they can supposedly be used multiple times).
We wrapped the main tubes of the frames in pipe lagging for protection, removed the pedals, turned the handlebars to line up with the top tube, dropped the seat to the lowest levels and removed most of the air from the tyres. Slid the bikes in the bag and wrapped with copious amounts of "fragile" tape.
Taking it through the airport was interesting, the bags have to be completely sealed, so theres no wheeling the bikes through, I couldn't find a way to get them on the luggage carts in heathrow, so ended up carrying them through to check-in.
We flew PE so there were no queues for the check-in kiosk, EC would have made it a lot harder IMHO, the bikes were checked, and we had to take them over to a chap with a trolley who told us we needed to be with him when they went through the x-ray machine. He wasn't massively helpful though, telling me to remove air from tyres, which were flat anyway, he took us through an exit that said staff only, the proceeded to ram my bike (the bigger of the 2) onto the conveyor belt, apparently my face went pale whilst he was doing so, and was noticed by another member of staff that informed him to do the check manually, colour returned to my face, and the bike were taken through. We then exited back to the main terminal, and everything went as normal.
On arrival at Washington DC the bikes were left on the floor at the end of a carousel, not wanting to drag them along we removed the plastic bags, folded them up and put them in the luggage, then wheeled the bikes through customs and out to our friends waiting to pick us up.
The bikes both came through relatively unscathed, there were a few minor scratches on the frames, but nothing that wouldn't happen with normal riding to be honest with you.
On our return flight back from Dulles, we used the Red Cap service at departures, before we dropped off our rental car. It worked quite well, a nice chap with a big trolley, took all the bags and the bikes, convinced the traffic warden (is that what they call them there?) that we were checking in, so not to tow the hire car, we checked in, the bikes were taken and we went back to the car, to drop off.
We didn't see the bikes again until baggage claim in Heathrow, I wasn't sure where the bikes would be, so spoke to the lady on the baggage desk, who went off and found them, 5 minutes later the 2 bikes were delivered to where we were waiting, by 2 smiling Virgin baggage handlers.
Again no noticable damage to the bikes, very pleased with the service, and will definitely be taking them again.
I hope this post is of use to someone else.
Rob