Traveling with Bleriot

We were off to Utah to celebrate our daughter's university graduation and then visit some National Parks around St. George. There was to be some bicycling, so I planned to pack up the Bleriot. If nothing else, it would be a good shakedown of the dissassembly, packing, and reassembly.

There I was, Wednesday evening, trying to figure out which bike bits to bring along. Fenders were not needed for this trip, and I'm not ever planning to pack the Honjo fenders - they'd get bent. A rack was probably not needed either.

Dissassembly the first time was interesting. Removing the fenders and rack was a bit of an initial puzzle. I set aside all the parts not needed for the trip, then started breaking down the bicycle in earnest.

I cut a big piece of plastic sheeting to do the dissassembly on, and planned to pack it so I'd have a similar surface to do the subsequent reassembly. Keeps the carpet clean, plus little fasteners have a harder time burrowing into the carpet and vanishing.

Disconnect the bike computer (yeah, I know a wireless computer would be MUCH easier to deal with, but I haven't found one with cadence that is reliable and decently priced). Stupid little Phillips head screws.

Remove the water bottle cages.

Disconnect the pedals, remove the front brake entirely. Remove the seat/seatpost. Undo the cable splitters (those are SO cool), pull out the handlebars and stem. Use some of the excess frame protector material to secure all the loose cables to the handlebars.

Remove the chain. I've got an IRD chain with a snap link. It helps to use a rag to hold the chain and do the bending. It helps even more to have another person with a flathead screwdriver or knife blade to pop the link open once the chain is bent :-) Note to self: cleaning the chain and drivetrain beforehand is probably a really good idea.

Put the pedals and chain in separate ziploc bags.

Wash hands a lot.



As I used each tool, I set it in a pile of "tools to take with me". I find that the allen wrenches on the multitool are not always useful - the body of the multitool gets in the way, or it collapses.
Remove and deflate the tires. Remove the wheel skewers, put them in their own ziploc bag.
Take the frame apart. Put the labeled frame protector material on the frame (thank you, Bilenky!). Secure the rear derailleur against the chainstay.

Go upstairs and print out the packing instructions :-)

Put half of the TSA net on the bottom of the case. Put in front triangle, rear wheel. Spend a fair amount of time puzzling out how to nestle the handlebars in there. They go in with one side outside a wheel and one side THROUGH the wheel, plus there is the attached Technomic stem and bar end shifters and ergo brake levers to work around. It took a LOT of wiggling. I kept looking for places where it was hung up, and either tweaked the shifters or scooted the frame or wheel around. The stem ended up going through the wheel as well.

Put in the rear triangle, the front wheel, and the compression members. I think if I had pulled the crank, it would have fit better. As it was, I got a plastic packing thing for the front wheel, to spread the force around. Put the now-folded up plastic sheet and packing instructions on top, then install the top half of the TSA net.



Put in water bottles and a couple of clean rags. I also put in all the tools and loose pieces, but the case weighed in at over 50 lbs, so I pulled them out. Sit on case to close it.

The pedals, chain, tools, tube of grease, bike bags (handlebar and Carradice Barley) and required accessories (patch kit, frame pump, spare tube, spare tire, tire levers, food bits) all went in my duffel.

Whew. Only took 3 hours total.

Got to the airport (love that wheelie case with telescoping handle!). The agent asks: "Is that a bicycle?". Yup, but in a standard suitcase. She thought that was pretty cool, and wanted to know how much it cost to have that done. I told her she didn't want to know :-) That said, I did not have to pay $50 each way to take it with me. I figure 10 plane trips, and I've made the money back :-)

Watched the TSA guys like a hawk. They didn't open it. The x-ray looked like a dissassembled bicycle to me. They did open my husband's golf bag. Closing it back up is always tricky, and he hates it when they do open it. This guy got it right, though.

Subsequent reassembly only took about an hour, and no adjustments of any kind were needed. I love those Silver brakes - they just go right on and are easily set up by hand (too many years of finicky old Dia-Compe sidepulls). The Carradice bag did need a stiffener so it wouldn't rub on the tire - I took the piece of coroplast out of my handlebar bag and used that; I'll cut a right-sized one as soon as I liberate another coroplast sign. As we have an election coming up next week, that should be easy :-)

And yes, I did get out for a ride - we stuffed the bike into the car, went to the bike shop in St George, and Fitz rented a bike. We rode from there out of town onto the Snow Canyon Parkway, up through Snow Canyon State Park (lots of sandstone formations), then back down the bike path along Hwy 18 to St George, and back to the bike shop.



Once you get to the corner of Snow Canyon Parkway and Hwy 18, it is all bike path, except for the last mile or so up Galoot Hill in the park. Not a problem - practically no traffic there. The Hwy 18 path near the interchange construction has gone to gravel, dirt, sand, whatever. The bike did better at it than I did. I was not going to fly down the descents on that kind of surface. Once the pavement returned, we were faced with a lot of 20% downgrades. Fitz had a lot of fun on those. I'm more conservative.

Packing the bike for the return trip took about an hour. Again, the TSA folks declined to open the case, although it did not fit through the x-ray machine. Reassembly last night took longer, because I reinstalled the fenders and rack. And cleaned the chain. And rode it today - again, no adjustments required.

Thoughts for next time:

• Unify the various screws. Some require a Phillips head, and the ones that could use the same size hex wrench don't. Have them all be hex wrench bolts.
• I could probably have a whole chunk of the seatpost removed, saving some packing weight
• Self extracting crank bolts have been shipped from Harris Cyclery.
• Really try to prune down the tools list, or see where smaller/lighter ones would suffice.
• Get some fenders for packing/travel (the Planet Bike Speedez look promising)
• Pack the rack or not? I do seriously need to worry about items on the bike being pilfered in Central Europe.