Bike Hire for Florida 1/2 Ironman

[Kevin Mooney]

Im taking the family to Florida next May and have just realised that it
coincides with the Florida 1/2 Ironman on 21 May. It seems too good an
opportunity to miss but I'd rather not incur the expense of flying my bike
out with me from the UK. Does anyone know if there is a way I could hire a
road bike in Florida to do the race?

 

[trimark]

Kevin Mooney wrote:
> I'd rather not incur the expense of flying my bike
> out with me from the UK.

Kevin, common misunderstanding. You can fly your bike in a box or a bag
to the US from the UK for free as one of your two pieces of luggage.
You have to watch the weight of any single piece as the baggage
handlers won't move anything >32kg these days but otherwise you'd be
hard pressed to find a transatlantic ticket that goes by weight alone.
I wrote a much longer piece on this for the British Triathlon house
magazine, Tri News earlier this year and you can find it online on my
club website:
http://www.tri-force.org/flying_with_bikes.html

Now, I don't have a lot of experience with airlines like Virgin
Atlantic, but have flown United and BA from time to time and American
Airlines probably 20-30 times. My next FL race is in Clermont in
Florida in September. I'll be taking my bike from London to San
Francisco via Chicago which will travel for free. I'll then be flying
from SF to Tampa which I'll have to pay $80 for, and then from Miami
back to London for free. Pack carefully! Feel free to post any
questions or email me off the group.