S&S bicycle cases - hard or soft

I will be using an S&S coupled bike for touring; most of the trips will be point A to point B, say
Milan to Venice via the Lake country, Switzerland, and Austria. Since I will be ending at points
removed some distance from the point of origin I had thought of using the soft (backpack) case which
can be squeezed down and strapped to a rack. I am getting some pushback from friends who think the
soft case does not afford sufficient protection from airport baggage handlers. So.....

Anyone have experience travelling on airlines with the backpack case? Any issue with protection for
the bike? On the flip side, anyone travel with the hard case and forward it ahead to an endpoint?
What would be the best way to do so?

TIA,

- rick

 

For some time I've been collecting information on user experiences taking bikes on planes, trains,
buses, boats, etc. There's lots of stuff on rentals, folding bikes, boxing, airlines, and railroads
around the world and how to ride in/out of about 120 airports.

There are about 10-12 items on S&S and many say that the soft case works very well.

Check it out at http://www.BikeAccess.net

George

Rick Warner wrote:
> I will be using an S&S coupled bike for touring; most of the trips will be point A to point B, say
> Milan to Venice via the Lake country, Switzerland, and Austria. Since I will be ending at points
> removed some distance from the point of origin I had thought of using the soft (backpack) case
> which can be squeezed down and strapped to a rack. I am getting some pushback from friends who
> think the soft case does not afford sufficient protection from airport baggage handlers. So.....
>
> Anyone have experience travelling on airlines with the backpack case? Any issue with protection
> for the bike? On the flip side, anyone travel with the hard case and forward it ahead to an
> endpoint? What would be the best way to do so?
>
> TIA,
>
> - rick

 

In September my husband and our brought our tandem to France, and after touring, back to California
via Air France, with S&S soft cases. We had absolutely no problems with the S&S cases keeping the
bikes unscratched. Two other tandems on our tour also used the soft cases, and did a bit of more
protective packing than we did. (They put foam pads in the outside pockets of the cases, we left
them empty.) They also had no trouble. Good luck.

"George" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> For some time I've been collecting information on user experiences taking bikes on planes, trains,
> buses, boats, etc. There's lots of stuff on rentals, folding bikes, boxing, airlines, and
> railroads around the world and how to ride in/out of about 120 airports.
>
> There are about 10-12 items on S&S and many say that the soft case works very well.
>
> Check it out at http://www.BikeAccess.net
>
> George
>
>
> Rick Warner wrote:
> > I will be using an S&S coupled bike for touring; most of the trips will be point A to point B,
> > say Milan to Venice via the Lake country,
Switzerland,
> > and Austria. Since I will be ending at points removed some distance
from the
> > point of origin I had thought of using the soft (backpack) case which
can be
> > squeezed down and strapped to a rack. I am getting some pushback from friends who think the soft
> > case does not afford sufficient protection
from
> > airport baggage handlers. So.....
> >
> > Anyone have experience travelling on airlines with the backpack case?
Any
> > issue with protection for the bike? On the flip side, anyone travel
with the
> > hard case and forward it ahead to an endpoint? What would be the best
way
> > to do so?
> >
> > TIA,
> >
> > - rick