Jeff's Journal of Europeaness: Departing Toronto and Arriving Brussels

Packing the Bikes

After numerous shakedown runs, Carissa's bike was ready to be boxed a few days ahead of time. I had secured a few bike boxes of different sizes from the friendly local bike shop (whom I try to frequent as a thanks, but who just keeps giving me stuff I need for free instead of charging me...). The bike was broken down: handlebars off, front wheel off, rack off. A chunk of a 2x2 furring strip was cut to size and taped in the front fork to prevent crushing. Seat and pedals off, and in the second pannier (first were our carryons) in the box. Some 97 cent foam pool noodles were cut up and wrapped around the frame to protect it, which turned out to be problematic with that mixte frame. In the end, the top bars went mostly unprotected, which turned out fine. The whole puzzle was fit together, and dropped in the box. Problem solved.

Test fitting Carissa's bike to its box

My bike, on the other hand, turned out to cause much headache. I had grabbed a couple boxes from the LBS. One was for a 700c road bike (the one Carissa's bike was occupying), the other two turned out to be for 26" beach cruisers. To make matters more fun, as my bike was built after hers and still going through shakedown, I didn't start to box it until everyone had closed the night before the trip leaving me with those options. As a result, my seatpost stuck up about three inches from the box I had, and the third box was cut up to form a shield around it :/

I put as much padding on it as I could, as I was already past midnite and still cussing and swearing at myself, and hoped for the best! Prep was the s
ame as Carissa's: front wheel off, wood block in its place, rack off, seat off, handlebars off, pedals off, all loose parts in the second pannier in the box. Also in my pannier went spare tubes, and a tool kit: a roll of wrenches 8-13mm, hex key set, phillips and flat screwdriver, T-handle 5 and 6mm hex keys, 15mm and 17mm wrench (pedals for me, pedals and nutted back wheel for her), tire levers, cutters for zip ties, and cone wrenches all in a second tool roll. Also included were zip ties (used almost daily) and duct tape for closing the boxes at the airport.

Departure, Transit, and Arrival

We set off for Toronto from Detroit at 9am sharp. Ok, 10am. Running an hour late was a theme of this trip! I couldn't find my normal point and shoot camera, nor the charger for my SLR, and I spent until 4am looking, making me very tired and facing a 4 hour drive. We stopped at my work, thinking I might have left it there, and then at a Wal-Mart to buy whatever was on the shelf. We cleared Canadian customs with nothing more than answering that bikes were indeed in the boxes in the back of my car, and managed to make it to Toronto before rush hour. I dropped Carissa, the bikes, and the luggage off at the departures ramp, and parked the car and caught the shuttle back.

Check-in was wonderful. The head of the crew working the desk was a cyclist himself, and told his crew to bring us through the VIP line for front of the line privileges! Our bikes were indeed accepted free of charge (as neither of us were traveling with other checked bags and neither box went over 23kg), putting to rest a fear in my head that I missed some caveat that we'd be hit with a charge that I missed. I can't recommend Brussels Airlines enough for traveling with bikes! After we checked in, we were sent to oversized baggage, where Canadian security proceeded to rip my carefully prepared boxes apart, toss them back together, and haphazardly taped it all back up. Made me feel bad for all the duct tape I had wasted putting the boxes together, and a bit silly for having to sit there explaining how to tape up my reengineered bike box.

After check-in, on our way to oversized drop-off

From there, it was a normal airport experience. Leave my folder of papers at the security counter, not notice it until it was too late, get a few drinks at the bar, fight through lines to get on the plane, eat mediocre food and have a few more beers, read about Eddy Mercx in the in-flight magazine, somehow fall asleep through the shooting pain on my bottom from tiny seats, and wake up in Europe. Getting off the plane at the airport, though, it was obvious we were in a cyclist's dream :)

Eddy Mercx in the in-flight magazine

Cycling events in Belgium promoted in-flight

Decorations at the airport

Advertising exactly what we were doing!

We arrived at our luggage carousels oversized baggage area to find: NOTHING. A big, empty spot. Fear shot over us. OK, not really, just using some artistic license. Turns out when we got off the plane, we stopped to use the restroom, and in the meantime another international flight got in line at immigrations ahead of us, and the extra time it took they had removed our bikes for safe keeping. A talk with a luggage agent too me to the back room, where our bikes were awaiting us. We grabbed a cart, cleared customs with a breeze, and set upon the next issue.

Our found bikes: notice my reengineered box in the back. Bikes are marked with a back end arrow, to get them through parts of the airport we had to stand them on end

Another quick talk with a lady at the information desk gave me permission to assemble my bikes anywhere I felt like it, so long as I wasn't obviously in the way of people. Much to my surprise, especially considering the events that have recently transpired at Brussels airport, we were also told that so long as the boxes were broken down and laid flat, we could just leave them and someone would be by to collect them. I found a quiet corner, sadly next to a walled off area leading to construction to repair the airport, and set to task assembling the bikes. It was obvious the bikes had been handled with care, with no obvious critical damage even to the cardboard. The only issues were some front brake calipers needing realigning, and an hour and a half or so later, we had two fully functional bikes.