flying with the bike

This had been my no no no no never on the trip. Why did I have to fly when it can be done by ferry’s. But apparently not anymore – they have withdrawn the ferry services crossing over to Norway.

As it is the Scandinavian countries that I’m doing the North Sea Cycle Route for, I wanted to get over there first and with schedules and costs etc’ it was the only way suitable for me. I can fly from the Shetlands (Sumburgh Airport) to Norway (Bergen) with Flybe.com it was around 80GBP to fly early season and then I believe it may have been around 200GBP later in the season – like August (which makes sense I guess – busy times).

The problem then is that the bike has to be flown. My first leg of the route is from in the UK sunny Scarborough to Scrabster (not all in one go! but this is the UK section). I can’t really take a huge bike bag with me along the way, but the bike ‘needs to be packaged up’.

An option suggested to me was to take along a small durable polyester bike bag with me – the ones used to cover motorcycles. Then… get some packaging delivered to one of my last ports of call before flying and take it to the airport. Perform my packing display in the airport – bubblewrap, cardboard, whatever is needed and then encase the bike in the motorcycle bike bag.

The nice lady at Sumburgh airport seemed to think that would be just fine. I have seen a website that details necessary information about transporting bikes and I will also upload my thoughts from my experience.

The bike fit in the bag but it needs some additional fasteners to close it other than the Velcro. Its been ages since inserting press-studs, had a quick look on the Internet for the method. When I laid out the press-studs they reminded me of little chattering men bumbling around – funny.