Cycling UK Forum

Has anyone flown with their recumbent?

The reason I ask is simple, we want a European touring holiday (with a young child) somewhere nice and safe to ride that's not Holland. However I bought a recumbent and want to use it. France is reachable but not easily anywhere that's good for our child. Germany is better (thinking the Danube trail) but to get there it's got to be by plane. My partner thinks rent bikes but that doesn't work for my wish to cycle a recumbent.

So is it easy to fly with a recumbent? It's a hpv streetmachine GT. Would a normal bike bag work? Do cheap airlines take them?

Unless there's a recumbent rental on or very near tyre route it's got to be flying with my recumbent or riding a normal rental bike.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Take a look at Bike Express as an alternative, http://www.bike-express.co.uk/. You'd have to speak to them about recumbent two-wheelers but I would imagine they'd agree to it provided you disassembled the under-seat steering and pushed the boom in.

On planes? People do it but the thought brings me out in a cold sweat.

There's a bike bus that stops near relatives which would be an option but a 5 year old on a coach trip into France gives me more cold sweats then taking a recumbent on a plane! 5 year olds and no means to stop for a distraction break? A bit stressful.

Although, are there any going into Germany? It all seems to be France to Spain with nothing into Germany and eastwards.

I flew with a Pashley PDQ, partly dismantled, to Mallorca with Easy Jet some years ago.
It was a handy bike, almost as compact as some folders and I had no issues.
Boom off, and turned back alongside frame tube, handlebars would turn 180* and the wheel/fork then faced backwards making a very small folder like package. Pedals off. The seat frame split in half and lay along the main tube and the mesh cover just folded up.

SMGT is a different beast. But maybe with boom off, pedals off, and handlebars also removed and laid laterally would, packaged, pass as a "bike" without too much issue.
The seat will be a bit of a problem maybe. Though tied to the side of the whole package might escape much attention. It would protect the bike from rough baggage handlers a bit too. Some of the later HPV seats may be splittable in two I think- could be handy.

Such a dismantling and packaging and reassembling will take time though and perhaps needs some practice.

A European Courier might deliver it somewhere just as cheaply? Just a thought.

Is the film not - Snakes on planes?

That reminds me of Gavin Maxwell's book, Ring of Bright Water.
The story of him flying with an otter from Irak to Britain will bring tears of laughter and joy to the eye.

Tangled Metal wrote:There's a bike bus that stops near relatives which would be an option but a 5 year old on a coach trip into France gives me more cold sweats then taking a recumbent on a plane! 5 year olds and no means to stop for a distraction break? A bit stressful.

Although, are there any going into Germany? It all seems to be France to Spain with nothing into Germany and eastwards.

On a coach trip, though, parents can take turns distracting him with games, movies, things outside, games with things outside, stories, etc. I've taken my kids on 8 hour (transatlantic flights, or done trips with travel times going on 20 hours. And I've met other parents doing the same thing, even from India to the US.

Usually Mr. V has travelled with us, but I've gone to the US a few times with one or both kids and without Mr. V. Mine are now old enough to mostly distract themselves with reading, video games, movies, etc. But we usually take a travel board game and/or some playing cards just in case.

We've flown with our recumbents several times.

We use two bike boxes for each recumbent and concertina them together to get them the right size, then lots of tape to hold them together. My long wheel base recumbent is particularly challenging as we have to remove the front forks, but we've always managed ok.

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/pag ... 99422&v=7v

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/pag ... 17994&v=5M

Anybody flown with a trike boxed up esp on a budget airline such as Easyjet? Anyone know what the max box size Easyjet will take?
Or done this
http://travelsbytrike.com/travelsbytrik ... trike.html
Or maybe people keep that bit quiet or the grounds that if everyone does that it'll become very difficult.