Cycling is easy – but the plane can add the strain.
As a regular long-distance cyclist people sometimes ask me if you can take bikes on a plane. It depends to a large extent on the airline, but as every flier knows, the hardest bit about flying is getting to and from the airports. Especially with a bike.
In 2007 I finished a thousand-mile cycle tour of Ecuador in the coastal city of Guayaquil. I had a flight booked to Madrid with an onward connection to Valencia, Spain. I had arrived at my hotel in Guayaquil as a sweaty cyclist with a motley collection of panniers and small bags. Checking out three days later I had become a Man with Two Boxes. Big ones. One contained my dismantled bike, the other contained my worldly goods for the two months the journey had taken me. The hotel porter attempted to summon a taxi, but all the drivers took one look at my boxes and fled. After twenty minutes the woman in charge of the hotel found someone she knew who had a small truck and would take me to the airport for five dollars.
At check-in, my boxes weighed 31 kilos. "Eleven kilos over" the young man said. I told him that my email confirmation said the limit was 40 kilos, and he accepted that - even though the airline’s web-site says it’s 20kg in Tourist Class. Having bluffed my way through check-in, I thought my problems were over.
Waiting for my exit stamp at Immigration, I heard my name called over the tannoy, telling me to proceed immediately to Gate 5. I panicked as it sounded like the frantic "Last call or your luggage will be removed" announcement you often hear. I tried to rush through the formalities, which is counter-productive when faced with South American officials. An annoying policeman wanted to know the names of all the hotels where I had stayed. "About 40" I said, getting more flustered. He questioned me slowly, sensing that I was in a hurry. I tried to stay calm.
When I finally got to Gate 5 the screen was blank and there was no plane. I thought my watch must have stopped or something, and I asked the guy where the Madrid plane was and what was happening.
"It's a routine question about your baggage".
I was escorted to a baggage warehouse where my bike box and some other bags had been selected for examination. Alas, my careful packing was going to be all in vain. Fortunately, I still had half a roll of tape with me so when the soldier finished tapping all the bike frames to check they were actually hollow, and not stuffed with cocaine, I was able to pack up again. Once again I had to trail all the way through airport security. I avoided the policeman’s eyes as I went through. He didn't bother trying to elicit the hotel names this time. It's a pity to leave a country in such a sweat.
The following morning, Madrid. A welcoming Spanish breakfast in a sunny café in the airport terminal before getting the connection for Valencia.
We were driven in a bus to a far corner of the airport for the little plane. Waiting to go up the steps into the aircraft, I saw a truck with my bike box on the back of it drive away! I asked a baggage loader what was going on and he said he would find out. He was as puzzled as me. I watched the truck do a great circuit of the airport - then come back. I really have no idea what that was about.
Finally, Valencia. I was reunited with my two big boxes and had to get them to my firend's flat at Serrería
The taxi rank had a gigantic queue of baggage laden people, but no taxis to be seen anywhere. I took the bold decision to use the Metro, as the new line from the Airport to Serrería had just opened. I bought a ticket and the ticket man looked at my boxes and simply said "Be careful". I struggled onto the train with them, selecting the front carriage where they would be least in the way. A man getting on at the next stop chatted to me, suggesting that I could reassemble the bike at Serrería station if I needed to.
Two stops later, I heard a man tap my up-ended bike box and say aloud "whose is this?". I said "mine" and he rounded on me, saying it was "incorrecto" to bring so much luggage onto a train. "The train is for everyone, not just you" he said. A rather petty argument in a four coach train. I just said "well, you may be right but the ticket man saw them and sold me a ticket".
A woman started arguing with this man, saying "Why pick on him, so many things happen that are "incorrecto". (She had a wide vision of the world). He started arguing with her. The man who had chatted to me joined in. Then another woman joined in. The man who started it said "Why are you arguing with me when the Señor has accepted my argument?". It was hilarious sitting there in the middle of a Spanish argument about me, but not actually taking part in it myself! The man asked me where I was going, and when I said Serrería there was mild disappointment that they weren't going to witness a spectacle of me struggling to get off the train at a crowded city centre stop.
The man alighted and so ended the argument.
A man passing Serrería station offered to help me with my boxes the 200 meters or so to Agustín's flat. That was a nice gesture right at the end of the line for my boxes.
Then I just needed to go to bed! Cycling itself is easy.