Monthly Archive for June, 2010

Bikes. What bikes?

In 1999, having spent the summer working in a bookstore, I had naively amassed a small library to take home to Ireland. 35kilos later I was lying on my back on a subway train in New York. It tool six people to get me upright again. The lesson being travel light. Needless to say I didn’t learn my lesson.

63 kilos of bicycles later (not including carry on) these are some lessons learnt from flying with bicycles:
1. Find a nice man to box your bicycle
for you (no apologies for the sexism, it’s mostly true).
2. Find a nice man in an extremely large vehicle to take you to the airport.
3. Find a nice man to pay $4 for an inadequately sized trolley.
4. Find a nice man to push the trolley.
5. Find a nice man to pay extra for the not so light luggage.
6. Find a nice man to ring the lady at the other end when the precious luggage doesn’t arrive.
7. Find a nice man to buy you a drink.

Packing

Send off.

And so our nearest and dearest gave us a jolly good send-off at the Union Hotel Brunswick.  We received some incredibly useful gifts. Here are some photos…