POLICIES AND PROCEDURES
Bicycle and Baggage Transportation

Preparation for Transportation
We require that you remove all loose items from your bike that could easily fall off or get damaged in transit and store them in your baggage. These items include such things as water bottles, frame pumps, saddlebags, panniers, and cycle computers. Ideally you should have the bare minimum number of items or your bike in transit to minimize the possibility that something could get damaged or lost. If your bike is transported outside these items could easily get lost or damaged in the wind or if your bike is transported inside a vehicle they could get easily damaged from another bicycle or heavy item placed on top of them or confused with someone else's identical item. You should also prepare your bike for being transported outside in the wind, such as making sure you have no loose handlebar tape. Aerobars are not required to be removed, but it is strongly recommended.

Both your bike frame and your front wheel must have at least your name and your cell phone number on a baggage tag or directly on the item itself. If we need to remove your front wheel to transport your bike it's amazing how alike bike wheels look, especially in the dark, and identical wheels have gotten mixed up before. We will not have extra baggage tags available.

We will only transport fully assembled bikes with the possible exception of removing the front wheel. If you are having your boxed bike shipped to a supporting bike shop your bike must be unboxed and fully assembled for us to transport it. In addition we will not transport any bikes that have not had all loose items removed that could easily fall off or get damaged in transit.

Tools
You should not rely on us if you know or will reasonably expect to need any tools at all to disassemble and/or reassemble any items from your bike (such as allen keys for aerobars) since we cannot guarantee that we will have the tool you need.

You should carry all necessary tools with you so you are guaranteed that the tools you need will be available when you need them and you know how to perform the work. You should also plan on carrying those tools with you on your bike in case you need to make any minor adjustments after riding a little bit of riding.

Although we will carry a full bicycle tool kit with us, these tools are intended for emergency on road use only and are not intended for general, expected usage. Doing so also ensures that we will have enough tools for all participants as necessary.

Mechanical Ability
You should know how to perform any necessary mechanical work yourself and should not plan on relying on us to do any mechanical work for you. Our staff members are not professional mechanics and we cannot guarantee that we will have either the mechanical knowledge, skills or ability to do so. In addition, we cannot guarantee that we will have the time to assist all participants reassemble their items onto their bike.

Loading Bicycles and Baggage
Bicycles will be transported on racks outside vehicles as much as possible to leave as much room as possible inside vehicles to transport baggage so the baggage can’t get wet, especially if it is raining.

Bicycles with aerobars will be loaded on roof racks as much as possible to prevent damage from heavy items being placed on top of the aero bars inside a moving truck.

We will leave spaces on the outside racks open if we need to quickly load bicycles at separate locations, such as picking up participants' bikes at a supported hotel during our transportation services.

Once the outside racks are full, any remaining bicycles will be loaded inside a vehicle and protected during shipment from scratches and other damage by putting moving blankets between them and being tied down snugly to prevent rolling around.

Click on one of the links at left for more information about shipping bikes to and from our supporting bike shops.