Getting Ready June 12 - 15

You can’t just fly with a bicycle. You have to go to the airlinebaggage dept and get a specially designed box which costs $10. Notwanting to casually drop by Logan Airport, only to discover that thebaggage dept. was closed, or out of boxes, I tried calling ahead.Apparently the baggage department is in a hermetically sealed bubble,because no one can contact them directly. First I talked to Sally in Srinagar, who transferred me to Mumbles in Mumbai, who connected me to Karl in Kolkatta. Karl finally understood that I was flying one wayfrom Boston to Seattle with a bicycle which I was riding back, and needed to know if they actually had a box before I went to the airport. After a long time on hold, he was able to tell me that they had one box available, which they would hold until 7:30 that night. But then in conclusion, he asked me if I needed any car rental information, which is like going to McDonald’s, ordering Large Fries, and having them ask, “Would you like fries with that?”.
The box itself is huge; even when flat, folded in half, and scrunched-up a bit, it won’t really fit in your car, and of course, fills up the entire back, blocking the rear window. Putting the bicycle in the box is supposedly easy. First you lower the seat (but if you forget to mark where it was, you won’t get it back to the right height which you’ll regret for the rest of the trip). Next, you remove the pedals. This is easy, if you remember that they have a left-hand thread and you loosen them the opposite way. Otherwise, you’ll have wasted a half hour, and they’ll only be tighter. Lastly, you turn the handlebars sideways. My headset is too long to just do that, so I had to remove the handlebars, trailing the cables, and tape them to the frame. Finally, you can slide the bike into the box and tape it shut securely. Then you bring this huge box to the check-in counter at the airport, where they charge you extra because it’s a “non standard box”.