All Packed and Ready to Go

This week was mostly spent packing. The combination of bike, race gear and warm clothes for our post race holiday in Iceland meant fitting into luggage weight requirements was always going to be a very big struggle. We bought new bike boxes which are 5kgs lighter than our old ones. At $199 each, we actually saved money because 5kg of excess baggage costs $250. Plus the new bike boxes are much better and far easier to get bikes into. You can see my bike disassembled and packed in the photo on the right. In this configuration it only weighed 20kg, but I managed to squeeze in another 6.5kg of gear into the box including bike shoes, runners, wetsuit and a lot of the warm clothes for Iceland. This allowed me to get my other bag down to 8.5kg which meant we still have to purchase an extra 5kg of excess baggage (but at least we didn't have to buy 10kg each).

Those more mathematically minded would have noticed I was right on the limit of 35kg (standard 30kg + 5kg excess). Elaine's baggage was very similar, although she has less in her bike box and more in other bag. Knowing we were right on the limit, I tried to put as many heavy objects in my carry-on bag, including the bike pedals. At 7kg, my carry-on is nearly as heavy as my checked-in bag. It was a nervous time as they weighed our bags at check-in. I kept a sneaky hand on the bike boxes as they were being weighed to try and hide a few grams. It must have worked as they were passed without question saving us a fair bit of money because excess baggage costs even more when you have to pay at check-in. You can see our baggage in the photo on the left (our carry-on bags are not shown in the photo).

We are sitting in one of the airport cafes as I write this. Powerpoints and Free Wifi, why can't all cafes have this. Having checked in, snuck in under baggage weight requirements, passed through security and passport control we can now relax. The only stressful aspect left is our luggage arriving with us at London.