With one week left to departure, I decided it was time to pack my bike. I had two bike boxes to choose from. I had picked the first one up at a local bike shop, but then been disappointed in how ripped up the top flap was, and concerned that it might be a little small. Then I picked up another box at another shop. It was in better shape, and about three inches wider and an inch taller. Unfortunately, the extra size meant extra cardboard, and it was nearly 3 pounds heavier than the first box. Three pounds doesn't sound like much, but up against the 25 kg (55 pound) airline weight limit it was a consideration. I was especially concerned about weight, so I have included a lot of numbers in my description. If you find this all very tedious, please skip over it!

My bike, with racks and bottle cages, and with the dynamo wheel and light and USB system for charging my electronics weighed in at 36.8 pounds. A hefty beast. My rear panniers, which I planned to pack with the bike, weigh 4.2 pounds empty. With concern about the weight of my tools and other packing materials, I chose to use the smaller bike box, which was 7.8 pounds. That's 48.8 pounds before adding tools and packing materials.

Packing was a bit more difficult than I expected. I removed the front rack and front wheel. I removed the handlebar at the stem, and twisted it around to the top tube and zip-tied it in place without having to disconnect the cables. I put my water bottles into the cages. Even with the seat lowered as far as possible, the seat was a little too high to close the box, so I removed it and zip-tied the seatpost to the down tube. My rear rack also stuck up just a bit too far, so I unbolted it near the hub and let it slide down as far as possible without removing it entirely. I slipped the front rack (which folds almost flat) in on one side of the frame, and my front wheel, with the disk brake rotor removed, on the other side of the frame. The box was just barely wide enough. The rotor was sandwiched in cardboard and bubble wrap and put into the otherwise empty pannier. I put my pedals and tools and spare inner tubes and clickstand into a small box which went into the top of the bike box, over the top tube. This small box weighed 3 pounds, including the pedals that were also counted as part of the bike. At this point, the bike box was about 52 pounds, based on my bathroom scale, but varied a bit based on how I held it on the scale. I ended up leaving my u-lock out to pack in my other bag. When the box was closed up, and sealed up with lots and lots of packaging tape, it came in at roughly 52 1/2 pounds. I could have included the u-lock, but was glad I had used the smaller of the two cardboard boxes.

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I ended up opening the box. I had noted that my pedals were surprisingly stiff, but, caught up in the enthusiasm of packing, packed them anyway. I opened the box and replaced them with some other flat pedals I removed from my little-used mountain bike. I also pulled out a water bottle to take on the plane.