Airports: Stavanger to London

July 24, 2023

Cycling is the easy part: you get up, load your bike, program in your route and ride. Flying with bikes is trickier and full of unknowns, but in the end it all worked out.

First: Packing up the bikes. The bike shop near our Air BNB kindly gave me two good boxes, one big enough to fit my bike without having to take off the pannier racks! Equipped with bubble wrap and tape from the local hardware store, and the empty panniers for extra padding, Steven packed up the bikes in our living room, making sure to secure the pedal wrench with the pedals taped to the rack of his bike.

Next: Getting to the airport. The FlyBussen website showed the AirPort Express stopping just at the bottom of the hill and that bikes in boxes were permitted at the driver's discretion. What if she or he says no room for bikes? We reserved the 12:30 bus, but planned to get there for the 11:30 so we would have two chances to get on if needed. On departure day, the four of us portered the bags and boxes to the bus stop, the 11:30 bus pulled in looking not too full, the driver pushed a button somewhere and the bottom luggage doors opened for us to slide in the boxes and bags, we hopped on, showed our reservation QR code and sat down to breathe a sigh of relief.

At Stavanger airport all worked equally well. At check-in, they had our reservations for people, luggage and bicycles. Nothing was overweight. At security the Nordic goddess made us open the boxes to probe for bombs, drugs, etc and then provided packing tape to re-seal.
At Heathrow, we found the oversized counter and soon our boxes appeared, with no signs of trauma. Fortunately, Steven's wildly optimistic view of what reasonably can be achieved was tempered so we did not try to assemble the bikes and start riding to look for a campground straight after arriving in from Stavanger at 7pm. Instead we put everything on two trolleys and transited over to the Holiday Inn at terminal 4 (which involved 14 narrow doors or gates that required removing the ever heavier bike boxes from the luggage trolly) for a good night's sleep and a big breakfast before reverting from flying to cycling mode.

Unpacking and re-assembling the bikes always takes longer than (Steven) anticipated so we checked out just before noon when the cleaners would be knocking on the door, but then we were in England, riding under blustery skies on a bike path beside the highway to Staines.

Striking bathroom art/identification at Stavanger Airport. This was obviously the ladies' room. The men's room had a man in a similar pose wearing only a tool belt.

Leaving Stavanger, looking beautiful on a clear day.

Rob and Kathleen heading off to London with only light backpacks!

Waiting for the free transit train from Terminal 2 to Terminal 4. The planned, cycle friendly tunnel exiting Terminal 2 is still years from being open so we had to take a train at some point.

All unpacked and ready to ride. Keep to the left!

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