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Air travel with MTB.


HowellingWulf

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My Sani2C partner is travelling by plane from CPT to DBN for the Sani2C. He recently converted to tubeless and is now concerned about the effect  air travel will have on his tyres. Do you need to deflate your tyres on flights since the cargo area is not pressurized say maybe to 1 bar or do you leave the tyres as is? Any help, pointers and comments appreciated.

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I usually deflate my tyres slightly but I have accidentally flown without deflating them and they were fine.

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Don't eat the yellow snow?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think it depends on where in the hold your bike ends up. Either part or all of the hold is pressurised. At least part of the hold must be pressurised or whenever people freight their household pets by air, Tiddles and Fido would arrive at the other end a bluey-purple colour and frozen.

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Also accidently left my road bike tyres inflated and nothing happened.  The only time you'll get caught out is if you fly through an airport without a big enough scanner for the bike and they will want to go through the bag with you there.  Then they'll follow procedure and tell you to deflate them. 

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you'll find that the airlines will decide this for you and deflate your tyres for sensible reasons i could never extract. so dont put your sealant in before flying because it'll be everhwere you dont want it when you get your bike on the other side.

 

And get to the airport very early because the planes dont wait to load all the bikes, leading to much angst and anger and midnight delivery of bikes to underberg. 

 

also,  deny having any co2 cylinders in yr luggage; dont tajke them in handluggage as they'll be confiscated.
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Well a quick google and some really interesting articles later:

 

I've calculated that your tubes will gain less than 1BAR of air pressure with a domestic flight. I just flew from Durbs as week ago and we where cruising at 30'000 feet.

 

Even at 40'000 feet you will barely go over 1BAR of increased air pressure.

 

 

EDIT:

 

Here is a rather interesting read:

 

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=167

 

cbrunsdon2010-02-22 05:23:09

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Last time I flew - after hitting a dog at 60 kmh I did not have any problems with my tyre pressure. I wish my tyres has stayed on the ground!

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