I read Lance Armstrong`s book and he said "don`t tell them, just turn up." Well, I called my airline for Tokyo-London flight and they said excess baggage on 12kg bike was 800 dollars-WOOOW
Any advice on this?

Check the airline's web site for information on baggage. It's common that they have special packing and configuration requirements for sporting equipment, and a fee for bicycles.

However, I think most will allow you to check a properly packed bicycle in lieu of one of your free checked bags, albeit with a fee. An excess baggage fee would apply when you have exhausted your free baggage allowance, and still have more to check, and the fee on excess baggage is almost always quite high.

I'm not sure I would rely on Armstrong's advice. Professional athletes have teams and equipment managers that deal with baggage issues and the like.

"Just show up" is a recipe for disaster, unless you ARE Lance Armstrong or some other celebrity - you know how that goes - the ramp crew will oohh and ahh - "be careful with this, it's Lance's bike", while those bicycles of us mere mortals will be tossed onto the heap.

Pack up your bicycle. Hard shell cases are sold (some bike clubs have them for their members to borrow or rent) or you can get one from most airlines OR Amtrak (both charge a fee) but the best way is to get a box from a bike shop. (In fact, it may be worthwhile to PAY a shop to pack the bike). You'll need to remove the wheel, the pedals (I re-install them backwards so the pedels go inward) and the handlebar stem. It may be a good idea to cut some 2 x 4 the same lenth as the depth of the box, and to staple them into place so that if the bikebox is laid down flat with items thrown on top of it the box won't be crushed.

Yes, the airlines charge WAY too much for a bicycle, sometimes more than a passenger. In addition, you must sign a waiver stating you'll not hold the airline responsible for ANYTHING.

Is it fair? In 1990 I traveled ALB TO LAX with a bicycle, and it cost $35 extra. One year later the charge was $75. When I brought the package bicycle in 1991, I declared it as containing exercise equipment. They accepted it at no extra charge. I was later paged at the gate and told to shell out the $75, as they had determined it was a BICYCLE, and not "exercise equipment" and it would not be taken to LAX if I didn't pay.

If the fee was really based on weight or size, then moving a bicycle 400 miles should be different then for 3000 miles, just as the fee for passengers varies.

Is it right? No. But what choices does one have? In the USA, UPS moves things better and cheaper. I don't know about international delivery though.

Thanks, both comments were very useful. I think I`ll send with a cargo company. It will take longer and I was hoping to have it for when I first arrive, the airline route sounds a bit risky.

The rules are different for international flights so please check with the airline, often they are considered one of your two allowable pieces of checked luggage for international flights.

We've taken our bikes to Europe every year for the past 6 years with no problem, we pack efficiently and have never had to pay any kind of excess baggage fee for the bike, we just have two checked pieces of luggage.

We've flown on Alitalia, Air France, BA, Lufthansa and American Airlines. None of those airlines looked at the bicycle box as unusual in any way. Maybe you should check with one of these airlines?

The only thing we had to do in Europe was to check it into a special area for xray.

Only within the states are there hassles for bike boxes. On flights between airports in the states it's a very different case, the excess baggage charges are very high, usually about $90 each way, but no one I know who has flown with their bike has paid anything near the amount you were quoted.

Could it be that they were considering it as a shipment rather than a piece of luggage for a passenger?

What about taking it apart and putting in a suitcase

The hard cases that can be purchased or rented at local bike shops look just like extra large suitcases.

I don't think you could get it into a regular large size suitccase because there are also linear restrictions on the size of a suitcase that can be checked without paying oversize fees anyway.

These restrictios are, if I remember correctly, a maximum of 62" consisting of L+W_D and these don't apply to a bike box on international flights.

We just returned from France 2 weeks ago and as I explained we had no problem or excess fees for the bike box on either American Airlines or on British Airways.

It`s a small fold-up bike so I can easily put it into a bag. I`d have a ruck-sack, suitcase and that bag...they said the limit was 20kgs... I`ll call them again.
Thanks for all the advice!