DaVinci

Are those 700c wheels, or 26"?

We have carried our Co-motion S&S tandem in the Mooney. We use five fabric sacks in place of the hard cases.

I have an S&S coupling road bike and S&S coupling mtn bike. The suitcase is indispensable for putting it into the airline meat grinder. But I hope we can all agree to put it more carefully into our own airplanes! Besides the big S&S suitcase is bigger than needed to put into your mooney and hard to get in around the front door. Instead when I put it into my airplane, I have a simpler break down. I use canvas BBQ covers like big envelopes to keep the airplane clean and away from bike grease. The two wheels go together into one BBQ cover. Then I break apart the frame but I do not disconnect the cables (saves like a minute) and I put the two pieces into the over BBQ cover. Bars stay on, seat post stays on etc to put into the mooney - It takes like a quick and easy minute to break apart and another minute to put the stuff in the back, instead of 10 min fighting a much more comprehensive break down into the jigsaw loading into the suitcase. In your case I would guess a tandem would be the same except the two larger halves would be thirds and go into one or two bbq covers. So leave the suitcase for the airlines.

PS I also sometimes travel with my TT bike which does not break apart - it goes int he back with wheels off, seatpiost off pedals off butotheriwse in tact in the bbq covers. A bit more careful to turn around the front seats but it goes fairly quickly.

Tim, those are 26 (32X559). Jerry and aviatoreb - I like your ideas. After working those suitcases into the hold today I can say that it is a bit of effort. I have an old "BodyBag" carrier that would probably work well but the BBQ covers sound like a good idea also.