Best bike boxes and bags 2023 — bike-specific luggage cases to keep yours safe when flying

If you’re travelling with your bike one of your biggest concerns will likely be making sure it arrives safely. The road.cc team has travelled hundreds of thousands of miles over the years with our bikes, using a variety of bike boxes, bike bags and flight cases. We've learned what protects bike from baggage handlers and what doesn't. Here are the best bike travel cases you can buy.

• Best overall bike bag or case: Evoc Bike Travel Bag Pro — Buy Now for £489.00 from Merlin Cycles | Find out more
• Best hard bike case: BikeBox Alan Triathlon Aero Easyfit — Buy Now for £635.00 from Bike Box Alan | Find out more
• Best money-no-object bike case: Buxumbox Tourmalet — Buy Now for £786.00 from Buxumbox | Find out more
• Best light weight hard case: B&W Bike Guard Curv — Buy Now for £694.95 from The Roof Box Company | Find out more
• Best budget bike bag: Merlin Cycles Elite Travel Bike Bag — Buy Now for £280.00 from Merlin Cycles | Find out more
• Cheapest hard bike case: Bonza Bike Box 2 — Buy Now for £399.00 from ProBikeKit | Find out more
• Best bike bag on a very limited budget: B’Twin Bike Transport Cover — Buy Now for £59.99 from Decathlon | Find out more

The best bike bag, box or flight case would protect your bike from anything short of a direct artillery strike; require as little faff as possible to get your bike into it; not make too big a dent in your luggage weight allowance; and cost a sensible amount of money.

There's some tension between those requirements. Extremely protective cases tend to be heavy and expensive; cheaper bike bags don't protect your bike as well. Nevertheless if you travel frequently one of the best bike bags, boxes or flight cases is a good investment. Nothing ruins a cycling trip more than your bike lying crushed on the Tarmac before you've even cleared customs.

> Hiring a bike vs taking your own: what's best for cycling holidays abroad?

Even if you're not flying, a bike box, bike bag or flight case can be useful. Sure, you can just put your bike in your car, but if you want to get lots of other luggage in too, a bike bag will protect your bike from bumps and scratches.

The best bike bags and case

Why should I use a bike bag or case?

Because you can't rely on anyone else to look after your bike the way you would. Travelling by air is the situation where you'll most commonly want to stash your bike in a protective case. After all, baggage handlers aren’t known for their finesse or delicacy of movement. No disrespect to those guys but they’re not going to move every bag and case as if it contained a priceless Ming vase, are they? Would you, if you were in their position? Luggage often gets flung about, dropped or stacked sky high, and you don’t want your bike to be subject to any of that with anything other than heavy-duty protection.

We’ve heard tales of people who thought they’d take their bike abroad in a soft bag or a cardboard bike box and it all going horribly wrong. You might get away with it, of course. You might get away with it many times. But what about that one time when your bike is at the bottom of a tower of cases being sorted by a bloke who’s already late finishing his shift?

It happens. Really, it does. And arriving in the Pyrenees with your bike frame snapped in two is, let’s face it, a disaster. Aside from needing to replace your bike in the long term, you need to salvage a trip for which you’ve already paid.

The best bike bags and bike boxes might be expensive but chances are they’re not as expensive as your bike or your holiday. Invest in something that’s right for your needs and it’ll likely last you years.

FAQ: Everything you need to know about bike bags and cases

Should I get a hard or soft case?

Soft, padded bike bags are lightweight, easy to store, and they’ll protect your bike from scratches and scrapes. As a rule, they’re also cheaper than rigid boxes. Some come with aluminium frames and rigid spacers for the frame and fork dropouts to help prevent damage.

Next, there are boxes made from semi-rigid polymers that offer good impact strength. In terms of weight, they’re somewhere between a soft bag and a rigid bike box.

Then there are boxes with rigid walls that provide loads of protection, although these tend to be the heaviest and most expensive options out there.

Between that lot there are plenty of variations.

The Biknd Helium for example, is essentially a soft bag with inflatable walls that protect your bike, and it folds down small for easy storage. You can buy it from Amazon.

In short, rigid bike cases provide more protection than soft bike bags, but are heavier, more expensive and harder to store when you're not using them.

Does my bike bag or case need wheels?

All the bike boxes we know of and a lot of soft bike bags come with wheels that allow you to pull/push them to and from a car, around the airport and so on, and that’s a hell of a lot easier than carrying all that weight.

Wheels that are recessed into the base of the box are less vulnerable to getting broken off in transit and wheels that can be replaced after a mishap might save you needing to buy a completely new bike bag or box.

In related vein, you can’t drag your bike bag or box everywhere – you’ll inevitably need to lug it up some steps or over some gravel at some stage. That’s when some form of carrying handle or strap comes in useful; more that one option helps. A shoulder strap will save your arms doing all the hard work.

Should I lock my bike bag or case?

Locks might seem useful but, realistically, how often are you going to let a loaded up bike box out of your sight anyway?

Okay, it’ll be separated from you for the flight, but bear in mind that if you check in a locked bike box and the customs officials want to look inside, they’ll bust the locks open. Think about it. They need to be able to check what’s in there and a simple lock isn’t going to stop them (otherwise drug smuggling would be really, really simple). Leave it unlocked for the plane.

How big does my bike bag need to be?

Big enough to take your bike easily. If you have a 56cm road bike with a normal seatpost, you’re unlikely to have a problem with any of the options out there.

However, if you take a very big frame, have an integrated seat post (an extended seat tube rather than a separate seat post), or if you have a full-suspension mountain bike, things might get more complicated.

Check the minimum dimensions you need before you part with your cash, and allow a bit of wiggle room. You don’t want to have to remove every component and use masses of force to get your bike into a box; you need something that’ll take your bike easily. International travel is stressful enough without adding to it with bike packing pressures.

You can often fit other stuff inside your bike box or bag, in the spaces between the frame tubes, although this obviously adds to the weight and that might be a consideration when you’re flying. Some airlines, such as Easyjet and British Airways explicitly forbid putting anything in a bike bag other than your bike.

If you intend to drive to the airport rather than take public transport, remember to make sure your bike bag or box will fit in your car. As long as you can fold the rear seats down, that’s not usually a problem.

Oh, and remember that you’ll have to store your bike bag or box somewhere at home. One of the drawbacks of a hard-shelled bike box as opposed to a soft bag is the extra storage space you’ll need for it.

How easy are bike bags to pack?

Getting a bike bag or box that’s large enough (see above) is the essential first step, but beyond that some options are much easier to pack than others.

You’ll have to take the wheels off your bike, either spin the handlebar or remove it from the stem, and remove a pedal (or both of them). You’ll likely have to remove the seatpost or push it down too (depending on the size of your bike). You’ll have to deflate the tyres for flying too. (Yes, we know tyre pressure is far too low to be hazardous, but as our commenters have pointed out, life's too short to teach airline check-in staff the laws of physics.)

If you have to remove the rear mech and/or the chainset, things can start to get boring. You obviously have to rebuild the bike at your destination, then take it apart for the return journey and rebuild it again when you get home. As long as you have half-decent spannering skills, that’s unlikely to be a problem. It only takes minutes on each occasion, but it just adds to the faff and might shorten valuable riding time.

What padding should I use to protect everything?

You need some means of stopping the various bits of the bike from damaging one another. Some wheels attach to the walls of a bike box with their quick-release skewers (we've had a skewer take a knock and get ruined in this way, so you might want to consider using old skewers for the job) and and have some form of cover to avoid harm, others have their own separate wheel bags, as do many bike bags.

Look for other means of storage for removed pedals, the tools you need for rebuilding your bike, and so on.

If you’re ever in doubt, you can always fall back on the cyclists’ favourite, simple pipe insulation from your local DIY store, to protect the various parts of your bike.

What do bike bags and boxes weigh?

There are a couple of things to consider when it comes to weight. First, you have to move your loaded up bike bag or box around so lightness makes life easier.

Second, you have to stick within airline weight limits. Currently, EasyJet allows you 32kg for a boxed up bike and the Ryanair limit is 30kg. Sticking within those boundaries shouldn't be a problem.

British Airways, though, say that items over 23kg may incur a heavy bag charge. Larger items (in dimensions rather than weight) like bike boxes can be carried for an oversized bag charge, although they waive this at the time of writing.

The point is, you need to check your allowances with your airline before you travel (and preferably before you book) in order to avoid expensive surprises.

Should I get travel insurance?

Yes! Even the best bike boxes don’t guarantee you against damage to your bike, so get yourself some insurance that covers the value of your bike.

Explore the complete archive of reviews of bike cases, bags and boxes on road.cc