It’s every cyclist’s worst nightmare when travelling with your bike, former pro rider Tom Danielson arriving in Italy off a Lufthansa flight only to discover that his bike was “completely destroyed” during the trip.

The America rider, who won a stage of the Vuelta and rode for teams such as Discovery Channel and Garmin Sharp during his 14-year professional career, was travelling from Denver to Italy and said he’d been using Lufthansa flights for 22 years and throughout his racing days but had “never seen anything like this”.

Uploading the video of the damage to social media, Danielson showed how the bike was “somehow crushed vertically”, snapping the frame midway down the seat tube and “destroying my crank, driving it through the bottom of the bike box, while bending the bike’s axle”.

“Unreal. I can’t even imagine what kind of force or weight would have to be applied from above to do this,” he wrote.

Danielson was using a soft case from Scicon, a case he pointed out he’d been using for more than two decades and had never experienced any issues with. He called the bags “the best” and suggested “most pro teams use them”, adding his opinion that, considering the force that must have been involved, it “would have broken a hard case as well”.

“I have successfully used this soft case from Scicon (as do thousands of other cyclists) for all of my flights since 2003,” Danielson explained. “There was nothing in the case and the frame was wrapped with protective foam. Super frustrating to pay for a trip, pay extra for my bike to travel, and then have my bike show up crushed on arrival.

“There are a lot of cyclists like me who travel from Denver to Europe to ride who would think to use Lufthansa. Should they expect their bikes to show up broken like mine?”

We contacted Lufthansa for comment but were told details, such as filekey of the reservation or the damage report reference, would need to be provided. Danielson’s post on social media did receive multiple replies from Lufthansa’s Twitter account, the airline asking him to contact its customer relations.

> The stuff they never tell you about flying with your bike… and how to make it easy

It’s fair to say Danielson isn’t the first rider, pro or amateur, to suffer a damaged bike while flying. 

Former pro rider Peter Koning can probably claim the dubious honour of having suffered the worst damage, the former Aqua Blue rider vowing never to fly with EasyJet again after his Ridley arrived like this.

Peter Koning bike (via Twitter).jpg
Peter Koning bike (via Twitter) (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

Back in 2023 a Canadian rider, who participated in the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships in Scotland revealed that her brand new 2023 Cervélo Soloist, 2020 Cervélo P-Series and her time-trial helmet were severely damaged with several chips, cracks and dents, when flying back with Air Canada.

> “That kick felt personal”: Horrified cyclist watches airline baggage handler “maliciously” throw and kick bike bag, but says “luckily the bike survived” after “going missing”

However, after being asked to wait 15 days for a response, Air Canada got back and denied responsibility for the damage, claiming: “The airline’s liability for loss, damage or delay of checked baggage is limited.”

Diane Bomans said her bike was left looking “as though it got run over by the plane”, adding: “You might rarely see a minor scuff or maybe a slightly bent derailleur, but this is the most severe damage I’ve seen.”

Italian trials rider Vittorio Brumotti unbelievably suffered not one, but two broken bikes while travelling to the US back in 2017. Baggage handlers destroyed his bike on the way to US — and the replacement on way back to Italy.

Vittorio Brumotti damaged bike (via Twitter).jpg
Vittorio Brumotti damaged bike (via Twitter) (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)