"The most difficult thing in life is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward."    ~ Amelia Earhart

Arriving at the start point in Canada can be quantified in any number of ways.  Based on the way other content on the site is arranged, I am going to start the phases of arriving several days before flying out of Denver to Calgary.  The phases break down as follows:

1. Packing up and preparing the bike to fly.
2. Air Transport and shuttling to the start point.
3. Unpacking, reshipping box, preparing and launching.

"Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

-Murphy's Laws of Combat

Packing up and preparing the bike to fly.  

First off, living in the Denver area, I considered renting a car and driving the day and a half or so directly to Canada.  Sounded like a good idea, as I would have control of the bike the entire way.  However, some significant research indicated that the expense would be considerably higher overall than traveling by air.  There is some weird rule that a Canadian citizen cannot drive an American titled car back across the border…so they wanted to charge a point to point international fee in addition to soaking me piecemeal in several other ways.  I booked the flight over a month in advance (Frontier) and it only cost about $155 plus a $50 oversize luggage fee to fly DIA to Calgary (YYC.)   I also called the Frontier office at DIA to confirm the rules about shipping oversized luggage.

Many folks choose to pack their bikes in cardboard bike box cases from a cycle shop and it can very well be done that way.  My cost-benefit-analysis on the subject led me to go the route of the hardshell case.  Based on the considerable financial investment in the bike, components, and gear; along with the potential cost and downtime of repairing damage, I didn't think it was worth skimping on the shipping container.  Problem is, nice hardshells like the TRI-ALL3 model I used are expensive new, around $500.  About a month and a half before launch, on a wild whim, I emailed out a request to borrow a bike box to the Denver area FROG Yahoo adventure racing group I have been a member of for several years now.  Within a few hours, I had a few good leads and within a day secured a plan to borrow a box.  Much thanks to Mark C. for letting me borrow the box.  Mark had unfortunately broken his neck riding in Moab and was unable to ride or travel for the season.

I ended up packing the bike, tires and racks in the box and used a canvas travel bag along with my Salomon backpack for the rest of the gear.  When I arrived in Canmore, the plan was to FedEx the box back to Mark with my travel outfit, the bag, and some tools I used to assemble the bike with.  The plan worked okay, I’ll address the Canmore side later. 

I had three pieces of luggage, the bike box, a big canvas duffle bag, and my Salomon pack.  I packed all the ‘soft gear’ into the canvas duffle bag and all my valuables (PDA, GPS, camera, documentation) as carry on in my Salomon backpack.  The setup worked well.

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