Bikes , bags and planes

I arrived safely in London... my bike did not. It decided to catch the next flight from LA, which is surprising as all my other bags arrived on the same flight. I have a funny feeling that whilst checking in, my bike became mistaken as belonging to the guy next to me. . . the guy having a go at the check in staff .. the Ï want to see your manager"guy... you know the type? Thinks heś entitled to an upgrade on his economy ticket because he sat by the toilets for 14hours on the way out. The first rule of air travel: don't piss off the guy putting the luggage tags on your bag. I know this because, only my friend and I where left standing, staring at an empty luggage carousal at Heathrow.

The efficiency of the Virgin Atlantic lost luggage monster is astounding. A representative informed me that the bag had taken an unexpected trip via Stockholm (I gave my travel mate the evil eye at this point) and that they would have it delivered later that night. Alarm bells should have gone off at this point as he had not even asked me where I was staying, so powerful is the Virgin PR monster I left the airport smiling at the idea of being united with my bike later that evening, in time for the 13h30 race start the next day.

Got my bike Seven o clock , Sunday evening. The Virgin call centre in India (go figure??) promised to look into it . The bike is in an indestructibly hard shell travel case, but to make doubly sure I´m going to stencil my destination on it for my final leg back to JHB and avoid checking in with any idiots!!. Iĺl stick some fragile stickers on it just incase the baggage handlers at JHB or Stockholm airportś decide to drop it from the top step of the plane!!