Guide

Take your own bike abroad, or rent one there?

You've booked a week in Calpe, or Mallorca in April, or Lanzarote in February. Most people look up the airline's bike fee, wince, and stop there — but the fee is the small number. The real question is whether to bring your own bike at all, when there's a shop at the far end with a wall of them.

Flying the bike is a fixed cost: €60 each way on Ryanair, €50 on Aer Lingus, the same whether you're away four days or a fortnight (checked 27 July 2026 — the detail is in our guide to flying with a bike box). Renting is charged by the day. So the whole answer swings on how long you're going for:

The pattern is blunt: the longer the trip, the more sense your own bike makes. A week with a box you already own works out around €17 a day, and almost every rental below is dearer than that — so bringing it wins. Spread the same €120 over a long weekend and it's €40 a day, which most shops undercut comfortably.

What renting actually costs

Rates move with season, town and how good a bike you want. From the shops' own price lists, checked 5 August 2026:

• Lanzarote — Club La Santa includes a Cannondale CAAD8 with a stay; €25 a day or €98 a week for an Ultegra SuperSix Evo. Source
• Calpe — Carbon Lapierres, €40 to €70 a day, or €230 to €310 for seven days. Source
• The Algarve — €40 a day for a basic carbon build, €85 for Di2 with carbon wheels. Source
• Mallorca — Dearest of the four: €55 a day (€245 a week) for a BMC Teammachine, past €145 for a Dura-Ace Colnago. Source

Two things worth knowing. Weekly rates beat daily ones everywhere, so a shop quoting by the day is worth asking about the week. And February to May is when everyone goes — the good bikes book out, so the rate on the website in November isn't the one you'll be quoted in April.

What the weight limit lets you take

You pack to the limit, so it's worth knowing which limit before you pick a flight. Aer Lingus caps a bike at 23kg, and a hard case is often 11–13kg empty — so you're really fitting a bike and its kit into ten or twelve kilos. An 8kg road bike leaves room for shoes, helmet and a pump. A heavier gravel bike with deep wheels leaves almost none.

Ryanair allows 30kg, which is usually worth the €10 difference in fee. The seven kilos don't decide what you bring so much as where it travels: under a tight cap, the pump, tools and spares come out of the box and go into your suitcase instead.

Two things are worth keeping out of the box either way. Carry your shoes in your hand luggage, and your pedals too if they're anything other than standard — if the box goes astray you can hire a bike that fits you far more easily than you can find shoes that do.

The part that isn't about money

For a lot of riders the sums above are beside the point, and it's worth being honest about which way that cuts.

• Your bike fits you. Saddle height, bar reach, your pedals, gearing you know on a climb you don't. For a target event that's usually the whole argument.
• Rental bikes are better than their reputation — at a price. At the cheap end you're on something like an Ultegra Cannondale, which Cyclist found well maintained and faultless. The genuine equal of a good bike at home exists too — Dura-Ace, power meter, current model — but at €105–145 a day, where flying your own wins inside two days. Renting saves money only if you're happy on a mid-tier bike.
• Flying a bike carries risk. Even packed well it can arrive damaged, or late — a bike that misses the connection costs you a riding day the rental never would.
• Time and hassle are real costs. An hour packing, an hour rebuilding, an oversized-baggage desk at both ends, and a box to store for the week.

So, which?

Bring your own for a week or more, for a training block or an event you care about, or when your bike is set up in a way a rental won't replicate. Rent there for a long weekend, a social trip, or anywhere the local rate comes in under your break-even — and especially if the alternative is buying a €400 box for one week in Lanzarote.

And if you land on bringing it: you need a box for a fortnight, not forever. There's likely one twenty minutes away doing nothing, because that's what bike boxes do for the fifty weeks nobody's flying.