Whistler
“Worcester? You’re going to Worcester?”
“No, Whistler. Whistler. In Canada – British Columbia. . .”
“Oh, I thought you said ‘Worcester.’”
“No. Why would I vacation in Worcester?” Worcester is arguably the least attractive city in Massachusetts.
“Yeah, I was wondering the same thing.”
This conversation occurred repeatedly prior to my departure to Whistler. Inevitably, when I state that I will be out of town, folks ask, “Oh, where are you going?”
“Whistler.”
Whistler. One word. Like ‘Paris’ – one never needs to explain that it is Paris, France, despite the fact that there are several cities called Paris. If you say, ‘Paris,’ everyone assumes that you mean Paris, France. In my estimation, it should be the same with Whistler. There is only one. There can be only one. Whistler.
In the winter, Whistler is a premiere destination for skiing and snowboarding; in the summer it is the premiere destination for downhill mountain biking. There is no other bike park on earth quite like it. How can everyone not know this? I know about Paris and I never want to return to that city, so how can the general population be so ignorant about something as important, indeed crucial, as downhill mountain biking destinations?
This brings me to my main point: why are bicycles, and in turn cyclists, so universally discriminated against? I am currently on a flight to Boston from Vancouver. I have been in Whistler (yes, Whistler, not Worcester) for the past week. Before I even entered the roped off twisted line guides at the airport, I was asked by a Northwest employee, “Is that a bike?”
“No,” I replied.
Sadly, my partner, Milissa, sternly said, “Rachelle.”
“Okay, yeah, it’s a bike. But does it have to be a bike?”
The attendant responded, “I thought it was a bike. It looks a lot like a bike.”
I think she really meant that the case looks like a bike case. My bike certainly does not look like a bike when it’s broken down and packed in the blue plastic bike case in which it travels.
“Could it just be excess baggage?” I ask plaintively.
She chuckles in a friendly way, attempting to shrug off my obviously disconcerting question. “May I have your passport?”
I hand it to her. “Seriously,” I say, “Why does it cost so much for my bike?”
Again, she smiles. “I know it doesn’t seem right,” she replies in her pleasant Australian accent. “That’s why I don’t travel with my bike. I just ride local trails.” (Here’s a really great thing about B.C.: everyone rides mountain bikes. Everyone. Seriously.) She scans my passport and hands it back to me. She turns to Milissa and requests her passport.
“Golf clubs,” I say, “How much do you charge for golf clubs?”
“Yeah, nothing.” She scans Milissa’s passport.
“Not fair,” I state.
“Yeah, you’re right,” she returns.
I am whining about the charge for my bike and all the while she is entering the travel data at the “self service” kiosk for Milissa and I. She is finishes, but cannot get the boarding passes to print. I can see panic flickering in her eyes. She clearly does not want to be stuck with me complaining much longer.
“Anna, this doesn’t seem to be printing, can you do a check from there?” she shouts to a woman at the check-in counter.
“Hey, maybe this means my bike should fly for free – you know, for the inconvenience,” I say.
“It’s not printing?” Anna replies.
“No. Can you reset it from there?”
Anna says, “Just put a sign on it and we’ll print the boarding passes here.”
The nice Australian woman looks at us and says, “If you’ll just go up to the counter, you can pay for the bike and they will print your boarding passes.”
“So, no free bike, huh?” I ask. Milissa grabs my arm and pulls me along to the counter.
At the counter, a young man asks for our passports again. We hand them over. “Is that a bike?” he inquires.
“Uh, no.” I state.
“Rachelle.” Milissa says.
“Okay, it’s a bike,” I say, “but what if it wasn’t? What if it’s just excess baggage?”
“Well, it does look like a bike,” he states. Again I wonder how this blue plastic box looks like a bike.
“Yeah, but, why do I have to pay for a bike? What about golf clubs – free, right?”
“Yes,” he responds. “That will be $105 with tax. How would you like to pay for that?”
I hand over my American Express card. “I understand that this isn’t your fault or your policy, but I find it quite frustrating.”
“Please sign here,” he says as he hands me a charge slip.
I sign and hand the paper back to him. “I mean, bikes do not weigh any more than golf clubs,” I continue.
He hands me a receipt. “Would you like me to read to you why we charge for bikes?”
“Sure. That’s sounds like fun.”
“Yeah, they have a whole thing written out for us that we’re supposed to read, it says: ‘we apologize for any inconvenience, but we will allow you to travel with your bike rather than shipping it as freight. For this service, we charge a nominal fee of $100. Bikes require extra attention and special handling in order to insure that it arrives safely.’ “
“Okay,” I interrupt. “I get the idea. That’s pretty funny. Just look at my bike case – there is clearly evidence to the contrary of any ‘special handling’. Does that mean that if anything happens to it, I get a new bike?”
By this time, he is done with me and I think he would very much like for me to move on. “Uh, yeah, I don’t. . .” His voice trails off. He hands Milissa the boarding passes and our passports. “So, you’re all set. You’ll just need to move ahead to the customs line.”
“Okay,” I reply, “Thanks.”
I start explaining to Milissa how I am going to start a company that manufactures bike cases that do not look like bike cases. As I talk on and on about this plan, she interrupts, “Wait a minute, you’ve thought about this before now?”
“Heck, yeah. I’ve been planning this for a while. I’m on a polymer/plastics manufacturers email list to look at various materials that would be suitable for the case.”
“Polymers. You look at polymers.”
“Yup.”
I talk on and on about my bike case idea and the expense of manufacturing a prototype as we snake through the long customs line. The only thing that finally shuts me up about the bike is when an irritating power-hungry little man gives me an order to move ahead when, clearly, I cannot move ahead as there is another person in front of me. I go on about that, incredulously inquiring why such men irritate me so, until we reach the customs counter.
The bike travel thing has plagued me for years. I used to be able to flash my IMBA (International Mountain Biking Association) card and the unknowing or unaware check-in folks would let the bike go for free. Due to more stringent airline restrictions, this no longer works. In my defense, America West Airlines did have some agreement with IMBA that allowed members to acquire a limited number of vouchers each year for flying with a bike. Or, maybe it was United Airlines. Anyway, I always did it on America West when I flew to Phoenix:
“Is that a bike?”
“Yes.”
“That requires an additional charge.”
“Oh, no. I have my IMBA card,” and I’d pull it from my wallet and show it to the attendant.
“Okay, go ahead.”
Booyeah.
For this trip, I was quite sure that there would be no way around the charge for the bike and had prepared myself to suck it up. I was okay when we left Boston. I answered in the affirmative when asked if the blue plastic case was a bike and quickly presented a credit card to pay the extra fee. Any irritation over the fee was certainly mitigated by the fact that I was traveling to Whistler (not Worcester) to ride my new downhill bike.
I did give the check-in attendant a bit of trouble, but all in good fun.
She said, “it will be a $100 charge for the bike.”
“$100? I could fly a child for less money.”
“Yep. So how did you want to pay the $100?”
“You really like rubbing it in, don’t you, the $100?”
“Yeah. So, here’s the receipt for the $100 fee.”
“Come on, do you have to keep saying $100?”
“Thank you for paying that $100 fee.”
By this time, we are both laughing and she gave me plastic Northwest Airlines wings. For this, I was grateful. Usually, they only hand those out to small children. This was definitely worth the $100.
When we reached our Hotel in Whistler (after I almost killed us both when I fell asleep driving the curvy, under-construction, sea-to-sky highway in the middle of the night), there were signs everywhere declaring that bicycles were not allowed in the hotel rooms. As I always do when in Whistler, I ignored these signs and took my bike to my room every day after I was done riding.
On the second day, the concierge caught up to me at the elevator and asked if he could check my bike. I said no. He told me that the hotel did not allow bikes in the rooms, so he really would appreciate it if I would check it. Then he said, “or I could look the other way.”
“Look the other way,” I replied.
The next day, I was in the elevator with the bike searching for my room card. In this particular fancy hotel, you needed your room card to make the elevator work. In the time it took me to find my card a rather aggressive concierge stopped the elevator doors from closing and said, “excuse me, but you’ll need to check the bike down here. Bikes are not allowed in the rooms.”
I stared at him for a moment, looked at his name tag that read ‘Dick,’ and then said, “so, you’re going to drag me off the elevator?”
“If I must,” he replied. This was quite odd because as a rule, I have found everyone in Whistler to be incredibly nice and friendly. I glared at him and got off of the elevator with my bike. I went over to the concierge desk with my bike. He put a tag on the bike and handed me the torn off claim check.
“I assume that you have insurance in case anything happens to the bike,” I stated.
“Oh, come on. We don’t need to go there,” he remarked in a most rude manner.
I said, “It’s an expensive bike.”
“It will be locked up. It’s fine.”
I gave him my most intensely dissatisfied angry look and walked away mumbling something about the expensive hotel with assholes working in it.
The next morning I returned to retrieve my bike for my last day of riding and Dick was minding the counter with a colleague. His colleague took my tag and Dick turned abruptly, obviously a bit embarrassed, and told his colleague that he would retrieve it. Dick brought the bike out and his colleague tried to hand me the tag. I looked at him.
“Do I need that?”
“I assume you’ll be checking it back in later,” he said in a pleasant British accent.
“Actually,” I said, “I’m leaving in the morning so I will want to bring my bike up to the room to break it down and pack it up. You’re not going to give me a problem about that, are you?”
Dick jumped in, “No, of course not. That’s perfectly reasonable if you’re packing it up to have it in your room. And, I do apologize that I was short with you yesterday. You must appreciate that we can’t have bikes in the rooms – they drag in dirt and make trouble for the cleaning personnel.” (No more trouble than I do, I thought, since I am at least as dirty as my bike when I return, but thought better of saying it out loud).
“Well, you should understand that this is a very expensive piece of equipment and I like to know where it is,” I said.
“Oh, sure, yeah.” He was falling all over himself to be nice. But it did not matter to me one bit. I can’t wait to write my letter to the hotel.
So, after all of that, what’s my point, you may be wondering. It is this: why is there so much discrimination against bikes? I am especially shocked in Whistler that the hotels would be so reluctant to allow people to have their bikes in their rooms. It is a bike park in the summer. Sure, there are other summer activities in Whistler: snowboarding on the glacier; the zipline; golfing; hiking; but by far the biggest and best activity that brings so many folks to Whistler in the summer is the ‘greatest downhill mountain bike park in the world.’ That means that bikes bring in revenue. Do they take away skis and snowboards in the winter? Do they take away the golf clubs from those who are silly enough to go to Whistler to play golf?
Nope.