Sea Otter Classic, North America’s premier cycling festival, is happening now at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California. The four-day event hosts hundreds of world-class riders who are competing in mountain and road races as well as brands big and small that are revealing new products for 2019 and beyond. We have a team on the ground to bring you intel on all of the most exciting product releases. Follow our coverage here.
Key Specs:
Brand: Orucase
Model: B2 Bike Bag
Price: $550 (estimate)
Availability: Summer 2019
Unique Features: This bike case is the correct size to help you avoid most airline bike fees and stores easily at home.
Upshot: Bike baggage fees have spiked in recent years, so Orucase designed an innovative bike travel case that’s below the maximum dimensions that most airlines use to classify a standard bag.
Who It’s For: Anyone who flies to bike events or wants to ride in distant locations.
Insight: Three things suck about bike cases: they cost a lot of money to fly with, they occupy too much storage space, and they are among the most ungainly things to drag around an airport.
Ex-professional bike racer Isaac Howe has plenty of experience lugging bikes through airports (and paying up to $250 for the privilege), which is why he designed the Orucase. His first Orucase model, named Airport Ninja, deals with cost and inconvenience as it is small enough to use as a backpack and meets most airlines’ maximum luggage size requirements (62 linear inches is the standard measure). The new Orucase B2 covers storage and transport: it folds down to a third of its deployed size, adds swivel wheels, and still goes for the price of a duffel bag. A rhomboidal shape with a wide base and a narrow top cleverly help the bag look smaller too, which helps in avoiding those sometimes-subjective bike fees. You only have to fly with this bag three times before it pays for itself in saved fees on some airlines.
