Ski Bag or Ski Tube?

I'm re-asking this in the Gear section (earlier today I had piggy-backed it onto a thread in the General section -- please disregard there):

I'm flying with kids to ski resorts later this season (two separate trips) and will take the skis, poles and boots with us as check-in baggage. Which is better for putting the skis and poles in, a ski bag or ski tube? Which brands/models are best?

Thanks.

Bag (wheeled). You can put your gear, helmet and a few days of clothes while protecting the skis.

Dakine Concourse Double.. Only way to go...

I use padded bags.

Save bubble wrap. Wrap tips and tails to protect them. Wrap bindings to protect other skis and items in the bag. Stuff extra layers and other items into the unused spaces of ski bag(s).

I'm happy with the padded bags I got from ebay. Bags on the go or something similar is the seller. I can just get Nordica 170 skis (Speedmachine 16.1 and Hot Rod Nitrous) into the 170 bag. I can just barely get 186 Lhasa's into the 190 bag. Obviously, skis for the kids aren't a problem.

Use caution in packing clothing in a ski bag!! There are many horror stories (including mine) of the airlines damaging the ski bag, skis and clothing inside.

On one trip to Mount Hood my padded ski bag looked like they dragged it behind the plane! It burned right through the padded bag and killed one of my grips. The clothing in the bag was heavily damaged with holes and burn as well.

US Airways =

This is exactly the reason why I say NO to bags, and YES to tubes like this one:

I bought a (cheap) ski bag off of eBay and it started to come apart in just one trip to Colorado.

So bought a Sportube similar to the one pictured in the previous reply. Haven't used it yet but looks bulletproof.

Rick

Skitube. had the airlines bend a pair of my skis in a bag. doen with bags!!

2 issues

#1 Shorter skis can get hung up on the luggage converyor when they load your ski at the counter.

#2 they throw your skis like firewood in a pile onto the shuttle trucks to and from the plane.

Get a double tube. You can take 2 pair & it is considered 1 bag.

If the airline drives over your skis, it matters not much if you have some rotomolded piece of ABS or a nice padded cloth bag around them.

Dakine double wheelie seconded. User friendly, and I've been using mine for at least five seasons now and it still looks decent. It usually gets loaded to pretty much the limit.

I like bags.

More grip for bungees when I throw the entire bag on the load bars.

With the tubes I'd have to use 'yak straps.


Is there a second brand of ski tube I am not aware of?

It isn't running over them I am concerned about. that would just mean new skis paid for by Air F-heads!

It is that they throw your skis on the truck and onto the plane from about 20 feet away!

We were sitting on the plane with a full view of them loading gear from our window when we saw our skis fly by like Tyrone Shoelaces into a shuttle wagon!

I'd be really, really impressed to see someone throw my 50lb ski bag 20 feet. I'd probably cheer.

OK,Ten feet? 5 feet? 2 feet? A foot I don't know about you but i don't throw my skis.

By the way when they are up in the plane and chuking them out of cargo hold down onto a truck 10-15 feet is no stretch and I don't give a sh_t if your prized bag weighs 50LBS.

Yeah, but I chuck my skis 10, 20, 30 feet all the time...then land my fat ass right on top of 'em.

I'm not worried about it.

That's a photo Op!

Don't worry! Be happy!

A ski tube is a dis-advantage in that sort of situation, unless the truck surface is somehow sharp.

A ski tube has three advantages: penetration resistance, lower friction, more rigid in bending. That's it.

What? I'll take a piece of rotomolded ABs over my bindings and skis anyday over a piss poorly padded ski bag. (Not your's Garrett) & the MAPLUS looks pretty good too!

You don't think that the impact is diffused over a larger surface area?

I also bought my double for $89.00 at the end of the season.

The area is already at maximum, because it's being dropped on a flat surface and not a sharp one.

People wearing helmets still get concussions (and counterblow injuries!), unless the padding inside the helmet absorbs the deceleration.

Nope, the ski tube is still at a disadvantage in such situations. I can put a LOT more kayak foam into a soft bag without running into weight limits.

Wanna justify a ski tube? Give me a bending load argument, a friction argument or a sharp penetration argument.

EDIT: Heck, I'll even accept an "It makes a cheep ski roof box" argument.

It's not landing on a flat surface, it is landing on other skis with bindings and ski tips and the misplaced pole tip sticking out all over the place.

A rooftop ski box?

Quite the imagination!

Not really, the real question is why roof boxes don't have handles in the front and wheels in the back.

I knew you were jokin'!

I've done both the ski tube and bags, while somehow I feel more comfortable with the ski tube, I can tell you from experience that it is far from foolproof. If TSA opens the ski tube in transit (I had mine checked in my presence by TSA in Boston but it got searched again in Chicago) don't expect them to figure out how to put everything back neatly or manage to close the tube properly. There are better odds that they will close up a bag properly than the ski tube. In my case they just didn't bother putting the tube back together so the skis were sticking out of the tube's bottom part and the top of the tube arrived a little later down the conveyor belt.

Had a Line single padded ski bag and loved it. I Could pack extra clothes in it and it was easy to put on a roof rack of a rental SUV with just a couple of bungee cords with cord locks.

2 ski trips ago, I unpacked my ski bag the day after I got home from the airport. I then noticed one of the pull tabs on the zipper was ripped off with a lot of the zipper teeth missing, clothes on that side of the bag had a nice cut through it and the base of one ski had a nice gash approx 6 inches long. Have no idea how this happened and attempting to get reimbursed by the airline for this is a whole different story.

I appreciated the versatility of the soft ski bag, but now own a sport tube. Best of luck to you in your search.

air canada wont even insure your skis anymore unless theyre in a hard tube

To bad pelican does not make a ski tube for skis.

I trust all my gear to pelican cases. (electronics and tools, not ski stuff)

If I was to travel, I would buy a hard tube. I worked at the airport long enough to know how things are handled on air planes. Fancy luggage is a no no, hard cases only if you can, or a nice soft shell case, but dont ever buy anything fancy.
If its to heavy and not a special item, they will not think twice about dropping it on the tarmac.

Yes, I would avoid the ski tubes just because they have a good chance of not being put back together correctly when TSA opens to inspect. I have seen at least 4-5 people posting here about seeing their tube and ski gear showing up on the other end in pieces. And as noted, the tube is not going to help in the most extreme damage scenarios that will crush anything.

I picked up a ski bag and boot bag set at Sam's club many years ago for something like $20. The bag is padded, has a rigid bottom along the lower 1/3 of it's length, with wheels and skids. It has held up well over many years. In fact, here it is after returning from Utah last evening:



I like soft bags because I can surround the skis with other crap, including spare clothes (or dirty clothes on the way home), snacks, gloves, avy beacon and probe, etc. Basically anything that doesn't fit into my main suitcase and boot bag (both are carry-ons so that I can still ski even if my ski bag gets lost in transit). I even put my helmet in that ski bag -- see the bulge up at the front. It fits over the tips of the skis, with some padding in between to protect the helmet from the ski tips.

I bought a roll of sill insulation, which is a blue, pink, or white closed cell foam about 1/4" thick and 6" wide, in a 50 foot roll. Carpenters use it between the foundation and sill plate when framing houses. I put a strip between the skis before strapping them together, and use it to wrap the tips and tails. I also put some padding around the heel pieces and brakes to prevent any incidental contact from bending the brakes. Once I stuff everything else in there, the skis are pretty well isolated. A short piece of garden hose bent in a "V" goes over the tips of my poles to keep the tips together and prevent them from punching through anything (they are sharp).

Oh crap, I knew I forgot something!

whichever you choose, go with cheap. delta completely trashed my ski bag last time i flew with it.