I have so many thoughts about this, some useful maybe and some probably very specific to myself.
So in the airline industry, frankly, it all comes down to schedule. And I don’t mean what days you fly.
The most productive year I have had in recent memory was when I was flying to Sydney 2-3x a month max on the 777. I had time to train, the trips were conducive to actually sleeping, and I usually got a long swim in when I was in Sydney. I’m going to coerce someone in Sydney to store a bike there for me when I go back to international.
I’ve been on a mostly domestic fleet (some intl and some Hawaii) for the last two years and it has been absolutely disastrous. I hate it with a passion. The trips are not only awful but I have no time to work out on the road and when I do the recovery is non existent because the days are so long and then at the end of the 4-5 day trip I’m beat to shit so I don’t feel like training until I’ve had a few days at home…but inevitably by then its time to go back to work. I’ve never seen schedules and trips so bad in the industry. I’m fleeing back to international and staying put.
So in other words, you have to have time. Time to train but also time to recover and in the absence of that you need trips that allow you to be effective at training when you get home.
I’ve gone through all sorts of iterations too with regards to renting bikes and considered a breakaway or SandS coupled frame. All these have been poor options. a breakaway case is still too big to put in the cockpit and renting has been a PITA too. The Bike Shop Honolulu was one of my great hopes, they were offering decent bikes for rental. So I went there with my reservation, pedals and shoes in my backpack. Got there and they wanted a 100% credit card deposit on an s-works tarmac. I told them that that was insane and they shrugged. I refused and walked out. Yeah I’m still raw about that.
I was a Rapha member for some time but whether it was Seoul or Tokyo or SF or even LA…they never ever had clubhouse bikes avail when I was there.
The performance road bike rental industry is ripe for disruption is what I’m saying.
The one outlier is Bike Works Waikoloa village in Kona. Decent offerings and super easy to work with.
Domestic CONUS destinations I gave up long ago and just decided to do strength training on trips.
So, to summarize…you have to prioritize. If you can manipulate the type of flying you do and can end up with a more predictable month that’s the best path to success. I am in terrible shape right now and it’s all because of my job. No matter how much I want to ride I’m almost physically incapable of real training for a good portion of the month. It sucks, hopefully I’m leaving sometime later this year for greener and more restful pastures so I can actually start racing again.