One ride to the airport, 22 hours of flying, two stop-overs, one ride to my family's. What would be the most likely place things can go wrong?

'Security is very heavy,' everybody warned me. So when I was pulled over to open my carry-on ('just food?') in London and the guy noticed I'm from the Netherlands, we started chatting about the European Championships. My stove and fuel bottle arrived just fine.

'You should be really careful in Chicago when youtake your baggage, people can rob you when you're on your own with all that stuff,' my parents warned me. So when I had cleared customs, picked up my bag and bike and slid my way through narrow doors, all my baggage was taken care of within 5 minutes.

After 28 hours of being awake, I managed to land in Portland, meet with Karen, get my baggage, and walk outside to be driven home by neighbour Sid. Everyone knows Americans think big, bigger, biggest when it comes to cars, but Sid is the kind of guy who realises that you don't need a big car, so he brought his reasonably sized vehicle that pulled his reasonably sized trailer. Of course the bike box just didn't fit in the trailer, so (thinking I'm at the other side of the world so I need to do the opposite here) I layed it in the trailer, nose up, tail down.

45 minutes later. Sid's worried someone was hurt when the box was blown out of the trailer and landed on the ground, Karen's feeling bad about looking back and not noticing the bike wasn't there, and I'm calling my bike insurance who can't seem to understand the time difference ('as I said, I can't report this to the police at 2am') and distance ('mailing the official police report to Holland will take days') between the Netherlands and the States. After backtracking and no trace of (part of) a bike box, the three of us went to sleep.

9am next morning. Karen's called a bunch of numbers, I've reported my missing bike at the police, and we'll be called when anything has been found.

1pm. I'm just about to announce my situation to my travel insurance. Karen's phone rings. 'Oh my god, you found the bike?!' (Alina falls down the toilet) Someone called in the night before that there was a hazardous threat on the freeway, and the police went to pick it up.

Sid and Iretrieved a bike that, after 4 flights, three with renowned airlines and one out of own will, had a tiny scratch on the seat and a slightly bent handle bar. We tied it down. Twice.

What exactly happened, will always remain a mystery. If you're the one who called in my bike, leave your address and we will reward you. For days on end.

By the way, Oregon's great.