So when I was booking the trip I was nervous about taking my bike on the train in Europe. I’d heard stories about TGVs just not accepting bikes, about the Eurostar bike service taking 24 hours. Fortunately I persisted.
Eurostar now has a bike service where your bike travels on the same train. It costs £20, and you have to book in advance at a different office to the ticket office. But the leaflet has lots of dire warnings about accepting no responsibility for incorrectly packaged bikes. Well, I turned up to the baggage office, handed over my bike and everything was fine. Arriving in Paris and I immediately went to the middle coach where the bikes were hanging. Signed a form to say it was in good condition, loaded the panniers back on and away I went. Simples. Cost £20 though.
On to the TGV Est from Paris, which AFAIK is the only TGV line that accepts bikes, and also simple. You can’t book a bike ticket online, and SNCF, the French rail operator aren’t very helpful. But give Deutsch Bahn’s UK ticket office a call. They speak English and are very helpful, and have no problem booking bikes on to French trains.
At Gare de l’Est again I was nervous. What if the DB guy was wrong? What if it’s a different TGV with no bike space?What if the French are typically unhelpful? I needn’t have worried. On TGV Est bikes go in coach 11. My seat was booked in coach 11. There are 4 seats at the side that fold up to allow space for 3, maybe 4, bikes. I wrestle my bike on and settle in, then a german couple gets on with their bikes. Not a problem, due to clever seat bookings we get to sit next our bikes.
The only problem came getting off. The train was 5 mins late into Karlsruhe, so it was a short stop to get 3 bikes and luggage off. One of us stood in the door holding it open as we passed the luggage out in a chain and manouvered the bikes out.
I then had to get the inter-regional express train to Konstanz. There were becoming more and more people with bikes on the platform. I’d been told by the DB booking centre that you can’t reserve a place, it was first come first served, but that it will “be fine”. Hmm, but what about all those bikes. Well, the inter-regional express train turned up, with 6 coaches, 3 could take 12 bikes each. Plenty of space.
Moral is, forget what you know about British trains and bikes, Europeans have this sorted. Simple.
Oh, and, proper trip reports for my 2 weeks down the Rhine will follow at some point. But it’s taken me 3 days to write this on the wordpress iPhone app, so might wait until I’m back home to update properly.
