travel to/from events

cookiemonster

I'm booking up a number of sportives for this year, but i have a question - if i take the train (out of London) to an event, am I going to be standing in a huge queue of cyclists trying to get on the train back, two at a time? I get the train up from marylebone to the chilterns (easier than driving....), but the cycle space is very limited - ive never really had a problem, but sometimes there are few bikes squeezed in. If say 10 or 20 bikes turned up 8 or 18 folk would be screwed...

Should i just take the car??

jon

9velozero

I went down to Petersfield in Hampshire on the London - Portsmouth train last year for the Southern Sportive and had no trouble with the bike, even though all regulation bike spaces had been taken up.

It was early on a Sunday and the train had so few passengers that the train staff took a practical and realistic view to the situation. I'm planning on doing the same this year.

Michuel

cookiemonster wrote:

I'm booking up a number of sportives for this year, but i have a question - if i take the train (out of London) to an event, am I going to be standing in a huge queue of cyclists trying to get on the train back, two at a time? I get the train up from marylebone to the chilterns (easier than driving....), but the cycle space is very limited - ive never really had a problem, but sometimes there are few bikes squeezed in. If say 10 or 20 bikes turned up 8 or 18 folk would be screwed...

Should i just take the car??

jon

I travel a lot by train with bike and never had any problems.

For some routes you have to book in advance - EastCoast (Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh), - Midland (Derby, Sheffield). These generally have one luggage area at front or back of train.

Otheres such as South-East have bike facilities in a middle carriage. I've seen more than the 3 bikes allowed put there.

Anyway uisually there isn't the demand from cyclists going to Sportives. The most I've seen on a train for sportives is 3 cyclists (including myself).

At the end of the Etape 5 years ago there were 5 cyclists on the train although 8000 in the event. That's the most cyclists I've seen.

But remember if you can wrap your bike in a plastic bag you can carry it anyway as luggage.

cookiemonster

Right, thanks, sounds good. I guess I tend to think that lots of people will be travelling to and from london, but the reality is that not many folk that live in central london make the effort to get out to stuff like this

cheers