Bike box (hard shell) plus family luggage - what car?

JJDLD

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right place for this question, but hopefully someone can help.

I'm off to Italy for a week-long family holiday in a while and will be taking my bike along in a hard shell box I'll be hiring closer to the time (from Bikebox Alan by the way - great customer service). I was wondering if anybody had an idea of the size of car I should hire in Italy for the trip in to the mountains where we'll be staying? I'll need space for:

Me
Mrs JJ
JJ toddler (in car seat)
Bike box
Three or four suitcases / backpacks
JJ toddler's buggy
(Blimey - and to think that before JJ toddler came along, I got by in India with a backpack and contents weighing 7kg...)

Will a Scenic be big enough? In my experience it's got actually quite a small luggage area unless you start moving the rear seats about / folding them up. Should I be thinking of a more traditional Mondeo / Passat type estate?

Any ideas gratefully received!

Ta,

JJ.

richa

I was thinking about hiring a Scenic for the Marmotte and was wondering whether I would get the rigid bike box in it. And that is without the toddler, suitcase & buggy !!!

Reckon you'll struggle with a you'll struggle with a Mondeo/Passat too. No way the bike box is going to fit in with the rear seats down. Reckon something like a galaxy might work. You can remove one of the back seats and the box can stand upright next the rear seats.

cougie

We got 2 hard shell cases into a focus estate - and then the car was full. So where your child will go - thats a problem !!

Either - bung the case on the roof - or leave it in left luggage - or use a soft shell bike bag.

stjohnswell

Bike boxes are really bulky and your also going to have loads of child paraphernalia. I'd go for a passat estate or something huge like an espace.

stuartg

Not sure about the bike box but I have a new mondeo estate and it is huge! Bought it primarily as we have a labrador dog but can fit the dog, very large kit bag, smaller backpac, very large camera bag with coats all in the boot leaving the dog enough room to walk about and stand up.
If I take the bike though I do always put it on the roof in a Mont Blanc Barracuda rack. Its very safe up there as it locks to the car in a number of places.
This is just for me and the wife and the dog though. Wouldn't you be better renting a large car with a roof box? Get all the kit in the roof box and put the bike box in the boot?

Mossrider

I have an S Max, that would take everything but with three or four cases you'd find the split fold down seats handy. One of the ideas behind getting it was that when visiting German based in laws we could take baby, bike and all....I swore I'd never get an MPV, that was until we took two bikes and a toddler to the Alps in September.

The Galaxy is slightly larger.

The S Max was a great plan, lets see how it works after August when child no2 arrives!

Surely by the time you've mucked about with packing and unpacking bike boxes, supersized hire cars etc (not to mention JJ toddler) the easiest thing would be to hire the bike?

JJDLD

Dear all,

Thanks for the responses so far - all very useful!

i thought it might help if I put a bit more details behind my original query... When I referred to suitcases I really meant those trolley-dolly pull-along on wheels things rather than full-blown suitcases. Not sure if that makes a difference to anybody's thoughts?

The idea of hiring a bike there has crossed my mind, but it just feels so wrong - it feels like I'll be two-timing on my "best bike"!!

Thanks again for the responses.

JJ.

richa

JJ
It's not the suitcase that are the problem It's the bike box! It won't go in any boot with the seat down. Therefore, you need an mpv/minivan so the bike box can stand upright beside one of the rear seats.

JJDLD

Just resurrecting this in the off-chance that it might be useful to somebody in the future...

Got back from my Italian jaunt and can confirm that Bikebox Alan's excellent box will fit in a Scenic vertically (mine is Y reg - older shape) with one of the rear seats "tumbled". Plenty of spare space.

We booked an MPV in Italy, but the hire company "upgraded" us to a Fiat Chroma estate. We could not get the bike box to fit and leave one of the rear seats in place for our son, so for us this car was no good.

The hire company swapped us to a Fiat Qubo minivan. The bike box did just fit in this vertically with the smaller part of the rear seat (the 40% of the 60 - 40 split) folded down, but was a squeeze. We were able to pack the other luggage around it. The downside was that it was a gutless heap of carp with no acceleration, but hey, the bike box fitted in so that's all that mattered.

JJ.

Kléber

Or leave the bike box at the airport if it has a baggage service.

bigal.

I was in Portugal recently and had the same problem. Hire company supplied me with a seat Alhambra which easily took 3 large cases in the rear with both bike boxes on top lying flat. This left me with one other case which I managed to squeeze into the back seats leaving space for 2 passengers in the back as well.

The Alhambra is a 7 seater that does lots of magic seat folding which helped.

popette

on this subject, sort of, has anyone driven a renault kangoo van? We're going to hire a van from Avignon rather than a car. This is the smallest van they do - need to fit in baggage plus two bike boxes when we arrive at the station. Then just want to fit in one bike (out of box) at other times.

Or should i go for an A Team style van? ?????

Kléber

You might find a utility, aka builder's van is better if there are just two or three passengers. It can be much cheaper as it's a low cost vehicle, not some £30,000 people carrier.

popette

yeh, this is kangoo


the back looks a bit small - not sure would fit bike in there when assembled?

this is next one up

http://www.avis.co.uk/ProductPage.aspx? ... %3a00%3a00


only £20 difference between the two but we just don't fancy driving that beast around if we could get away with the smaller of the two.

richa

Think that Kangoo will be too short. Don't think a bike box'll fit. We fitted 2 bike boxes & luggage in a VW Tourran (similar class to Scenic). And cheaper than a van.

soveda

Going by the stats on the renault site bike boxes should fit:
Load area length (no rear seats): 1675mm
Load area height:1166mm
Minimum load bay width:1172 mm

Measure and check!

P.S.: that looks like a short wheelbase version didn't know they made one, perhaps it's just the photo!

popette

Unfortunately, I only pick up the bike boxes next thurs from two different suppliers and not sure of the sizes. I couldn't get either van as there are hardly any vehicles left to hire from Avignon now. I managed to get a citroen grand picasso with fold down seats and will just have to make it all fit in.

soveda

popette wrote:

Unfortunately, I only pick up the bike boxes next thurs from two different suppliers and not sure of the sizes. I couldn't get either van as there are hardly any vehicles left to hire from Avignon now. I managed to get a citroen grand picasso with fold down seats and will just have to make it all fit in.

Grand picasso with the seats down is huge!

Yorkman

popette wrote:

on this subject, sort of, has anyone driven a renault kangoo van? We're going to hire a van from Avignon rather than a car. This is the smallest van they do - need to fit in baggage plus two bike boxes when we arrive at the station. Then just want to fit in one bike (out of box) at other times.

Or should i go for an A Team style van? ?????

Can you not hire a roof rack off them at the same time and stick the bike boxes on there ?