french trains + bikes?

mpd62

Has anybody experienced Bikes on French Trains , Thinking of Brittany and trying to get further south.

Garrigou

If it's boxed/bagged it can go on any train. If it's not then the rail timetables have a small bike icon depicted alongside the times of the trains which carry bikes. Most do, but some rush-hour routes don't.

vernonlevy

Try using the man in seat 61 web site it has good advice and links to advice about travelling on European trains with bikes.

www.seat61.com

Butterd2

Bagged I've never had a problem, racks are usually pretty good or use the space by the doors.

andymiller

mpd62 wrote:

Has anybody experienced Bikes on French Trains , Thinking of Brittany and trying to get further south.

Probably the most valuable tool (oddly enough) is the German Railways (DeutcheBahn) website. The advanced search facility lets you search for trains with bike carriage facilities. However, as good as it is, this has a tendency to route you via Paris. If you want to avoid Paris then my advice would be to search around for maps of the french rail network (use Google Image search), to work out what itineries are possible.

Here's the link to the map of the Bretagne regional (TER) network (it's in French and I couldn't see an English version but there may well be one):

http://www.ter-sncf.com/Regions/bretagn ... Flash.aspx

(You should be able to find similar maps for other TER regions).

Note that some of the services shown on this map are bus services. You can get more information by clicking on the line and then going to the Fiche Horaire.

This wikipedia page gives information on which of the TER bretagne services are trains and which are buses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TER_Bretagne

marcusjb

Touch wood - never had a problem - we even managed to get our tandem on three trains (travelling back from La Rochelle to St Malo to catch the ferry home).

A little bit of french, a lot of politeness and smiles and you're usually going ot be ok!