Can I take my bike on the Paris-Lyon train?

KnightOfTheLongTights

Am looking to get down to south of France (Provence / Alps) with bike - preferably without having to dismantle and bag it up.

Looking at booking a return train journey to Lyon through the Eurostar website.

Can find the details on taking a bike on Eurostar, but not on the Paris-Lyon leg - which I'm suspecting is a TGV? Have heard TGV's are not that geared up for bikes - not undismantled anyway.

Eurostar will let you take a bike fully assembled, which is what I'm after - but if the TGV will only accept it disassembled and in a bag, then frankly, you may as well fly and go though the whole boxing up hassle?

Maybe I could choose another destination in the south of France, which is not a TGV route, and therefore more like to accept a rolled-on bike? Any tips much appreciated.

andymiller

The short answer, unfortunately, is'probably not'. A lot of trains on the TGV Est, Nord and ouest/Atlantique have bike carriage facilities but they are rare, possibly non-existent on the line that goes via Lyon. Unfortunately this is the main route to the Alps.

You can check whether a train has bike carriage facilities. Go to the tgv-europe.com site. NB It will give you a choice of buying tickets in euros or pounds - choose euros. Then look up the train times, when you get the search results, click on the details tab and if the train takes bikes you should see a bike pictogram.

You will probably get the best deal if you book the Eurostar and French railways ticket separately. Bear in mind that tickets for Eurostar are released about four months ahead while the French railway tickets are available 3 months in advance.

KnightOfTheLongTights

top info Andy thanks.

PieterM

Actually, you can take your unpacked bike on the TGV Mediterrannee (the trains that go to Marseille via Lyon). I have done it.
However, there are only 4 spots for bikes per train and you have to reserve in advance.

KnightOfTheLongTights

PieterM wrote:

Actually, you can take your unpacked bike on the TGV Mediterrannee (the trains that go to Marseille via Lyon). I have done it.
However, there are only 4 spots for bikes per train and you have to reserve in advance.

hey, great news Pieter. Did you call up and make your bike resn. at same time as your train booking?

KnightOfTheLongTights

Just called Rail Europe and they said none of the TGV trains to Lyon or Nice take bikes unpackaged ....

andymiller

One thing I should have said is that it is possible to get to Lyon using regional trains. The best way to find out information on this is to use the DeutschBahn website (www.bahn.co.uk) click 'search options' and on the following page click 'bicycle carriage required'. Takes 5 hours with a change ar Dijon. Yes you did read that right DeutscheBahn.

A long-shot option would be Eurostar's direct services to Avignon. But my imprrssion is that these get booled up very early.

PieterM wrote:

Actually, you can take your unpacked bike on the TGV Mediterrannee (the trains that go to Marseille via Lyon). I have done it.
However, there are only 4 spots for bikes per train and you have to reserve in advance.

I've also done that journey, several times, and never managed to find a train with bike carriage facilities. Any advice/info on how to find one?

wjhall

The problem is that the Lyon run has gone over almost entirely to first generation Duplex TGVs which have been built without cycle accommodation, whereas previously some of the old single deckers had had limited cycle accommodation added, and some of the newer TGVs on other routes have been built with it.

For the Alps have you considered Grenoble? The SNCF voyages timetable suggests that there may be two direct TGVs per day with cycle accommodation, but read it carefully, do not be deceived by the cycle symbol where this is actually attached to routing with change to a local train at Lyon it only applies to the local train.

The other problem is that even if you have a reserved cycle space, the single decker may be replaced by a Duplex on the day - I have seen this happen. Fine for foot passengers, those affected by the disappeared carriages were just invited to take places on the top deck., but could be awkward if you had reserved in a space in a now absent cycle compartment.

All in all, and to be frank, I am in the middle of planning a walking holiday, and taking the inability of the railways, despite "Train Team", to book through from the UK to many obvious holiday destinations in the Alps, despite the admirably comprehensive DB timetable, and the poker like pricing system, I am leaning towards allowing the railways of Europe to keep their trains...,

andymiller

wjhall wrote:

All in all, and to be frank, I am in the middle of planning a walking holiday, and taking the inability of the railways, despite "Train Team", to book through from the UK to many obvious holiday destinations in the Alps, despite the admirably comprehensive DB timetable, and the poker like pricing system, I am leaning towards allowing the railways of Europe to keep their trains...,

I think you're overstating the difficulties somewhat - although yes it can be a pain, and yes it is stupid that there's no easy one-stop solution for buying tickets - at least if you want the cheapest tickets, and the different release windows for Eurostar and other tickets also annoys the heck out of me. But all of the European rail companies are pretty easy to deal with online (OK maybe not RENFE).

I'm also not sure what is poker-like about the pricing systems - they all work on the basis that if you want a cheap ticket you need to book well in advance -usually 3 months.

KnightOfTheLongTights

going to have a look at Grenoble.

it's a bit bloody aggravating that the French of all people should stop taking bikes on their trains.

The whole advantage of taking bikes on trains is that you don't have to dismantle them and carry around a bloody great bike bag: if you take away that, then you may as well box the damn thing up and fly.

Cor this sort of 'progress' doesn't half make me angry.

wjhall

I think possibly, that rather than overstating difficulties I was being excessively optimistic with regard to the original query, probably wasting the original poster's time. Two trains a day, one at the crack of dawn, means a nominal capacity of about four bicycles per day to SE France, which is the exception that proves the rule already stated by everyone else that the TGVs to SE France basically do not provide cycle carriage.


For the train ticket booking process in general, without getting bicycles involved, I thought your response, obviously based on experience, gave rather a good instant summary of just some of the difficulties.

If anyone reading this wants a little exercise in seeing just how dog eared the so called Train Team integrated service actually is (without even getting bicycles involved), I suggest that they find out the CIV fare from SML (or at least BRI) to LNE and report back on how they found the information.

andymiller wrote:

wjhall wrote:

All in all, and to be frank, I am in the middle of planning a walking holiday, and taking the inability of the railways, despite "Train Team", to book through from the UK to many obvious holiday destinations in the Alps, despite the admirably comprehensive DB timetable, and the poker like pricing system, I am leaning towards allowing the railways of Europe to keep their trains...,

I think you're overstating the difficulties somewhat - although yes it can be a pain, and yes it is stupid that there's no easy one-stop solution for buying tickets - at least if you want the cheapest tickets, and the different release windows for Eurostar and other tickets also annoys the heck out of me. But all of the European rail companies are pretty easy to deal with online (OK maybe not RENFE).

I'm also not sure what is poker-like about the pricing systems - they all work on the basis that if you want a cheap ticket you need to book well in advance -usually 3 months.

mz__jo

My clubmates who use trains are retired SNCF employees and they always bag their bikes. Nuff said.

KnightOfTheLongTights

wjhall wrote:

Two trains a day, one at the crack of dawn, means a nominal capacity of about four bicycles per day to SE France, which is the exception that proves the rule already stated by everyone else that the TGVs to SE France basically do not provide cycle carriage.

but re. Grenoble, the SNCF Voyages website is giving me an 11.38 train on the Saturday I want to travel from GdLyon, taking less than three - and with a bicycle icon.

Am I to understand then that the icon doesn't actually mean i'll definitely be able to put my bike on train at GdL?

andymiller

wjhall wrote:

If anyone reading this wants a little exercise in seeing just how dog eared the so called Train Team integrated service actually is (without even getting bicycles involved), I suggest that they find out the CIV fare from SML (or at least BRI) to LNE and report back on how they found the information.

I've never bothered with Train Team but I suspect that for some reason you're laying it on with a trowel for dramatic effect. But in any event my advice to people thinking about travelling by rail in continental Europe is to go direct to the operators of the trains (eg Eurostar, DeutscheBahn). Yes it's a shame you can buy all the tickets in on transaction, but having to buy say two separate tickets at say 10 minutes each is hardly a dealbreaker.

Buying tickets online for rail travel in Europe is generally pretty straightforward. Generally you can book online and either get the tickets sent to you, print them yourself, or collect from a ticket machine. Unfortunately things do get more complicated if you need bbike reservations.

mz__jo wrote:

My clubmates who use trains are retired SNCF employees and they always bag their bikes. Nuff said.

Yes I always travel with my bike in a bag. Yes there are downsides, but it's often by a long way the simplest option and also a lot cheaper. At the other end you can either leave the bag at a hotel or p(if you have a Ground Effect Tardis then send it to your final destination).

wjhall

It is certainly a bicycle symbol attached to the through TGV train. Only the booking office can tell you whether any particular ticket will allow you to book travel with any particular bicycle on any particular day using any particular ticket. And only when you have reserved and paid, can you be certain that you can go, until they swap it for a duplex on the day....

Also, consider the possiblity that you may wish to come back....



lly do not provide cycle carriage.
[/quote]

but re. Grenoble, the SNCF Voyages website is giving me an 11.38 train on the Saturday I want to travel from GdLyon, taking less than three - and with a bicycle icon.

Am I to understand then that the icon doesn't actually mean i'll definitely be able to put my bike on train at GdL?[/quote]

andymiller

Oh what a bunch of tosh. You'd have to be very unlucky to find that a train that had beem advertised as having bike carriage facilities had been replaced by on that hadn't.

And consider the alternative: flights are never cancelled or delayed?

wjhall

Yes, it is probably wrong to be too pessimistic, despite the general opinion that you cannot get a bike to SE France by TGV, but all aircraft have holds, whereas trains have this unique ability to turn up with different rolling stock and I have seen a two set single decker replaced by a duplex at Grenoble, and that was not particularly well managed in terms of passenger information. I did not see any bicycles, but the old lady loading her 12 year old grandson for despatch to Paris was definitely worried about the possible consequences of him not being in the right seat, which worries might have been assuaged somewhat with a little more passenger information.

Mais, c'est la France, sans doute on saurait se débrouiller, même, on peut espérer, sans recours à l'assertion de droits conseillé par le FUBICY....


My pessism is probably conditioned by age, and too much experience of bike transport by train in the UK always seeming on a bit of a knife edge in terms of accommodation.

So go for it young man, but do remember to reserve for the bike in advance...

andymiller wrote:

Oh what a bunch of tosh. You'd have to be very unlucky to find that a train that had beem advertised as having bike carriage facilities had been replaced by on that hadn't.

And consider the alternative: flights are never cancelled or delayed?

wjhall

You mean Train Team actually exists? I thought it was a complete sham.

That is actually the underlying point. These enterprises have been claiming that Europe now has an integrated rail network, but even the slightest contact shows that this is true to only a very limited extent. What you get might be entirely acceptable for genuinely commercial enterprises, who are entitled to do what they like, but these are in reality state monopolies claiming vast amounts of public funding for their infrastructure and subsidies for their operation. to some extent on the basis of this promise of seamless integration.

Compare, for example, the different capabilities and gaps of Rail Europe and Eurostar, despite both being SNCF controlled. And DB UK have never yet managed to even quote for a ticket, despite being in the UK for over a decade.

After a few years of continental rail travel I am consequently suffering from a growing realisation that actually EasyJet would be much less hassle, because as far as European rail integration goes, it seems to be perpetually one step forward and one back, hence the leaning to pessimistic dramatic effect.

I see that nobody has risen to the SML to LNE CIV fare challenge yet. Nuff said?

andymiller wrote:

wjhall wrote:

If anyone reading this wants a little exercise in seeing just how dog eared the so called Train Team integrated service actually is (without even getting bicycles involved), I suggest that they find out the CIV fare from SML (or at least BRI) to LNE and report back on how they found the information.

I've never bothered with Train Team but I.....

....Yes I always travel with my bike in a bag. Yes there are downsides, but it's often by a long way the simplest option and also a lot cheaper. At the other end you can either leave the bag at a hotel or p(if you have a Ground Effect Tardis then send it to your final destination).

KnightOfTheLongTights

got to admit - I agree with wjhall on this, from previous and current euro rail booking experiences.

The train systems over there are many times better than ours here - but that doesn't mean finding info / times / fares or booking sleeper or bike reservations is easy from the UK. It definitely isn't.

SNCF-Voyages is showing a bike symbol for the 11.38 Paris GdL to Grenoble train.

Rail Europe is not.

And Deutsche-Bahn also do not have it as a bike-carrying train.

PieterM

PieterM wrote:
Actually, you can take your unpacked bike on the TGV Mediterrannee (the trains that go to Marseille via Lyon). I have done it.
However, there are only 4 spots for bikes per train and you have to reserve in advance.


hey, great news Pieter. Did you call up and make your bike resn. at same time as your train booking?

I should have added that the last time I did this was 3 years ago so things may have changed. I made a reservation in person at a French railway station a few days in advance. I know this doesn't help you much but just wanted to clarify.

wjhall

If you throw in tgv-europe, which is also sncf, this gives a bike symbol, so sncf appear to have voted 2 to 1 in favour of it having cycle possibility. We might be able to tip the balance back by trying some other Rail Europe sites, see Seat 61 comments on relations between these SNCF sites.

Interestingly, if you go to the site claiming to be SNCF UK, the enquiry takes you straight from their cover page to the Rail Europe site, unless you click the bicycle symbol, in which case it just goes grey and freezes.

I suspect all this means that Rail Europe have less access to the cycle booking system than SNCF, despite being an SNCF subsidiary.

I think I have never actually booked a continental ticket through a website, always needing to fall back on the phone, where the staff have always been very efficient, apart from the time they sold us a set of tickets with 3 minute connection between Gare du Nord, and Gare de Lyon. I suppose that particular event could be teased out into a state of the railways report in itself.

However the real problem is that we are both obviously becoming addicted to train ticket poker, and ought either turn ourselves in to gamblers anonymous, or go to the local casino, where we stand a better chance of winning.

KnightOfTheLongTights wrote:

got to admit - I agree with wjhall on this, from previous and current euro rail booking experiences.

The train systems over there are many times better than ours here - but that doesn't mean finding info / times / fares or booking sleeper or bike reservations is easy from the UK. It definitely isn't.

SNCF-Voyages is showing a bike symbol for the 11.38 Paris GdL to Grenoble train.

Rail Europe is not.

And Deutsche-Bahn also do not have it as a bike-carrying train.

weeve

not sure whether it matters anyway. Im travelling on a train with no bike places and have simply stripped it, covered it with bags and tape and pretending its regular luggage. Admitedly Im using a hardtail mtb and rucsac but better than going a vv long way round on regional trains

KnightOfTheLongTights

weeve wrote:

not sure whether it matters anyway. Im travelling on a train with no bike places and have simply stripped it, covered it with bags and tape and pretending its regular luggage. Admitedly Im using a hardtail mtb and rucsac but better than going a vv long way round on regional trains

yeah course you can do that but it takes a big chunk out of the advantage of train over plane - cos you if you're going to strip and pack it up you may as well fly

For me half the point of taking the train would be becasue you didn't have to take the bike apart. (The other half being that trains are just a lot more civilised.) Also, a bike bag takes up a lot of space in a pannier.

Seems a shame to me that they are taking trains out of service that did take bikes and replacign them with ones that don't.

wjhall

I think the single deckers from the Lyon run were cascaded to the Lyria route to Geneva, where SNCF claim that several tgvs per day can carry bikes.

This actually gets you to the N side of the Alps.

So if the question is rephrased as how to get a bike to the Alps by TGV, rather than to Lyon, the answer according to SNCF, might be:

For Southern Alps (Ecrins): Grenoble (sparse service)

For Northern Alps (Mont Blanc / Pennines) ; Geneva etc. reasonable frequency.

For the middle (Vanoise) ?????

I suspect the Lyria service may be more expensive and of course all the usual caveats (tosh) apply, except that on a service using mainly cascaded old single deckers, a duplex is presumably less likely to appear unexpectedly.

KnightOfTheLongTights

thanks a lot for that, am looking into those options

KnightOfTheLongTights

PS: If I take the Geneva option, might it then be an option to get a bike-friendly local / regional train from Geneva to Grenoble?

weeve

sure, but not quite as hard work. Wheels out, headset loosened, forks dropped and then a roll of bin bags and some tape. Took 15mins on the platform..

KnightOfTheLongTights wrote:

yeah course you can do that but it takes a big chunk out of the advantage of train over plane - cos you if you're going to strip and pack it up you may as well fly

For me half the point of taking the train would be becasue you didn't have to take the bike apart. (The other half being that trains are just a lot more civilised.) Also, a bike bag takes up a lot of space in a pannier.

Seems a shame to me that they are taking trains out of service that did take bikes and replacign them with ones that don't.

KnightOfTheLongTights

mmm yes, OK, I take your point.

nwallace

Found the DB website to be great for getting info, but only any use if buying tickets for DB trains.

In the last few weeks to get me to Prague at the start of october I've used.

The UK train reservation system Via TheTrainline (Via First Scotrail)
First Scotrail's Bargain Berth booker (Which isn't part of the UK reservation system)
Eurostar
DB
and Thalys

to get the routes I wanted.

Thankfully I only had to use DB for the Cologne -> Prague and Prague -> Amsterdam bits.
But that's only because they operate a fair chunk of the Sleeper train routes.

They don't sell tickets for other operators unless your route is entirley within Germany (So that's not many trips at all)

The SNCF website is known to be a nightmare though...
Thalys wasn't great

UK, DB and E* were easy though.

Any how... Bikes on Trains in France? Have you not read Edward Enfields account of getting his bike home by train in France? I think he ended up sending it as freight to London Victoria.

KnightOfTheLongTights

am just reading Tim Moore's French Revolutions, which doesn't exactly boost my hopes of a smooth journey either.

KnightOfTheLongTights

as an update: it turned out there were quite a few Toulouse trains with bike vans. It is a longer and much slower journey than the Lyons run, and means I shall be starting my cycling holiday in south-west rather than south-east France, but that's fine!

I booked on an overnight sleeper from Paris that leaves at about 11pm on Friday night and arrives Toulouse Sat 7am and Rail Europe made my bike res at the same time.

Pretty pleased with that.