London - Paris in 24 hrs - questions

rodgers73

I'm doing this in April and wondered if anyone who has done this could answer me a couple of questions -

1. Time of departure

I'll be leaving from Trafalgar Square and heading to Dover so I reckon I'll need a decent chunk of the day to do this leg in. I've read about some people setting off at 8pm though - I'd thought an overnight stay near the start and a early morning departure would work wouldn't it? The more daylight the better? Or do riders prefer to have as much of the dark hours in the UK as possible?


2. Ferry or Eurotunnel?

Would a Eurostar crossing be faster and save time or would it deprive you of a valuable rest time? The website makes it sound like it isn't as simple as rolling up and riding onto the train though.


3. Route

Does anyone have links to a fast route for the French section?


Thanks

Tom

ugo.santalucia

rodgers73 wrote:

I'm doing this in April and wondered if anyone who has done this could answer me a couple of questions -

1. Time of departure

I'll be leaving from Trafalgar Square and heading to Dover so I reckon I'll need a decent chunk of the day to do this leg in. I've read about some people setting off at 8pm though - I'd thought an overnight stay near the start and a early morning departure would work wouldn't it? The more daylight the better? Or do riders prefer to have as much of the dark hours in the UK as possible?


2. Ferry or Eurotunnel?

Would a Eurostar crossing be faster and save time or would it deprive you of a valuable rest time? The website makes it sound like it isn't as simple as rolling up and riding onto the train though.


3. Route

Does anyone have links to a fast route for the French section?


Thanks

Tom

Don't think you can board the Euro tunnel train with the bike... it's probably going to be a ferry job... which is nicer, but of course it shaves an extra hour

rodgers73

There's some stuff on the Eurotunnel website about getting picked up on a trailer from a hotel in Folkestone but it seems like only a few times a day.

Any ideas re departure times? My own thought would be to set off in the morning after a full night's sleep rather than wait until evening but the fact that all the blogs I've read seem to have a start time of late afternoon or evening seems too much of a coincidence...

rodgers73

Any thoughts on timings??

dave in swansea

No logic to this, but surely people aim to finish at beer o'clock.