About three years ago we wrote a series of small articles for the atob.org.uk website on travelling to Europe accompanied by a bicycle. We are in process doing a major spring clean and revision of these articles. Unfortunately the slow death of sleeper trains in Europe means that the Paris-Munich and Amsterdam-Copenhagen CityNightLine trains no longer run. These were keystone routes in our suggestions to whisk cyclists and bicycles across the continent. The night trains have been replaced by early morning high speed trains, but these unfortunately do not often take bicycles unless disassembled and put in bags. Apart from flying or hiring one cure for this problem is to send your bicycle on in advance and you can travel across Europe on High Speed Trains unencumbered by a bike bag. I recently came across two British firms that organise shipment. You can send the bike to one place and have it picked up somewhere else for the return, so a long linear ride along a river valley, for example, becomes a possibility. Unlike hiring a bike the you do not have to return it to the starting point. Details, prices, delivery times can be found on the websites.
- Luggage Mule UK Telephone: 0161 870 2364 or 0161 870 2175 Website: https://www.luggagemule.co.uk/
- First Luggage, Telephone +44(0)1895 254 240 (Main Number), 0800 083 5503 (UK toll free) Website: http://firstluggage.com/
