Bikes on Eurostar?

Ah yeah I didn't think about that - last time I went was last year and we were shut in

I went over to race in Belgium earlier this year and it was ok to be out of the car.

I recently went to France with my family but came back a week early and booked my own ferry and had a realisation that may be of interest to people, especially given Eurostar look like they are no longer going to take bikes.

You can take your bike on Brittany Ferries at no extra cost and you don't have to dismantle it or anything like that. They even let you on before the cars.

Pretty quick direct trains (that you don't have to book bikes on) to Portsmouth or Poole from London. Some of the crossings are very slow or overnight but there is one that does it in 3 hours.

Not sure if this common knowledge but it actually seems quite a quick, cheap and relaxed way to get your bike into France, especially from London.

yeah ferry is the way. i have done a few routes, newhaven-dieppe, portsmouth-le havre, portsmouth-st-malo, portsmouth-cherbourg-poole ... dover-calais obviously
a number of those with a kid on the back seat or trailer as well.

+1.

St Malo is only over night now I think. But at least you get a nice early start the next day.

valuable info

https://saillink.co.uk/

Looks promising, only 2 bikes at a time though

Anyone travelled to France from Dover recently avec le bike? Any mad queues?

I took the ferry from Dover to Calais with a bike last thursday. No cue at all. In the Dover port you can skip all cues by following the red bike line.

In Calais you need to line up with the cars, but no big cue there either when I took that a couple of weeks ago.

A fixie with pedigree owners that.

Thanks, great to know.

Certainly was!

You can still take a brommy on the eurostar right?

I assume so because you can just stick them in a luggage rack. Your comment prompted me to check their website though, hoping for some progress. LOL...

Important
Sorry, our bike service isn’t available at the moment. We’re working hard to relaunch the service before the end of January.

We’re working hard to relaunch the service before the end of the century.

Yes but you’ll need to bag it iirc. IKEA has a bag that’s roughly folded Brompton sized, I don’t know the exact ref as I made mine :-)

That sucks.

Dimpa or something I think it's called.

As cathartic as it is to call Eurostar jobsworth cunts, I believe the issue is that they generally used to ship your bike separately to you, which makes them liable for import/export paperwork and duties. I imagine that’s what they’re trying to negotiate with the authorities.

If you are travelling on/with your bike - like on the ferry, or the the euroshuttle - then it’s a) your problem and b) it’s assumed you’re travelling on it, not importing it for sale. That’s why you can still take a Brompton on the Eurostar.

that might be the case. I am also inclined to look at eurostar new pricing, which has increased a lot in exchange for more flexibility.
Bike fret was handled by another company and i suspect it doesn't make sense for Eurostar to subcontract space that is now sold at 250£ (regular price) per seat.

Interesting, then that makes them jobsworths for not putting normal bike hooks that you and I can use ourselves in their trains. Having to drop the bike the day before or earlier / wait for it to be processed afterwards was always such a pain in the butt. (And the people at the Paris end of operations were jobsworths indeed - at least in London they were helpful & polite)

they are all jobsworth cunts

(And the people at the Paris end of operations were jobsworths indeed - at least in London they were helpful & polite)

+1

Is it not possible to simply put it in one of these and take it on as metal laundry?
AAYAW laundry bags pack of 2 large laundry bags with zips perfect jumbo storage bags with zips multiuse moving bags well-built handle laundry bag waterproof washing bags for laundry 100x30x70cm https://amzn.eu/d/8QSvFbI

This is all so disappointing.