Bikes on Eurostar?

I wonder what response one would get when describing this booking experience (legal requirement to get bike and person on the same train, with no ability to ensure such a thing) to ever more senior members of the companies responsible.

Presumably the booking personnel on the phone are like "yes sir / madam, that is just the way it is."

What would a middle manager responsible for the booking system say?

What about an in house lawyer?

Or the CEO?

At what level would you get a "No, no, no that can't be right, let me look into that because it sounds mad."

And how do I get sat next to that person at a dinner, or on a train?

On BA your bike box is considered normal luggage, ie. a 23kg suitcase and bike boxes tend to involve some special handling on planes. Boxing bikes for trains is dumb.

I'll never not think that every train in every country should have a bike carriage on it anyway - that just makes sense for connected travel without relying on cars at each end.

They're being driven around in Bentleys. The closest you'll come to them is a wing mirror whizzing past you ear or maybe you'll serve them food or drinks while working your third job to pay rent...

Whats the motivation to get it sorted on their side? nothing. Tories want you to fly.

Eurostar upgraded all their rolling stock in 2015, based on then usage patterns. It was certainly a mistake - although in my opinion an understandable one - to assume that customs rules between the UK and continental Europe wouldn’t change, and that when they did change that all the BS about frictionless trade was true. I didn’t much like the old system of travelling on a different train to my bike, and I wouldn’t say they have covered themselves in glory addressing the situation since Brexit, but claiming it’s a Tory conspiracy to make you fly feels like a stretch.

What's that saying: "don't attribute to malice what you can put down to stupidity"

Yes exactly.

these days for eurostar a seat space is worth much more than the hassle of X 45£ bikes.
They operate at a projected 20% empty capacity and had to relax their ticket change policy, all due to border control unpredictability.
So it's no surprise really, it's not like the tunnel was dug to facilitate and assault on alpine passes.

Why does it have to be about profit? Why not be clever and facilitate active travel and reduce need for cars? When the planet is underwater, your profits, as well as your Strava KOMs are gonna be fucked.

Imagine if they made it a genuinely useful service and priced flights appropriately, how many flights could they cut?

That's the kind of dangerous extremism that gets you chucked out of the Labour Party these days.

Seriously, what you're suggesting requires political will (lacking on all sides currently) and coherent government transport policy, which would include taking the railways back into public ownership and raising the tax on aviation fuel/flights to an appropriate level. Not happening in my lifetime, unfortunately. We had a shot at that and we utterly blew it.

Not a conspiracy:
https://twitter.com/transportgovuk/status/1641829196753190914

I’m intrigued to learn that Eurostar serves destinations within the UK

Completely agree on this but Eurostar would need government subsidy or nationalisation for this to happen, neither of which is likely under the Tories. And if Labour tried it I’m sure the nativist Tory right would be out claiming it’s only a benefit to metropolitan London elites, so I’m not sure it’s a vote-winner on its own. Would need to be part of a much wider package of public transport reform (which I think could be a vote-winner for Labour)

Both parties should be trying to reduce flights and car-use. Mandate bike carriages on trains.

You're welcome, Earth. I'm here all week, don't try the fish, it's high in mercury.

Why does it have to be about profit? Why not be clever and facilitate active travel and reduce need for cars? When the planet is underwater, your profits, as well as your Strava KOMs are gonna be fucked.

That Eurostar carries bikes at all is an anomaly in any case. From memory, but I can't find anything about it on-line, cycle carriage was only inserted into the legislation because of a Tory MP's (or maybe Lord's) intervention. I think the only other high-speed train, possibly worldwide (but I'm no expert on trains, so please correct me if that's wrong) to allow bikes on is the German ICE 4:

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/deutsche-bahn%E2%80%99s-new-ice-4-high-speed-trains-include-bicycle-spaces

When European high-speed trains first started in France in the late 70s, cycling was pretty much the 'forgotten mode', and at any rate the main strategy behind European high-speed trains has always been to facilitate business travel, e.g. the famous 'it's competitive with short-haul flights'. In France, this has led to a two-tier rail system, with very little investment into local and regional trains, in marked contrast to the TGV network. In Germany, this two-tier aspect was made very visible by last year's €9 ticket, which allowed unlimited use of local and regional trains, but not ICs or ICEs, for a month. This is now being made permanent, albeit with a higher price of €49.

tl;dr--high-speed trains were never introduced for the good of the planet but 'for the economy'. What have cyclists ever done for the economy?

Imagine if they made it a genuinely useful service and priced flights appropriately, how many flights could they cut?

Well, I don't think any meaningful action is going to be taken on flying in our lifetimes, I'm afraid. Anything that would make things better would involve 'less', which is a forbidden word.

Some TGVs allow bikes. Are they not considered High Speed?

Let's think about it another way - how do we get more rich cycling hippies in Lords?

What do I need to do to take a spot? Eat one of the existing ones? Mmm... pie

Ah, as I said, I don't know much about trains. It's good that they've introduced that. The TGVs very much started out without such spaces.

I don't know much about trains

I don't believe that for a second :P

Yeah bikes on TGVs are a pain in the butt (not all trains have spaces and it’s hard to find which ones, plus an additional fee to pay) but it’s getting better on the availability side.

You can take bikes that have their wheels removed and are in a bike bag (and is within the size limit that applies to all luggage) on the Shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan fyi..

Rinko?

https://www.seat61.com/bike-by-train.htm

My 6 hour TGV to Girona last week didn’t require any booking for my boxed bike. Just rocked up. I did see another bike in a bin bag without any issues.

Yes, called ‘Rinko-bukuro’ (bike bag) in Japanese. Usually just a plastic bag.

I just came back from Luxembourg to Paris on a TGV with my bike disassembled inside a Decathlon raincover.
The train from Paris to Bolounge-sur-mare was new and had brilliant double decker storage and there were 2 long tail cargo bikes and a hybrid on the bottom layer and mine on top with room for 2 more.The bike carriage also had massive signage (half of the side).