Transporting your Bike for a Cycling Holiday

 

Travelling by plane - If you are flying you will need a bike bag or box. Boxes are sturdier and whilst more expensive, they give more peace of mind against damage and are a good investment if you take your bike away often. There are also places that hire them out.

With bike bags you will need to take off your pedals and turn the handlebars at right angles which normally entails undoing your headset. It is a good idea to put bits of wood between the forks (the wheels will have to come off) and to wrap up your rear derailleur in cloth, bubblewrap or both.
We have found that useful for extra protection is a cardboard box from your local bike shop which will protect the bike from knocks, over which we put the bike bag. Pipe lagging is also a good idea to protect as many tubes as you can, or just tie newspaper around the tubes.

 

Travelling by train - If you are taking the train home your bike may still need to be packed up into a bike bag although you generally will not have to go to the lengths described above as it will be carried around by you, not an airport baggage handler. It will have to fit the maximum size allowable for luggage which is 1.2m x 0.9m, in order to fit into the luggage racks on the trains. An increasing number of French high speed trains (TGVs) take bikes fully assembled and we can advise on this, although they do need pre-booking and cost 10 euros.

On local trains you do not need to pre-book and can take your bike, fully assembled, onto the train with you.