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  • 2 people, 2 bikes to Toulon – any advice?
  • shedfull
    Free Member

    Hi,

    We’re planning on a trip to the French med, just up the road from Toulon, in October and I’m having a hell of a time booking anything. Can anyone help?

    The rules of engagement are….
    1. My OH won’t fly
    2. We did the bike bag shuffle across Paris last year and vowed never to do it again.

    I’ve found that Eurostar charge a massive £30 per bike per train (so £120) and won’t allow bike collection from the train after 9pm. SNCF charge £9 per bike per train but there are no bike spaces on trains out of Paris to the med. I have a schedule from Rail Europe that goes London-Paris-Dijon-Toulon but takes 13 hours.

    I’m not far off booking the train via Paris to Toulon with no bikes and having them delivered (£56 per bike each way) to a pre-booked hotel in bike boxes. Before I do this, does anyone know a simple, easy way to get there that allows our bikes to go with us, doesn’t involve bulky bike bags and an hour of spannering on station platforms, and doesn’t incur nearly as much cost as the tickets for us to travel?

    soma_rich
    Free Member

    Hire bikes?

    alfabus
    Free Member

    If you know where you’re going and the destination are willing to receive them, the a courier sounds like a brilliant plan – minimal faff, less bulk to transport and less cost from the sounds of it.

    I presume you are returning from the same place and will be able to stash your packaging in between and arrange a courier collection when you depart.

    Why would you not do that?

    Dave

    Stuey01
    Free Member

    Drive it?

    uplink
    Free Member

    Shouldn’t you go ??

    London > Lille
    Lille > Toulon

    Without ever going near the hell hole that is Paris

    EDIT: See below
    .
    .

    mustard
    Free Member

    You can still take bikes on teh Eurostar and French trains, in a bag or box, when there are no bike spaces left. I don’t think the French trains charge for it but it was last year I was looking and I might have it wrong.

    The London SNCF office were very helpful on the phone.

    shedfull
    Free Member

    Thanks everyone, particularly Uplink as your timetable gave me an idea. I’ve booked us via Lille but staying overnight en route to cut the faff of getting us and bike bags from SW Surrey to Waterloo and across rush-hour London to St Pancras for a 7:34am train.

    pullfaces
    Free Member

    I did the train to Valence from St Pancras last October with two friends. We then cycled to Nice on http://www.grande-traversee-alpes.com/en.html
    London – Lille, Lille – Valence
    Grande-traversee ride to Nice.
    Nice – Lille, Lille – London.
    On Eurostar bikes are free in a bag and as we were doing a point to pointa cycling holiday didn’t want bags at the other side so we used bin bags. The big black ones. One per wheel the two over rest of bike. Took four bin bags each for return journey.
    This was fine and no questions or even inquisitive looks were given.

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