It’s a nice day today and I fancy riding to Stockport and train back to Doncaster, can’t predict what time train.
If you use the Trainline app, then you can book bicycles when you buy your ticket, although you need to check if there’s a ticket machine at Stockport that you can print it out on.
You'll probably be fine, but IIRC TPE are one of the ones where you book bikes by contacting them on WhatsApp or Facebook and they're pretty quick to respond so you could just do it when you're half an hour away/having a recovery pint near the station.
Drop them a message on WhatsApp. It's super easy, I've used it a few times and within a few seconds (a minute at most) you'll get a message back with a booking reference.
Means you don't need to think about a particular train, you just turn up to the station, find the next one and message them.
Cheers all.
Second breakfast done, going for it.
Wish me luck.