Taking a bike to France as a foot passenger

Pretty much as the title describes. I’m thinking of a 1-night jaunt away to France with a few friends. Ideally we would:

1. Park somewhere in the vicinity of Dover.

2. Travel as foot passengers on the ferry, returning the next day.

I’ve had a quick look, but lots of the “organised” parking seems to be some way away, and I’m also curious as to the mechanism at Dover of rocking up by bike.

Anything else I need to consider?

TIA

Rocking up at Dover by bike is the same as by car, follow the same routes, join the same lanes etc. Try and get the staff to let you in before they board the cars, otherwise for safety you’re stuck waiting till the end and that’s a pain to then get bikes on the boat. When I did it we got the train down from London.

if you’re going for a short amount of time, eurotunnel might be a better shout.

https://www.eurotunnel.com/uk/travelling-with-us/vehicles/bicycles/

take the bikes – its easy, free, fun and you will have transport in Francais.

Newhaven-Dieppe is a good route with a bike.

If you included the overnight ferry on the way out then you could make it a 2 night trip and be wheels rolling in France from much earlier in the day.

It is on the Avenue Vert which is a very pleasant route to Paris that you can do in a day if you fancied that as a destination. Then take the train from Paris part way back to Dieppe after a night in Paris for the evening sailing back to Newhaven.

There is also good, quiet and more interesting riding locally around Dieppe rather than the flatter, post industrial landscape around Calais.

take the bikes – its easy, free, fun and you will have transport in Francais.

T’aint free these days. They’ve started charging.
https://midlifecycling.blogspot.com/2023/02/because-we-take-up-too-much-space.html

Newhaven-Dieppe then Avenue Vert. Lovely easy ridding.

another vote for the Newhaven-Dieppe crossing for better riding from the port 

if you’re turning up in a car check the prices, when we went last a month or so ago it was cheaper to take a car with four in than two people with bikes, so fill the car with people and bikes and park the other side

Thanks for all the responses. Eurotunnel idea might have legs. TBH, I’m not particularly interested in the Venue Verte mainly because my vague plan was:

1. Ferry to France.

2. Fairly long-ish day (I’m with some “less keen” riders) say 35-40 miles, with lunch, ending somewhere for night in a hotel/dinner.

3. More direct route back to ferry 20-25 miles.

and the AV would, it seems to me, be an out and back.

LR

Another vote for Newhaven-Dieppe.  Just watch out for the ‘nice looking’ C7 road if you are riding from Lewes, its a busy/fast rat run.  Train station is next door to the ferry.

I recently did a 2 day loop to the Seine and back, it could easily be shortened.  Just made it into one file and shared on RidewithGPS.  https://ridewithgps.com/routes/44993558  Planned via extensive use of streetview and local french cycle routes.  There is more off-road to be had but I didn’t want to risk having to backtrack if the route wasn’t passable.

We got the Friday evening ferry and hotel in Dieppe, but I’m tempted next time to take my camping gear off the bike and kip on the floor in a corner on the overnight ferry service (lots of people tuck into corners or under the stairs rather than use the reclining seats or cabins).  If I do it in the summer I might see if I can get away with sleeping on the top deck outside!

never take the car when we go over the channel/north sea.

dover to dunkirk is ok . done it twice.

portsmouth to saint malo is my fave, done it 6 times.

and hull to rotterdam is also good, and the easiest for cycling. straight into cycling paradise.

Yep, use the Hull-Rotterdam ferry a bit and always lots of cyclists, enjoyed chatting with them and finding out their plans whilst we queued in the car for our Summer roadtrip. Fairly savage short climb up the corkscrew ramp to the car deck at Hull though!

Local club do a day trip to France, although the carpark they use doesn’t allow overnight. There’s a few private driveways on justpark within 10 mins ride of Dover port though.

Process at the port is here: https://www.portofdover.com/ferry/cyclists/

By way of a bit of follow-up it was cheaper and better to take a car with bikes, and park it in France, than to leave the car behind. No idea why. Also, certainly on P&O there are very limited crossings that allow foot passengers.

We did a sort of “park on my drive” and the Hotel Heco in Calais, and it was very safe (gated).

We rode a mixed on/off road route to Wimereux, via lunch in Wissant. The hotel we used https://www.hotel-saint-jean.fr/en/ was very bike friendly and I would certainly recommend. It would have been better if it hadn’t rained stair-rods about a mile from the hotel, and the wind on the way back was 50MPH. Fortunately it was on the tail.

In all it was brilliant, despite the weather, and I would do again (but probably via the tunnel next time).

The ferry *was* cheap, but it turns out that is because P&O are just about the worst employer in the world https://www.bbc.co.uk/articles/ceq3pw038g8o

LR