Cycling in Europe

Hello all.

I'm not sure how much of this has been covered previously and I'm sorry if
I'm going over old ground.

I'm going on a trip to Barcelona, Avignon, Nice, and Rome in July this year.
I'm taking my Road bike with me to do some day cycling from each of the
locations. I need a little help and advice though.

I'm flying from Glasgow and have bought a VK bike box for transportation
purposes. Being not very mechanically minded I'd like to minimise the
amount of de assembly and re assembly of the bike. What do you recommend?

Also, I'd like to go on a day trip from Avignon to L'alpe d'huez with my
bike on the train. I'm told I need to buy "une Housse" to do this. Are
there any budget options on this that would let me only take off the wheels
and pedals? Is there an easy way to regularly remove and attatch pedals, I
always seem to stryggle to do this

I also hope to climb the Ventoux from Avignon, any advice here would be
appreciated (I already have a triple chainset!! )

Any tips on one day cycle routes around Barcelona and Rome would be great!

Thanks in Advance,

Tony Boyd

"Tony Boyd" wrote
Hello all.

Also, I'd like to go on a day trip from Avignon to L'alpe d'huez with my
bike on the train. I'm told I need to buy "une Housse" to do this. Are
there any budget options on this that would let me only take off the
wheels
and pedals? Is there an easy way to regularly remove and attatch pedals,
I
always seem to stryggle to do this

I never could find "une Housse" when I was in France, the bike shops I went
to told me to make my own out of a couple pieces of cloth! Just use your
bike box.

When I was travelling in France, certain CoRail (regional) trains accepted
fully assembled bicycles, with or without "une Housse" in the baggage car,
just wheel it on or off yourself. These trains are designated by a bicycle
icon on the timetable. The Housse was required in order to bring a bike on a
TGV train. I just put the bike in a cardboard bike box (the ones that bikes
are shipped from manufacturer to retailer in). My box was larger than the
allowable dimensions, but I was never stopped from taking the box on the
train.

The French language section of the SNCF website (www.sncf.com) has an FAQ
section with an explanation of the rules on bicycles, but the English
language pages have no similar FAQ. My extremely imperfect grasp of French
tells me that it is now apparently possible to reserve a space on certain
TGV trains for a fully assembled bicycle sans "Housse", subject to a fee.

As far as getting the pedals off, you do have a pedal wrench, don't you?
It's a very thin 15mm wrench, designed to fit on the very thin flat of the
pedal spindle. Park makes (or made) a nice short model, especially suited
for travelling with bikes. Shops use a long one, for extra leverage on
pedals that haven't been removed in a while.
HTH,
--
mark

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 15:18:32 +0000, mark wrote:


"Tony Boyd" wrote
Hello all.

Also, I'd like to go on a day trip from Avignon to L'alpe d'huez with my
bike on the train. I'm told I need to buy "une Housse" to do this. Are
there any budget options on this that would let me only take off the
wheels

I read something on rec.cicycles.rides yesterday about TGVs
having luggage racks closed off because of terrorism fears :-(

http://catfood.phred.org/getmsg.asp?...10404.0180.eml

Forgive me if I'm spreading doom and despondency without reason.

"Tony Boyd" tony.boyd1NOSPAM@ntlworldREMOVE THIS.com wrote in message
news:Xw9ic.23226$4N3.3629@newsfe1-win...
Hello all.

I'm not sure how much of this has been covered previously and I'm sorry if
I'm going over old ground.

I'm going on a trip to Barcelona, Avignon, Nice, and Rome in July this
year.
I'm taking my Road bike with me to do some day cycling from each of the
locations. I need a little help and advice though.

I'm flying from Glasgow and have bought a VK bike box for transportation
purposes. Being not very mechanically minded I'd like to minimise the
amount of de assembly and re assembly of the bike. What do you recommend?

Also, I'd like to go on a day trip from Avignon to L'alpe d'huez with my
bike on the train. I'm told I need to buy "une Housse" to do this. Are
there any budget options on this that would let me only take off the
wheels
and pedals? Is there an easy way to regularly remove and attatch pedals,
I
always seem to stryggle to do this

I also hope to climb the Ventoux from Avignon, any advice here would be
appreciated (I already have a triple chainset!! )

Any tips on one day cycle routes around Barcelona and Rome would be great!


Sounds like a great trip.

"Une housse" is, of course, just a bag. In relation to bikes, just an
ordinary bike bag - it doesn't refer to any special kind of make or model of
bag. You could get one here. It seems, having looked at various ones in
online catalogues, that most bike bags are big enough so that they normally
just involve removing the front wheel and putting it inside an inner pocket
and turning the forks/bars to the side. Probably removing the pedals as
well - seems like it would desirable rather than risk them puncturing the
bag. I think that is as far as you would need to go with de- and
re-assembly. If you're going to get one then why not just use it instead of
the bike box for the flight as well? Save having to bother with two types
of containers.

Having looked into taking bikes on trains for a possible holiday in France
this summer myself, although not having done it either, it seems like 'une
housse' would indeed be a useful thing to have - it appears that having one
would make it more likely I'd get the thing on any train rather than only
being able to use certain trains or lines. I suspect the same will be true
for bikes on trains in Italy and Spain also.

Rich