Cycling UK Forum

Can't remember the model name, but Marin do a city bike which has had good reports for touring. It has a Cro Mo frame, 26" wheels and with a few mods (mudguareds, h'bar stem, rack) will make and excellent all pourpose fairly rugged tourer.

Get their catalogue, or go online to find the model.

Thanks guys, all options now considered - don't fancy the rough stuuff on this trip and want to keep it as short as poss, so I think I will probably take the A2 down, as recommended and then take the pelican crossing to avoid that big roundabout. As also said, hopefully the M20, etc will have taken a fair amoiunt of the heavy traffic off the old A2. (final decision when I see volume of traffic, etc).

This leads to another question (should have thought of it before) what is the best route out of Dover? I know it is a big hill and I won't be time constrained by having to catch a ferry. What's best?

Looking at my map, I see that there are 3 ways of cycling into Dover from the A2:
straight down the main road to the docks:
taking the A258 through Dover town; or
the more scenic (yellow on OS) road via the Bleriot Mont.

I am coming from Walmer where I will have parked my van and was wondering if the shortest A2 route was OK (safe, legal, etc) for bikes. The A258 is next shortest, with the yellow road being the longest and hilliest.

Any comments from some old hands welcome,
Ta in advance.
Simon

As has been said, 700 are as good as 26 inchers, so it all comes down to availablity.

My experience is in Indian Sub continent and SE Asia, where 700 are virtually impossible to get apart from selected places in Thai, Malaysia, Singapore and Katmandu. 26 tyres and tubes are available almost everywhere. I ride 26 and only carry a 1 spare tube.

If you have a 700 bike you like, and have the wheels well built good strong tyres and carry enough spares (tyre and tubes) go for it. As Cream says. lots do.

However, re the availablity of 'deliver anywhere' so don't worry - this may work in big towns in certian countries but it is certainly not as easy as stated above and can really bu**er up a trip while waiting.

Is this all urban myth? I've had 2 experiences of 700 in far off places.
My mate had his rim (Mavic) go on the Siem Reap to Poipet road in Cambodia - no chance of new 700 rim in Cambodia so he had to get taxi and bus to Bangkok to get new rim. It cost a lot (plus new Cambodian visa) but he was on the road again 2 days later so he was lucky. If that had been Northern Lao or Southern India it wouldn't have been so easy. I also had a friend shred 2 of her 700 tubes in India - she got down to her last spare before she realised the problem with the rim- we searched every town we went to for new ones (including Calcutta) to no avail. Luckily the the dodgy rim was fixed and her one spare was enough for the next 2500 kms, but if it hadn't been.........

You made 2 similar posts some time ago (May and early June). Both were repilied to but you seem to have ignored them. I suggest you go back and see that a few people have expressed an interest.

One thing we all want(ed) to know is what is your route and timescale.

By the way, I have made other plans now so you can probably ignore my previous (interested in) post.

Good luck on your trip, maybe see you on the road somewhere.

CTC do a large polythene bag for a few quid which I believe is adequate for Easy Jet. This could be folded and carried, small bulk and very little weight.
Alternatively post it on (maybe a hassle when all you want to do is get pedalling) or bin it and post a new one from home to destination.

Tony had heard that Norfolklines had had 'issues' with bikes re Health and Safety when mixing with lorries. So I emailedthem and it looks as if it is OK now. Reply from them posted below:

"Thank you for your email. Bicycles are permitted on our ferries. However please note you should be able to ride your bicycle through the port carrying your own luggage. There are no facilities to transport any extra luggage.

regards Paul

Passenger Services Deputy Supervisor
Norfolkline Dover-Dunkerque Ferries
Norfolkline Shipping B. V.
Norfolk House, Eastern Docks, Dover CT16 1JA"

Stansted must stand out as an airport in the middle of the country(side) with plenty of quiet roads in the vicinity. You can get very near the terminal on country lanes.

Southend as well, because there is no feeder road, but hardly any flights so doesn't really count.

Returning to the original question, I would say that it is more what I don't take.

I regularly tour in South and S E Asia, where you can buy individual sachets of shampoo, small packets of laundry soap, tiddly tubes of toothpaste, a handfull of peanuts and many other things in small quantities at virtually every roadside shop. These don't work out any more expensive than the larger sizes/quantities, so you can literally buy as you need and virtually never carry any of them with you.

As mentioned before the availability of cheap clothes means you can travel light as you can always buy your way out of trouble as I did in Lao earlier this year when a (very) cold snap sent me to the market for a £1 pair long johns, 20p hat and 15p gloves.

Cheers Wallyone.
Stena also got back to me and said I could, although it still seemed to fail. I then realised that the website was timing out, not failing. Perserverance has got me through to the bicycle (vehicle) page, the 3rd one on the long 'booking route'.

Nonetheless, the budget booking sites I tried couldn't handle bikes.

Thanks again to all, just praying for a bit of good weather.

Tony, what do you mean a little funny???? It would be useful if you expalined rather than making an unsubstantiated and slightly alarmist post. (I say this as someone who is about to book.)

My only point of reference is on the Norfolk website where there is a category of 'Bicycle', which is accepted when making a booking.

My current bike started out as a cheapo steel framed mtb (£250). It happily toured for 2 months (2,000kms) in Vietnam. It then went on to 3 months in Thailand and Lao, before needing a rebuild after a further 3 months in Sri Lanka and India.

The Cro Mo frame is pretty solid and is now equiped with a variety of gear fron STX to XT and continues to undertake 3 month trips twice a year to far flung places. My bike rarely attracts any interest and I don't worry overmuch when it is thrown on top of a bus or in the hold of a boat, etc. I sometimes wonder how many of these top of the range tourers actually do any serious touring?

One thing is don't skimp on your panniers, they take a lot of punishment and cheap ones will fall apart in no time. I use Carradice Super Cs, the last ones lasted over 15 years.

My cheapest bike was a US$50 (£25) Chinese mtb bought in Madagasgar which I toured on for about 600 kms in some fairly challenging terrain. This bike was rubbish and I wouldn't recommend going this downmarket.

Cheers guys - looks like my simple pedal to Brussels may turn into a longer trip exploring some of the routes you list.

One more question - can I take my bike from Harwich to the Hook? I have tried booking on a couple of websites (including Stena's own) and either bikes aren't mentioned in the dropdowns - which according to the FAQs means they are not allowed; or if as on anther site it is in the dropdown the processing fails as an invalid category which pretty much indicates that there is no provision for bikes. Surely you must be able to take a bike to Holland? (I have emailed Stena, no reply yet (24hrs)).

Thanks for this, plenty to be going on with.

As ever a change! I am now thinking of maybe Hook to Brussels (easier access for me in the UK) so the LF routes in the Nederlands will be useful for this.

One further question - how easy are these paths to follow. As a touring cyclist I often find it is quicker and easier just to stick to the roads rather than trying to follow dedicated cycle routes. (This is in non cycle friendly countries like the UK and Oz, I imagine Benelux is much better.)

I am planning on visiting a friend who has just moved to Brussels. I was just going to get a map and follow the minor roads from (probably) Dunkirk. The main problem I see are the numerous large towns 'in the way', so I was wondering if there are any dedicated long distance cycle routes that cover this stretch? I will probably be camping for a day or two on the way.

I've had a bit of a look on the net and nothing jumps out so has anybody got any websites or other sources that they can recommend.

Ta in anticipation