Cycling UK Forum

Yes, the bike is included in the 23kg, so if you can keep your total luggage below that weight then there shouldn't be extra charges. A bit more info (from http://www.airfrance.co.uk/GB/en/common ... france.htm):

Bicycles
Bicycles are treated as baggage items. Their transport is therefore included in your baggage allowance. Beyond this allowance (up to a maximum of 23 kg/50 lb per item), a fixed-rate fee is applied. To find the amount of this fee, please use our baggage allowance calculator.

Please remember to:

* remove the pedals,
* remove the front wheel and attach it to the frame,
* turn the handlebars to the side (parallel to the frame),
* place your bicycle in a protective container (cardboard, hard plastic). Bicycle containers are available for purchase at most Air France check-in desks.

I stayed in this place a few years back: http://www.hadrians-wall-bedandbreakfast.co.uk/ -- not luxurious, but perfectly comfortable. The breakfast was particularly good, as far as I remember (luckily it's pretty much downhill all the way from there to Newcastle...)

rualexander wrote: They are going to continue to operate a freight service for trucks and drivers so I don't see why they couldn't let a few cyclists on too!

DFDS do sell a few passenger (and bike) spaces on their other freight routes (or at least: they always used to: the information seems to have disappeared from their redesigned website...), so perhaps there's a chance that they'll do the same on this route too.

Slowroad wrote:... occasional over-the-top road crossings or avoidance of the slightest bit of main road, but the routes are aimed at families and inexperienced riders too.

This is the bit of Sustrans' logic which I find hardest to get my head around, to be honest. I absolutely accept that busy roads can be a deterrent to families and inexperienced riders; but isn't struggling up insanely steep climbs or having to carry a bike through pools of mud likely to be equally off-putting? NCN81 (Lon Cambria), for example, goes to some ridiculous (and vertiginous..) lengths to avoid some perfectly benign stretches of B road.

I suppose their response to that might be that a rider who prefers cars to mud is free to ignore their suggested route -- but then we get back to the problem (raised by the original poster) that Sustrans don't provide enough information, either on their maps or on their website, to allow people to make an informed choice. It surely wouldn't be impossible to incorporate information on the surface of a road/path into their mapping (the Esterbauer bike guides, for example, have a very clear, simple scheme to show surface quality). I once emailed Sustrans to ask why they didn't do this, and got the interesting reply that their routes weren't designed for people on touring bikes! As Cyclenut says, the infuriating thing is Sustrans' reluctance (or refusal) to 'tell it like it is' -- perhaps they think that it's better PR to pretend that all bits of the 'network' are of equal, and equally wonderful, quality, but the end result is just confusion and irritation (and missing out on the bits which really are wonderful, because it's impossible to distinguish them from the muddy tracks). It does seem bizarre that often the only way to find out whether a Sustrans route is good for cycling is to ask on helpful, non-Sustrans, fora like this one.

Gcoop wrote:Time to invest in a touring bike then ?

A potentially inflammatory question round these parts at the moment! For a sample of views, you could look in on this thread: http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=40433

Gcoop wrote:`Clothes i guess are washed in the evenings to keep the load down ?

Exactly that. I usually take 2 of each 'core' thing (socks, shirt, etc): one for wearing, and one spare (in case the first one doesn't dry in time, or in case I can't face the hotel-basin-laundry one evening).

For the Copenhagen -- Berlin section, there's some info in this thread: http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=30684&start=0.

Agree with all the advice so far, and particularly this bit:

ericonabike wrote:Rolling off a ferry on a bike - one of life's most satisfying experiences!

The only thing I'd add is that it's worth including your water bottles in the bundle of stuff you take off the bike and up to the cabin -- not just because it saves you money on the boat (though Helen's quite right about that), but also because bike water bottles seem to do a good job of absorbing and retaining the smell (and -- more to the point -- taste) of petrol/diesel/exhaust fumes. Or mine did, anyway!

I've just bought the 'Goldeneye' map of Norfolk, which marks quite a few suggested cycle routes (the Sustrans ones, and some just invented by the map editor: there's a 35 mile circular ride round Wymondham, for example). I haven't used it in anger yet, but it looks pretty good: it saves space compared to the OS 1:50,000 maps, but it's still relatively clear; the only serious thing it misses out are the contours, but that isn't really an issue in that part of the world...

NCN 81 (Lon Cambria) will get you from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth, and is manageable on a road bike. There's some useful info about the route on this thread:
http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=23293&start=0

that was my question. so is the answer that they can't?

I did about two and a half laps of the Manchester ride today (one lap on purpose, the others just ducking in and out of the route as it intersected with my normal Sunday-shopping-chores-cycling) and no-one ever enquired about my registration (or lack of it). (Nor did they make me wear a bin-man's vest. Nor even a helmet.) There were plenty of marshalls around, but they were focussing on keeping rogue cars and pedestrians from getting under people's wheels.

(Obviously I'd never admit it in public -- and certainly not within earshot of Mr Murdoch -- but it was really quite good fun ...)

haconb wrote:Yes we are definitely hoping to use the Cykelsparet! I've read they are easy to follow once you get used to spotting the signs but are there any maps online that set them out?

The only online map I ever found was this one, which guides you through some of the fiddlier parts around Stockholm: http://www.tiopepe.se/cykel/cykelsparet/index.php But perhaps there are others out there, eluding my googling... The route is shown on some of the larger-scale print maps, though (e.g. the 1:150000 Skane & Ostra Sjalland map). Lots of the local and regional tourist offices also had good maps of their bit(s) of the route: Halland does a good map (which they'll post to the UK for free...), though the signposting of their section is so thorough that you might not need it. (The signposting of the bit from Helsingborg to the border of Skane is a bit more sketchy.)

I'm just back from a tour along the Swedish west coast (and cycled up -- some! -- of the east coast last year). The southern part of Sweden is great for cycle touring: rolling terrain, interesting towns, good beaches, mostly quiet roads, extremely polite drivers. Looking at your route, it looks like you could make use of bits of the West Coast Cykelsparet, and of the East Coast Cykelsparet: these are well-planned routes, which make good use of the quieter roads (and the odd bit of cycle track); signposting can be a bit hit and miss, but rarely fails entirely.

Cykelframjandet (Swedish CTC, more or less) is a good source of information, on cycle routes and cycle touring more generally: http://www.cykelframjandet.se/: they publish a useful guide to the East Coast route (in Swedish, but with an English translation). There's also some very helpful material on the Cycletourer website: http://www.cycletourer.co.uk/cycletouring/sweden.shtml.

It's the bridge which carries the N57 over the canal (the bike path doesn't go over the bridge, but the construction work means that the path under the bridge is blocked). And yes: I did mean East, not West -- sorry! (Geography never my strongest point...) I'll edit the original post.

I was heading to Delft too (or to Utrecht, via Delft): it's a nice ride, and very clearly signposted as soon as you come off the little ferry at Maasluis: I was a bit worried about getting lost in the polders too, but it turned out to be much simpler than it looks on the map.

A small update on the cycle route away from the Europoort in Rotterdam, if you're heading east or north (or approaching the port from those directions): the main (signposted) route from the port along the Hartel Canal is blocked at the Brielse Bridge (about 7km from the port). The way to get around it is to leave the main route when you get to the Europoort Hotel (about 4km from the port): take the Merwedeweg one block north, then continue east on the Moezelweg (which runs parallel to the main cycle path, but on the other side of the motorway); you then pick up diversion signs which lead you back to the main cycle route on the other side of the blockage. The main route is closed until November (according to the sign at the bridge) -- annoyingly (and very uncharacteristically, for Holland) there isn't any sign to warn you of this until you've cycled right up to the dead end!

(Edited to correct inability to distinguish east from west...)

Cycling out of Rotterdam ferryport is wonderful (or at least, entirely stress-free): P&O let you off the boat first -- so there's no tussling with cars or trucks -- and the cycle path starts almost at the bottom of the ferry ramp. Everything's impeccably signposted, so you could just pick a place and trust the signs to get you there. If you want to plan a bit more, the ANWB maps are helpful (as mentioned, the Map Shop always has them in stock: http://www.themapshop.co.uk/); this website can be helpful too (though it only has the 'major' cycle routes) -- it's all in Dutch, but easy enough to work out: http://www.lekkerweg.nl/nl/dagjeuit/fietsen/fietsrouteplanner/. For the Belgian bit of the journey, this website might help: http://www.fietsnet.be/routeplanner/default.aspx.

There are a few more tips in this thread too: http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=35486&p=293864