Cycling UK Forum

Apart from Voyager trains, as used on Cross-Country and some Virgin services, do any other sorts of rolling stock require hanging your bike up by the front wheel? This isn't always easy, unless you're tall and strong, and on the Voyagers it's often difficult to get the handlebars in unless they're low or narrow (I'm 1.95 m tall and ride on flats).

I used the Valsugana line from Trento to Bassano del Grappa in the summer. They take the seats out of the end coach for summer to allow hanging space for a few dozen bikes.

Seemed like an excellent scheme to me, I could imagine the same on (for instance) Oxenhope to Windermere if only our train companies had similar imagination.

The whole of the new Intercity Express/AT300 fleet being built for Great Western, East Coast, Transpennine, and Hull Trains does, I'm afraid...

Also the Class 180s currently in use by Great Western (mostly on the Cotswold Line), Hull Trains and Grand Central.

This is how it used to be in the good old days - a row of hooks along one side of the guards van, hang the bike up by the front wheel, the rear wheel gently resting against the side of the van! I travelled home from London to Birmingham in the guards van with mine (the guard was a relative) and it was all perfectly stable. Though with faster trains I'm not sure what would happen on the bends - anyone know?

That's how it happened in the good old days and to an extent how it still happens today. The problem with it is that not everyone can reach that high, not everyone is strong enough to lift a bike that high, not every bike has handlebars narrow enough to fit and not every bike is short enough to fit in the space between roof and floor.

I find that the MTB rims are too deep to hang up on the trains around here..

A lot of DB intercity, OBB railjet, many of the Swiss lines all use hooks on at least some of their rollingstock. Some is easy to use, some like the Railjet in Austria is a nightmare!

I think I have hung bikes up on Scotrail.
They wanted them hung by the back wheel, the hook height was staggered to avoid clashes. It seemed an excellent system, safe and space-efficient.... but where were we going?.....Edinburgh to Carstairs junction for the Tweed cycleway?

Some trains on the east coast mainline use this system. Railway staff will help with hanging bikes up for those who find it difficult.
It seems fine to me. Been around for a long time if this is anything to go by https://youtu.be/kP1KxPjh4RM?t=113

The Scotrail service out to Oban used hanging hooks when I used it a few years ago, here showing my wife's 'bent tourer next to an MTB...



Not a perfect system, but if you can hang a 'bent tourer off it that's a pretty good sign it's a fairly adaptable system, and it's certainly more space efficient than keeping them horizontal.

The local JCC I coach at uses hanging hooks in a shipping container for club bikes, precisely as it's space efficient. It can be a bit of a pain getting the MTBs up (the track bikes are a lot easier!), but the staff are (or damn well should be) there to help you.

Pete.

Pete has the one I'm thinking of.......bikes at an angle, so you can get 3 bikes each side of the corridor, panniers etc on the floor. It works.

Hung mine by the front wheel in a TGV from Paris to Dunkirk a few years ago. All bikes were in a dedicated 'lobby' at the end of the carriage. The door to the lobby locked automatically between stations, I seem to remember; good idea, but don't know if it would have been possible for someone to get locked in with the bikes!

I don't mind the hangars, it's the wheel slots I struggle with as my tyres are too wide to slot them in.

Abelio East Anglia dont - have spacious van and hoops to lock up inside

pjclinch wrote:The Scotrail service out to Oban used hanging hooks when I used it a few years ago, here showing my wife's 'bent tourer next to an MTB...



Not a perfect system, but if you can hang a 'bent tourer off it that's a pretty good sign it's a fairly adaptable system, and it's certainly more space efficient than keeping them horizontal.

The local JCC I coach at uses hanging hooks in a shipping container for club bikes, precisely as it's space efficient. It can be a bit of a pain getting the MTBs up (the track bikes are a lot easier!), but the staff are (or damn well should be) there to help you.

Pete.

That looks fairly decent. Certainly far more spacious than on the Voyagers; on those, not only do bikes have to overlap but you can't access the r/h hook when the l/h is occupied.