Heathrow Info- coming from abroad for British tour

[Woodtourer]

My wife and I are planning to fly into Heathrow,from the US, to start our tour. We will be heading to Poole.
Some folks on our forums say it is possible to ride out of Heathrow. Some are not to convinced.
One suggestion was take a bus to Reading with our bike boxes and gear. Kinda like this idea!
So I thought I would ask about buses that go that way. Do they have baggage capacity for bike boxes?
Thanks!!!

[Ben@Forest]

Hi, it'll definitely be possible to ride out of Heathrow because there's bound to be people who work at Heathrow who commute by bike. I'm not from round there but guess there will be cycle lanes/shared use pavements alongside the car infrastructure which will hardly be attractive but will work to get you onto the small roads or lanes (or National Cycle Network) for your journey to Poole.

I don't think there will be anywhere better in Reading (compared to Heathrow airport) to keep your bike boxes unless you know a hotel or B&B that's going to store them for free or a small charge.

[horizon]

This link may help (also has baggage facility):

https://www.heathrow.com/transport-and- ... ns/cycling

I used to work at Heathrow and cycle around it as a boy but that's a long time ago!

You should be able to find your way out of the airport (although you want to head south). Once clear and heading say for Staines you have southern England at your feet and any number of routes to choose from. There is a direct bus to Reading but even if you get the bikes on, I cannot see that there is much to gain. If you choose your routes carefully (or even if you head straight down the A30!), Heathrow to Poole is a good way to see southern England.

[al_yrpal]

Here you are, all the info you need. (Google is your friend!) Avoid an airline coming into terminals 1, 2 or 3, because the cyclist/pedestrian tunnel is closed. Looks like terminal 4 or 5 will be fine.

https://www.heathrow.com/transport-and- ... ns/cycling

If you cant avoid terminals 1 2 or 3 you could get a taxi out of the airport to a nearby convenient point and then cycle from there, Heathrow is a very busy area. Accomodation is expensive but as you head out into the countryside it gets cheaper. Don't go to Reading, its pointless. Local taxi is cheaper and quicker.

Use cycle.travel ( just put that in your browser) to get the quietest cycle friendly route to Poole. It also gives you .gpx if you want it, local pub stops bed and breakfasts ( much cheaper than US ones and usually very good) as well as hotels en route.

Have a nice trip

Al

[hamster]

If you are going to Poole, use the National Express 205 coach to Poole from the Central Bus Station, Terminal 4 or T5. Boxed or bagged bikes (even two) are fine, I've done it several times. Cost will be around £20-25 each, journey time 2-2.5 hours.

[ubert767]

A National Express coach from Heathrow toward Poole is certainly a good option but, depending on the size of your bike and how it is packaged, might be wise to check with them first. They are size sensitive.
http://www.nationalexpress.com/Help-and ... perty.aspx

I live in Poole, PM me if you need some local information.

Rob

[mjr]

Here you are, all the info you need. (Google is your friend!) Avoid an airline coming into terminals 1, 2 or 3, because the cyclist/pedestrian tunnel is closed. Looks like terminal 4 or 5 will be fine.

https://www.heathrow.com/transport-and- ... ns/cycling

If you cant avoid terminals 1 2 or 3 you could get a taxi out of the airport to a nearby convenient point and then cycle from there, Heathrow is a very busy area.

As that page says, you can take the cycle onto the trains for free at the terminals 1/2/3 station (now called Heathrow Central) to get to Terminal 4 (for south-west London and southwards or eastwards) or 5 (for north-west London and westwards).

https://osm.org/go/euuNh50?layers=C is a map showing routes in the area. http://cycle.travel/map may be more help with picking quieter-but-not-silly routes. As al_yrpal notes, it's a busy area. There's no superhighways there yet, either, although CS9 seems to be slowly plodding that way.

[ossie]

Are you starting your tour at Heathrow or Poole ?

If you intend to start at the airport I have a safe GPX route from Slough (Ditton Park) to Poole via the Kennet and Avon canal and the New Forest, a 2-3 day journey almost totally off road on cycle lanes or quiet country roads. Ditton Park is 6 miles from the airport.

If you intend to start at Poole then take the National express coach as mentioned above.

[MartinBrice]

This depends on your bike box: if it's throw-away cardboard and you're going to rebuild the bike at the airport and leave the box behind, you might want to do that and ride to West Drayton and get on the train heading west away from London.
Be warned: if you do this you will need to have your route absolutely nailed. Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports, obvs, and UK cycling infrastructure varies between non-existent and suicidal. You could easily find yourself on a busy road with nowhere to get away from huge lorries. We're waaaaay behind the continent for cycling - drivers are less polite, pass too close and face almost no penalty even if they kill you. Be warned. It's 10 times more dangerous to ride here than in the Netherlands.
If your box is an expensive hard case used by pro-cyclists to transport fragile racing bikes you''ll need somewhere to put it. Good luck with that.
National Express is as bike-unfriendly as it is possible to be: its website states:
"7.2: Prohibited Luggage and Safety
We are not obliged to carry any of the following items, and you may not bring them onto a coach without our permission:

Any weapons
Explosives
Drugs or solvents (other than medicines)
Oversized sports equipment
Bicycles which are not folded or dismantled/wrapped
Any item which we deem to be unsafe, or that may cause injury, offence or damage to property, or is not properly secured or sealed, or items which are considered by us to be unsuitable for carriage, due to weight, size, shape, character or any item over 20kg that cannot be folded down or packaged to comply with Clause 7.1.

So if you have a big thing in a big cardboard box you might be OK. Or you might not. You could argue it's a metal frame with bike parts and the driver might pretend he's never heard that one before and let you stick it in the hold underneath the coach - they certainly will not ever have under any circumstances a rack to take a full bike, which of course is totally normal on buses in, for instance, Norway.

Give us some more details and we'll try to help

[Woodtourer]

Thanks for the replies!!
The tentative idea is to load our bikes,in boxes, on a bus and get to Reading. Spend the night get over some jet lag! assemble our bike and be on our way the next day.
The GPX route would be great to have!

[simonhill]

There is a rail-air bus from Heathrow to Reading. https://www.firstgroup.com/berkshire-th ... l-air/faqs

In their FAQs they say " bicycles will be accepted so long as they are suitably packaged (wrapped or boxed) to prevent damage to other passenger property."

Return ticket price is £15.

Alternatively you could book a taxi based in Reading to pick you up. Google search on line, I did and got a quote of £62 for people carrier that could take 2 people and 2 bike boxes.

[horizon]

Thanks for the replies!!
The tentative idea is to load our bikes,in boxes, on a bus and get to Reading. Spend the night get over some jet lag! assemble our bike and be on our way the next day.
The GPX route would be great to have!

Still not quite sure why you want to get to Reading.

[Woodtourer]

Why Reading?? No real reason only it was a suggestion from someone else as a town to get a bus to from Heathrow.

[mjr]

Why Reading?? No real reason only it was a suggestion from someone else as a town to get a bus to from Heathrow.

Fairly easy to get to, cheaper than the airport or London, plenty of shops, basically in the right direction for Poole, pretty quick and easy to get out into the countryside on a bike. It seems a fair choice for somewhere to wait out any jet lag. I don't understand the hate for it above either.

[MartinBrice]

Reading seems a good choice to me as well. You'll find a cheaper hotel, it's a real town not an international airport and it'll be easy to ride a bike out of.
I'd go for that airport bus to Reading as it seems OK with bikes that are packed.
Remember that if you need to claim the airline damaged the bike in transit you need to check it when it comes into the baggage hall and obtain some sort of special piece of paper before you leave the airport. It's no use checking it in Reading, that's too late to make a claim. So it might be worth opening the packing and having a check then re packing it before getting on that bus. (Not that I have ever bothered to follow my own advice....)
If you can track down Simon Bird of the Reading CTC group somehow he might be able to advise on easy, nice routes going south. He might even be able to suggest some nice pubs to stop for lunch.