Cycling UK Forum

I need to book my bike on the train to penzance and also back from wick or Thurso. It's been a while since I've done this so just wanted to know which site you can book bikes on. I used to use East Coast trains but now they are Virgin East Coast so don't know if it's changed.

You can still use virgin east coast to book bikes. I use them for all my bookings.

On the Virgin website there's an option to book a bike with your ticket. Unfortunately it's after you've selected your ticket and clicked 'Buy Now', so you can end up going back and forth. Underneath the seating preferences section there's some tiny text 'bicycle space'.

FarOeuf wrote:On the Virgin website there's an option to book a bike with your ticket. Unfortunately it's after you've selected your ticket and clicked 'Buy Now', so you can end up going back and forth. Underneath the seating preferences section there's some tiny text 'bicycle space'.

So what. It's very easy to book a bike space on the East Coast web site . Have done so many times and never ended up going back and forth - except when I've booked a return ticket of course

pete75 wrote:

FarOeuf wrote:On the Virgin website there's an option to book a bike with your ticket. Unfortunately it's after you've selected your ticket and clicked 'Buy Now', so you can end up going back and forth. Underneath the seating preferences section there's some tiny text 'bicycle space'.

So what. It's very easy to book a bike space on the East Coast web site . Have done so many times and never ended up going back and forth - except when I've booked a return ticket of course

East Coast, the company, stopped operating in Feb 2015. Not sure you should be buying tickets from a website if it claims to be them...

I did the same in May but in reverse using the National Rail Enquiries app. You can reserve a bike space on this. Enjoy your tour.

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my MotoG3 using hovercraft full of eels.

I spoke to a bloke on a Cross Country from Cornwall to Exeter who said that he tried every train that day on Great Western and couldn't make a booking.

I find it quite easy to use GWR's own website to make a bike booking but the question may be - will you get one? Do let us know how you get on. My guess is that if you avoid summer weekends and Friday afternoons you should be OK.

If other people have been so inconsiderate as to book all the bike spaces, another possibility, if you aren't pushed for time, is to get the JoG to Orkney ferry, then Kirkwall to Aberdeen, where there are (comparatively speaking) lots of trains and not much competition for bike spaces.

What a fantastic way to end the trip - if you have the time of course.
I'll remember that!

If you arrive at JoG reasonably early, the Orkney route doesn't actually take much extra time. You cross to Orkney, cycle to Kirkwall, catch night ferry to Aberdeen arriving around 07:00, and can then get anywhere in UK the same day, i.e. the day following arrival at JoG

Unless you get to JoG before noon, you'll still not be getting anywhere much south of Glasgow until the following day anyway

I gave up on planning the lejog as it was too complicated. The problems were getting reasonably cheap advance tickets with bike space (especially on the return from jog), and lack of bnb availability. Also some bnbs were very poor at communication and didn't allow online booking. So going to France instead.

robing wrote:I gave up on planning the lejog as it was too complicated. The problems were getting reasonably cheap advance tickets with bike space (especially on the return from jog), and lack of bnb availability. Also some bnbs were very poor at communication and didn't allow online booking. So going to France instead.

This is why we did JOGLE. Penzance is far easier to get back from than Wick or Thurso by train. We didn't have an trouble finding B&Bs. We used the CTC listings and supplemented that with Google. Some of the places we stayed were mediocre, but we never had a really bad one and found some real gems. The planning was half the fun.

TrevA wrote:

robing wrote:I gave up on planning the lejog as it was too complicated. The problems were getting reasonably cheap advance tickets with bike space (especially on the return from jog), and lack of bnb availability. Also some bnbs were very poor at communication and didn't allow online booking. So going to France instead.

This is why we did JOGLE. Penzance is far easier to get back from than Wick or Thurso by train. We didn't have an trouble finding B&Bs. We used the CTC listings and supplemented that with Google. Some of the places we stayed were mediocre, but we never had a really bad one and found some real gems. The planning was half the fun.

Fair points. I have done Lejog once already, an organised trip over 14 days in 2012, but wanted to do a solo 10 day trip. I'll try and plan one for next year, maybe a jogle.

There are some people in Inversneck who can either ship your bike home for you or transport you back down to Inverness. Never used them myself, being a folderist.

http://www.johnogroatsbiketransport.co.uk

DavidNichol wrote:There are some people in Inversneck who can either ship your bike home for you or transport you back down to Inverness. Never used them myself, being a folderist.

http://www.johnogroatsbiketransport.co.uk

Yep used them for Lejog and Dover to Cape Wrath. Great service, they even used to clean and lube your bike for you but I don't think they do that any longer.