How to get your bike to Europe?
Cycling is one of the best ways to see a country and when you add hostelling along with cycling it can be a great adventure. Ernst Hemingway said it best, “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.” VERY TRUE especially in the Alps.
You may be thinking should I bring my bike with me? Rent a bike at my destination? I suggest you to use your own bike because you don’t have the time crush plus if you are staying in a hostel, it would be very expensive to rent a bike a for 50 euros for 2 months.
The next question is how do I pack a bike if I am not good with bikes? You can buy bike bags. These bags are cheap around $40 and they have wheels on them. You can buy it from Chainreactioncycles.com for very cheap. You will need to take your bike apart. You will not need special tools to do this. I will detail how to pack a bike in a later post. But it is easy to do.
In Europe you can travel with your bike in a bag for free on train. I travel with a carbon bike that is a around 17 Ibs and the entire weight of the big is around 20 to 30 Kilograms. The bag has wheels on it so you can travel with it.
Most trains in Europe has space for your bike. The trains have racks and you can stick your bike bag next to the racks. The only trains you can’t travel with your bike are the high speed train. You can travel with your bike if it is in a bag but not if it is assembled. So trains like the ICE train in Germany, TGV and the Frecca train have no space for bikes. So stay away from them.
Buses in Europe are nice. The Flexbus is very on and off. Sometimes they will charge me for my bike and sometimes they will say it is too big and charge me 10 or 20 euros. I would also declare it on Flexbus before taking the bike bag on board to be safe. Then the driver will know. It costs around 9 Euros to take a bike on the bus.
Flexbus is very cheap. They have specials 9 Euros from Munich to Milan.
Ryan Air is also very cheap. I flew from Ireland to Milan for 27 Euros but they charged me like 80 euros to put the bike on board. It is still cheaper than taking other airlines.
Here is how you travel. Short distances like Florence to Rome take the Flexbus. For longer distances take the train because you will have more space and you won’t have to deal issues with the bike. For really long distances over water like Ireland to Italy use Ryan Air. Just make sure you follow all of their instructions because if you don’t they will charge you out the butt.
That is enough for this post. I will write another post about traveling with bikes.
