Rob Ainsley
and how to train
Like 24 per cent of UK households – yes, it’s that many – we don’t have access to a car. We get around by train and bike. (Except on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when unlike Europe our trains don’t run.)
This gets us everywhere in Britain we want to go. And many places we don’t. I’m now an expert on the three-letter station codes: KGX, King’s Cross; MAN, Manchester Piccadilly, etc. I plan journeys based on them: Hamworthy–Anderston–Eggesford, for instance (HAM AND EGG). With ingenuity and a rail card (Whyteleafe–Didcot–Roby–Nottingham– Putney–Teale–Caterham–Outwood) I could make whole sentences (WHY DID ROB NOT PUT THE CAT OUT?). People have made careers as YouTubers over more tenuous material.
But getting a bike to continental Europe, about the limit of our overseas travel ambitions for the foreseeable, is trickier. Eurostar ‘takes bikes’, yeah, like ‘anyone can run for US president’: it’s expensive, time-consuming, and spaces are very limited.
Ferry opportunities are dwindling. In 2008 Lerwick–Bergen ceased, turning the North Sea Cycle Route from circle to horseshoe. Newcastle–Esbjerg’s
“Eurostar ‘takes bikes’, yeah, like ‘anyone can run for US president’: it’s expensive and spaces are limited”
2014 demise saw the end of any boats to Scandinavia. Hull–Zeebrugge stopped this year. No more fast Harwich–Hook of Holland services means an expensive overnight cabin. Boats go to Spain – but so slowly your Garmin maps need updating on arrival.
Bike hire? Fine for a fixed-base week, but likely not viable for long linear trips. Shipping your bike? Costly, maybe a paperwork nightmare post-Brexit. Coaches? Nope: FlixBus takes bikes on some Berlinbased routes, but not ones from London. European Bike Express? Great, but limited timetables. The least worst options are to Calais. Le Shuttle, the bike trailer service from Folkestone; or the Dover ferry.
There are flights, of course. But I hate them. Partly it’s the eco thing, flight shame, flygskam; I’m with Greta on this. (Evidently 50 per cent of plane emissions are generated by 1 per cent of superfrequent flyers. The 1 per cent that make the rules about tax-free aircraft fuel, probably.)
But mostly it’s the damage copped by my bike. It’s disassembled in enough bubble-wrap to cushion a Mars Lander, yet the baggage-hurlers still find ways to warp mudguards, dent frames, bend derailleurs, trash shifters. And that’s only at check-in.
Maybe, just maybe though, trains – long disadvantaged by airline- and road-biased policies – might be moving higher up the post-pandemic, postGreta priority list. Roads are full, aviation unsustainable. France just banned internal flights where the journey can be done by train in under two and half hours (watered down from four). Sleeper trains are, it’s hoped, being pencilled back in after a long decline. (Nice–Paris, for instance; it ceased shortly after I took it following my French End to End. Four other cyclists were doing similar, so we partied the night. I hope the closure wasn’t anything to do with that.)
So hooray for trains. Ever noticed that (almost) all this magazine’s Local Knowledge destinations are easily doable by rail? There is no car required. So forget jams, parking problems, motorway ennui. Enjoy the journey. Relax with a video, drink and snack. Write cycle-campaigning emails to your MP. Snooze. Stare out the window and wonder why anybody would live there. Stretch your legs. Pretend to read while, in fact, eavesdropping on the indiscreet people opposite.
And look forward to simply rolling your bike off at the other end, and setting straight off from the station and instant freedom, no matter where you land: Bynea, Carlisle, Banstead, Trafford Park, Insch, Winchester, Forres, Birkbeck, Invergowrie. BYE BYE CAR. CAR BAD. TRA INS WIN FOR BIK ING.