Camping and transport (bike transport to Europe).

[Parademic]

I'm looking at heading off to Europe again next year, but rather than do the ultra boring ride from Manchester to Italy, I was thinking of having my DL650 sent by road, and then catching up with it in Europe after catching a flight down.

Has anyone else done this ?

I'm curious if there are any companies anyone can recommend that will take all my camping gear and bike gear (and panniers) to say the south of France for a resonance price ?

Ideally I'd be meeting up with some friends from Spain in Nice and then carrying on into Italy for a week or so.

Cheers,

Gareth


.

[grumps]

These may help

www.bikeshuttle.co.uk/

[Parademic]

Thanks grumps. Seems quite reasonable to be fair. It's certainly easier than spending 3 days riding to the south of France and only 4 hours away from the place I'm heading.


.

[kwackboy]

look up motorail ..
http://www.seat61.com/Motorail.htm#.V4lEHDWaWSo
you could ride some of the way and then get a motorail train down to nice.

[Parademic]

Now that's an interesting thing... Never thought of going by rail... But it's not a bad option.... £141 to move both me and the bike to the South of France from Paris... It's a shame they don't run it from Calais anymore...


Thanks.

Gareth

[Yoyo]

Give Tracy a shout at http://www.2wheeltrans.co.uk/
She's a former Strom owner who'll look after you :-)

.

[Parademic]

Thank Yoyo. I'll drop her a line on Monday. Ta.


.

[BigG72]

I'm taking the Motorail from Dusseldorf to Vienna (for the MotoGP) this Thursday with my new Vee, so I'll let you know what it's like. The online booking system was a bit of a mess on the Austrian web site, requiring separate bookings for bike and rider. Hopefully, my bike and I will end up in the same place!

[Jez]

I did the Dusseldorf to Vienna train in June then rode back through Slovenia Austria and Germany on a solo trip. The train itself was basic but good enough for the price. Shared a 4 berth cabin with an Austrian on a Valkyrie, a German on a GS and a Dutchman on a cb600. The German brought a load of cheese and you could buy half bottles of wine. a few other bikers saw our cabin as the party cabin and promptly joined us Would definitely do it again. 

[grumps]

I'm taking the Motorail from Dusseldorf to Vienna (for the MotoGP) this Thursday with my new Vee, so I'll let you know what it's like. The online booking system was a bit of a mess on the Austrian web site, requiring separate bookings for bike and rider. Hopefully, my bike and I will end up in the same place!

Yes please , let us know. 8 of us want to do the Alps next year but hate the idea of the trip there and back

[kwackboy]

I've also used the motorail trail to vienna via OBB rail . Was a good experience and I would use it again .

Grumps..

You don't need to get the motorail train to get to the alps ..? 

[grumps]

What did it cost per bike please? + Seats? + Cabins?

We don't really want to spend 2+ days each way to get there. Not to mention the high miles days, hotel costs. We're getting old!!

We quite fancy the Eastern Alps and Croatia then maybe ride back

[Jez]

Using the OBB (Austrian trains) website you have to book a passenger ticket and a bike ticket separately, bit of a faf but you'll work it out. The passenger ticket was 69 euros and the bike ticket 45 euros. Takes 11 hours from 9pm leaving Dusseldorf arriving Vienna at 08.20.

[grumps]

Euro115 sounds like a decent price to save all that travelling

[Jez]

The passenger ticket was for one person in a 4 berth cabin sharing with strangers!!. There are other options I.e. 6 berth cabin cheaper but very cramped, or two berth or one berth prices accordingly.

[grumps]

There will be 8 of us. Most snore  !!! Cosy 

[kwackboy]

You can call OBB rail and book it over the phone as I did.  Once you get through most speak English and Once all is done they send the tickets to you via post, they said give it 14 days but they arrived in around 6 days.
The only issue I had was the alternated messaging service was in German  but once I got through the booking was far easier than there website .

[grumps]

Great info lads. Many thanks