Travel with a bike:
Bus and air you should be prepared to minimise and pack or flatten the bike. Pedals off and 90o the handlebars. Bus needs to wrap wheels but frame is not compulsory (national express).
Cycling pace strategy...
If flat take easy
If hill use weight on pedals(alternate legs)
If down hill Keep low use t bar front to rest upper body.
If not duck down low as pos. practise firstly!
You can get super faster with straight bars by getting as low as possible. It is worth it but dangerous!
Travel with bike TGV France:
The lady said each train company charges 10e for a bike. So for two trains to paris that totals 20e.
Montpellier to paris is 150 euros basically booked last minute as I didn't know when I would finish.
I just did. At any cost really as so tired!
Researching: Flights were cheap 30 euros from Montpellier but 50 for the bike!
So I thought train would be best.
Especially that another night in Montpellier would cost 65 to 75 minimum. So I got a sleep over/slow train @150
It's all expensive, basically.
But if I did it again maybe I would rent the bike there. Or such like. Then fly cheaply home. Travel with the bike has been a pain.
I'm hoping to get a national express from paris home but I need to wrap up the wheels.(had to get train last time as didn't know about wrapping and missed it) it is not the frame apparently mainly the wheels.
National express/eurolines from paris doesn't run on Sunday! (Edit:I could book on the websiteon Sunday BUT there were euroline coaches moving to/from ferry so I was shocked(and annoyed).
So making my way to Gare du Nord to do calais then ferry to Dover then train home. I've given up trying to do it cheaply. Late is never cheap. Maybe if I had a friend in paris I could have done 2 days here and factored that in as a set-achievable-date planned return journey (I have made a few French friend now BTW) but 2 days is 2 more nights stay so increases cost especially paris! I knew I would want to just be heading home ASAP also after that ordeal!
BTW, I pre-bought food and kept it with me so I had breakfast on the train into paris instead of buying in paris. (In fact while waiting for mc Donald's to open for free wifi -blocked during closing hours!- I chatted to two highly hung over guys who also just met. I charged one of their phones with my solar and got a free burger out of the deal.
Both happy there!
Train to calais booked:
70euros
10 for the bike so that's 30 for the bike so far so plane would have been a better option really but I would have to have wrapped it up. Or bike bag@50 to buy for maybe a one off.
The Couchettes! 6 man rooms, biker aroma and everything...great...
Even with no working SIM you can use a GPS app to help on your smart phone.
(true for a USA iphone, USA SIM card and a App called Donnees IGN Outdoors with french maps)
I had no roaming and it did not cost me a penny.
Helpful Resources:
The address of the Montpellier Airport is:
Aéroport Montpellier Méditerranée
34130 MAUGUIO
France
33 (0)4 67 20 85 00
