# Bikes on Cars in Ferrys



## User (29 Jan 2016)




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## Dogtrousers (29 Jan 2016)

IME no they don't charge extra for bikes on carriers, but I always inform them when I book.

I have a roof carrier and no experience of tailgate carriers. A mate of mine has a tow ball carrier and regularly shuttles his bike across the channel.


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## Andrew_P (29 Jan 2016)

Pretty sure you would be better off with rear mounted. Eurotunnel is no surcharge and I have a 5 series estate and had four bikes on a rear tow bar rack. I think there was an option when I was looking at a ferry but it looked like there would be a surcharge for the overall length. Such a long time since I have been on a Ferry but my memory is that the car decks have limited height clearance?


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## Rooster1 (29 Jan 2016)

I would get in touch with them and amend the booking. Personally, a roof carrier is preferable, boot carriers are an issue for three reasons IMO;
1 - You can't access your boot / hatch contents
2 - If you have 3 or more bikes on the back, you are likely to be obscuring the lights and or number plates - so you'll need a lighting board (Halfords)
3 - I find rear mounted racks a lot more unstable.

Of course the downsides of a roof mounted rack are:
1 - A pain to get the bikes up!
2 - Fear of height restrictions!!!!!! - I destroyed a roof system and bike once (how stupid am I).

PS, I've used both types of carriers regularly.

Enjoy!


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## gavintc (29 Jan 2016)

I presume you cant put them inside. With the wheels off, they dont take up too much space. 

I also agree, with the previous comment that you pay for length and height, so adding to your car will increase the costs.


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## StuAff (29 Jan 2016)

+1 to drop them a line. I've just had a quick look on BF's website & adding a rear-mounted cycle carrier increased the price £8. There's no increase if you have a roof load but the height restrictions remain unaltered.


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## Adam4868 (29 Jan 2016)

Go britany every year with bike (rearmount) and wife and kids ! See my priority there...Never had any problem and no extra charges.
P.s never booked my bike onlast year and just turned up with it on car.I doubt there interested anyway


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## Milkfloat (29 Jan 2016)

Just to be clear here - Brittany Ferries will charge extra with cycles on the roof. There is no charge if your total height is below 1.83m, but there is a charge if you go over (up to 2.6m). It will add an extra £50-60 to your crossing. You can see all this when you book your ticket on their website.


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## fossyant (29 Jan 2016)

Make sure you check out the vessel / give the ferry company a ring. Pretty sure some can cope with bikes on roof, but you may not be in the same place as a car without a rack - so don't follow them onto the boat.

I've done it once to the Isle of Mann, but the boats are small, so the bikes had to come off due to height restrictions.


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## GrumpyGregry (29 Jan 2016)

For me it is rear rack every time if going on a ferry or on holiday. You don't forget they are 'up there' and so long as you stick within the overall length limits of your class of booking, no more to pay.

My old Mk I Renault Megane Scenic* had a tow ball rack which carried two bikes (though I could get three on it) and which pivoted down so you could then open the tailgate as normal. It had built in lights, and number plate, and was prewired so that it activated a beeper, that was already built into the car but not used normally, which sounded off when you engaged reverse (auto box) to remind the driver they had a rack on.

*My last company car under the old have anything you want from these francises up to a cost of £nn,000k I bought just about every optional extra in the book for that car, including the fancy bike rack.


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## GrumpyGregry (29 Jan 2016)

User3094 said:


> Brill responses, thanks all!!!
> 
> I guess if I had the choice, I'd prefer the roof mounted option for reasons as per @Rooster1 kindly pointed out, plus it looks cooler


Doesn't look cool when the bike falls off and hits you on the head, or, as in the case of a very expensive carbon mtb I saw die in a trail centre car park, when it falls off and breaks the bike.


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## John the Monkey (29 Jan 2016)

Watch out for height restrictions if you're using the toll roads too - quite often the lanes intended to restrict motorhomes &c are restricted to 2m or 1.9m height.


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## Dogtrousers (29 Jan 2016)

John the Monkey said:


> Watch out for height restrictions if you're using the toll roads too - quite often the lanes intended to restrict motorhomes &c are restricted to 2m or 1.9m height.


Yes indeed. It took a last minute shouted intervention from my wife to prevent me from scraping the bikes off at a French toll gate line.


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## Oldfentiger (29 Jan 2016)

Towball mounted rack for me.
As stated previously, access to boot courtesy of tilt-down facility. Rear lights and number plate incorporated.
100% stable. 
Lockable.
Negligible effect on MPG, (Roof mounting = 5MPG less on my car)

The only time I roof mount is if I'm towing our caravan - then I have to take a step ladder as I have a SUV. Bloody bikes are so high they have ice on them when I get them down.


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## Inertia (29 Jan 2016)

User said:


> The tunnel has a series of three height warnings you pass under with ascending severity. A light pole, a heavier plank, and something pretty rigid as I recall.


The roof of the tunnel? 

(or ASJT?)


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## Andrew_P (29 Jan 2016)

User3094 said:


> Brill responses, thanks all!!!
> 
> I guess if I had the choice, I'd prefer the roof mounted option for reasons as per @Rooster1 kindly pointed out, plus it looks cooler


a lot of money but the proper 3/4 bike tow bar ones are brilliant. Sturdy fixings both the bikes and the to the car, number plate and indicators brake lights. You can release the mount to get access to the boot/hatch with the bikes on the mounts. I take 4 bikes 2 adult two kids 20" down to the SW coast without even considering them on the back. Normal motorway speeds etc. The cost is dependent on how much use.

I have the older version of this it has an extender for the 4th bike http://www.roofbox.co.uk/scripts/rb...carrier_no_929/Qx@w,6M42VAwp3@Rb{~cC4ure5xbIp


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## Rooster1 (29 Jan 2016)

Towball ones are best


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## John the Monkey (29 Jan 2016)

I realise that I'd not answered the question - we use roof mounted racks, either 1 x bike with a roof box, or occasionally 3 x bikes with no box.

Our roofbars usually cost around £100 (from Roofbox.co.uk) - we defray a little of the cost when changing cars by selling them on, usually getting between £40 and £60 for them. (They're always removed between trips, so are usually in very good condition). We used Cruz Bici bike carriers initially (£20 each) they're fine, but a bit agricultural. We now have a Thule Freeride, (£60?) which is excellent, and used for the bike that travels most. The cost of towball mounting has, up to now, been prohibitively expensive for us.

Travelling from Dover - Calais with P&O, we've not been charged extra for the ferry trip - we're usually loaded with the caravans, and occasionally with the trucks. Further to the height restriction issue mentioned above, for some reason the credit card lane on a lot of Payages is height restricted, so its useful to have both coins and cards available.


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## User269 (29 Jan 2016)

It's an extra £16 (return) for a rear mounted carrier with Brittany, on the Portsmouth - Caen route,
and an extra £60 for roof mounted (over 1.85m).

We've tried different mounting options over many years, for long, fast drives across Spain, Italy, and France.
Inside the car is best.
But we happily use a towbar mounted rack now, which includes rear lights, no. plate, and can easily be folded down for boot access. 
Our least favourite option was roof mounted; difficult to access, raised the vehicle height to 2.5m, limited our use of toll lanes on autoroutes, service areas etc., increased fuel consumption and interfered with handling and stability in wind conditions.


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## Julia9054 (29 Jan 2016)

We have taken 3 bikes on the back of a Passat estate Dover - Calais without being charged extra. At 5ft 3 1/2 roof mounted is just not an option for me!


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## Cubist (29 Jan 2016)

Many years of using a towbar mounted, folding Thule so I can access the boot. We travelled to Fance via many different ferry routes and the chunnel. At motorway cruising speeds the MPG if anything appeared to improve, and I'm no physicist, but suspect it had something to do with disrupting the sucking effect of a slab-ended Discovery. We could average 34mpg on a couple of thousand miles of motorway travelling from Yorkshire to Biarritz or the Midi and back. You need to declare extra height on some crossings, and the Disco was always over the 1.83m limit, but they always put us with the cars anyway, and on some crossings you need to declare the overall length. They'll ask when you book.


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## Oldfentiger (29 Jan 2016)

User3094 said:


> True dat - thats why Indy cars go round oval tracks in pairs, quicker than on their own.


Even more prevalent in NASCAR - known as bump-drafting


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## Rooster1 (29 Jan 2016)

@User269 "We've tried different mounting options over many years"

Sorry, but the idiot in me had to laugh a little at this. I know @Fnaar would.


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## pawl (29 Jan 2016)

User3094 said:


> Have booked myself a ferry trip with the car (Portsmouth - Cherbourg)....
> 
> I didn't tick any boxes as regards bike transport, figuring I'll sort this later. So was wondering, what's the best (or cheapest) way of transporting the bikes, on the roof or a rear carrier? Do the ferry companies (Brittany in my case) charge extra?
> 
> Any experience gratefully received!





Hight may be a problem. If i remember correctly on some car decks there would not be clearance for roof mounted bikes.
I believe some car decks have clearance for caravans.Dont the ferry companies ask about hight on the booking forms.
I would check with the ferry operator giving the hight of the vehicle with the bike on the rack.


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## User269 (29 Jan 2016)

Rooster1 said:


> @User269 "We've tried different mounting options over many years"I
> 
> Sorry, but the idiot in me had to laugh a little at this. I know @Fnaar would.


I've no idea what you're talking about, although I should point out that we find our mounting options rather limited these days.


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## Milkfloat (29 Jan 2016)

Cubist said:


> Many years of using a towbar mounted, folding Thule so I can access the boot. We travelled to Fance via many different ferry routes and the chunnel. At motorway cruising speeds the MPG if anything appeared to improve, and I'm no physicist, but suspect it had something to do with disrupting the sucking effect of a slab-ended Discovery. We could average 34mpg on a couple of thousand miles of motorway travelling from Yorkshire to Biarritz or the Midi and back.



I remember reading a paper that described the effects of road surface on fuel efficiency, it stated that France autoroutes offered better fuel efficiency than UK motorways.


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## Oldfentiger (29 Jan 2016)

Milkfloat said:


> I remember reading a paper that described the effects of road surface on fuel efficiency, it stated that France autoroutes offered better fuel efficiency than UK motorways.


And then there's the fact that the air's warmer, and therefore thinner, so there'll be less air resistance.
Ah but then if the air's thinner, the engine will be less efficient cos there's less oxygen.
Or would a turbo negate the effect of reduced oxygen?
Complicated innit?


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## andrew_s (29 Jan 2016)

Milkfloat said:


> Just to be clear here - Brittany Ferries will charge extra with cycles on the roof. There is no charge if your total height is below 1.83m, but there is a charge if you go over (up to 2.6m). It will add an extra £50-60 to your crossing. You can see all this when you book your ticket on their website.


What I have done (as the passenger) is to take the bikes off the roof carrier and lay them flat to bring the height down below the limit, using a bit of old carpet to protect the car from stray pedals, and a generous helping of straps.


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## Mr Celine (29 Jan 2016)

We took two bikes on Brittany Ferries Portsmouth Caen last summer. Remove wheels and pedals, one bike fits in the back with the rear seats folded down and mine fits inside a roof box. The roof box is a low wide one and brought the height of the car up to 1.84m by my measurement. The person who checked us in at Portsmouth insisted it was too high, or that any roof load had to be declared, but didn't charge any extra. She didn't charge any extra for me either, Mrs Celine having forgotten(?) to put me on the booking. 
We've previously travelled on that route with the car similarly laden, paid extra for the height just in case, and then been put in the low height deck anyway. 

Transporting the bikes in this way has the least effect on fuel consumption and is more secure when leaving the car if you want to stop en route. 

Bon voyage!


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## tatr (30 Jan 2016)

You could just make your kids cycle to France, frees up space the car


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## DRM (30 Jan 2016)

I've taken up to 3 bikes on a rear carrier, the ferries will need to know the overall height & length when you book, also im sure you have to declare if you have bikes on the car at the time of booking.
If they are on the roof you will need to go in with the caravans & motorhomes as this is where the maximum overhead height is, in the car only area roof mounted bikes wont fit.
Make the most of riding in France, where motorists give you a wide berth, it's just as it should be, bon vacance


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