Transporting bike across Europe - advice needed

[philk56]

Hi all. My son is shortly going to be working and living in Vienna for a few months and wants to take a bike with him. He then plans to cycle back to London. He is travelling by train, will be stopping at one or two places on the way to visit friends, and will be carrying at least one large suitcase and/or backpack (which we are planning to bring back when we visit at some point). We have been looking into the various options for transporting the bike - mainly to either buy a bike bag to carry it in until he reaches Vienna, or to have the bike transported their directly and he'll pick it up when he gets there. Initial investigations have shown that we could have the bike transported there for approx £50, the same sort of cost as buying a bag, which would save him having the lug the bag around on his journey, but I am a bit nervous about trusting the service. Does anyone have any experience or recommendations which would help - we need to get the bike in Vienna by then end of January?

 

[snorri]

Probably depends on the type of bike, but I would be decanting the contents of the suitcase into into the four panniers with the excess in a back pack strapped on the luggage rack. Taking a bike on a German train should not present any great problems, it does not need to be bagged if accompanied.