THE
KNOW HOW
THE TOUR GUIDE
with Ben Lindley Newcastle
Handles like
INTERVIEW: BENJAMIN LINDLEY. PICTURES: WHITE ROSE TOURS
it’s on rails
M
Copenhagen Hull
Amsterdam
UNITED KINGDOM
Plymouth
Harwich Portsmouth Dover
Cherbourg
1) Ride your bike onto a train 2) Wine, dine, and sleep in comfort 3) Wake up refreshed and ready to enjoy proper roads
OTORAIL ALLOWS YOU and your bike to travel by train. Which means you can forget about thousands of boring motorway miles and arrive fresh and ready to ride fantastic sun-baked roads further from home than you ever imagined possible. Bored of French motorways? Put your bike on the AutoTrain and have it taken from Paris to the edge of the Pyrenees. Heading down to Italy? Jump on a train in the Netherlands and arrive 24 hours later in Livorno. Ever thought of tackling Turkey? The Optima Express from Austria can wipe out half the journey and keep your rear tyre from squaring off before you’ve had any fun.
Auto Train from Paris German motorail (DB Autozug Dutch motorail (Autoslaap Trein) Optima Tours motorail
POLAND
Rotterdam s’Hertogenbosch Dunkirk Calais Bonn
DFDS Seaways Brittany Ferries P&O Ferries Ferries to Greece from Venice, Ancona or Bari
Dusseldorf GERMANY
Paris
Caen
Munich
FRANCE
SLOVAKIA
AUSTRIA
AutoSlaap trains offer a travel-with-yourvehicle service that departs within striking distance of the good old English Channel. Ride to ’s-Hertogenbosch train station in Holland, taking advantage of Railsavers. com agent discounts on ferry and Eurotunnel web fares. From here trains can take you and your bike to Alessandria, Livorno, or Koper in Slovenia. All their trains have comfortable beds with duvets and pillows, grand views on the journey, and posh food. There are no showers on board, however, so practise cleaning from a basin. Make sure you also pack a towel, as none are supplied in the communal wash rooms. Your bike is protected from the elements by the upper level of the double-decker
train cars. Bikes are always loaded into the lower level and even though the sides of the cars are open it would take a seriously aggressive rainstorm to touch them. Expect to ride your bike right onto the train, and for it to be locked in place with a block over the front wheel and secured with four tie-down straps. At the other end of the line you will ride your bike forwards off the train. No need for any reversing here. Railsavers do suggest you take out travel insurance for you and your bike during journeys on the Autoslaap train. Upgrade from complimentary dinner delivered airline-style to your cabin, to a seat in the restaurant car. Here for 38.50 Euros you can expect a three-course meal with wine, white linen table cloths, and
Bilbao
Villach
Toulouse
ROMANIA
Koper
Venice Briancon Alessandria
Biarritz Santander
HUNGARY
Bolzano
Brive
Bordeaux
Nice Avignon Fréjus Narbonne
Livorno ITALY
Barcelona
BULGARIA
Rome SPAIN
Edrine Çerkezköy GREECE TURKEY
Igoumenitsa Patras
500TH ISSUE COMPETITION
THE TOUR GUIDE
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silver service. Two sittings per night cater for different customers. After the later 8:30pm sitting has finished, the restaurant car becomes a bar until midnight. Prices aren’t too expensive: 2.50 Euros for a Heineken and 17.50 Euros for a bottle of wine. Railsavers can also reserve a restaurant time and table space along with your booking. If you’re travelling from Den Bosch to Italy and the weather’s good, make sure you book yourself onto the second sitting for dinner at the restaurant. Ask for a table on the right-hand side of the train, and you will be treated to views of majestic castles as glorious sun sets over the Rhine. NETHERLANDS TO SLOVENIA » Mileage saving: 1578 miles » Contact: motorail-rider.com » Price: from £480 return including bike and one rider » Available: June-August 2015 » Travel with your bike: YES Disembarking in the Slovenian port town of Koper gives you immediate access to over 800km of incredible Adriatic coastline and its brilliant roads. Expect to ride fast and curvaceous tarmac along the water’s edge, and enjoy fabulous cliff-top views. It’s pretty much blue sea and cloudless sky all the way. Manuel Marabese from Edelweiss Bike Travel talks about his two favourite coastal roads in Croatia, fewer than 150km from Koper: ‘I would go from Opatija, an elegant Riviera town which is well worth a visit, to Plomin on Road 66. After passing the villages south-west of the Croatian Riviera, what you have in front of you is a perfect series of sweepers overlooking sheer cliffs that drop down to deep blue water. The terrace café at the end of the coastal stretch – when the road makes a sharp 90° turn inland – is pure magic. You have to stop here. Then relax after a day of riding with some local suckling pig roasted on the spit, or ćevapi (small grilled sausages of minced meat) in front of the huge fire pit that many local restaurants have.’
£50
a gs , b k n a t x i S ers n n i w x i S
‘The Optima Express can keep your rear tyre from squaring off before you’ve had any fun’
DO T H E M AT HS »At first sight, the prices might take you by surprise, but let’s do complicated things with numbers and compare them to riding the same distance on your R1200GS. As measured by Bike, the new BMW’s 44mpg means a round trip from Den Bosch to Koper, Slovenia, would cost you £212 in fuel. Unless you were superhuman, or camping, you’d need to spend three nights in a £40 bed and breakfast. Add on £25 per day for three days food to that £332 subtotal, and we arrive at £407. This means that on average, taking the Autoslaap (£480 return) will cost you only £73 more than riding there on your bike. This starts to look like good value if you realise the hard-to-measure benefits of squared-off rear tyres, another two days avoiding motorways, and a lower odometer reading on the Boxer. If this price still seems too much for you, check out railsavers.com to find information on offers for the 2015 season. These are not to be sniffed at. In 2014, bikes were transported free to Koper, allowing you to get there and back for just £200.
PARIS TO SPAIN » Mileage saving: 846 miles » Contact: autotrain.uk.voyages-sncf.com » Price: £222 return incl. bike and rider » Available: All Year Round » Travel with your bike: NO
Touring is about great roads not endless motorway miles
French motorail service AutoTrain departs from Paris Bercy Station and heads south to Toulouse for Spain and Nice for Italy. The AutoTrain runs all-year-round, but it doesn’t allow you to travel with your vehicle. Buy a normal train ticket to follow in the footsteps of your bike. Official prices
for summer 2015 have not yet become available, but expect a bike-only return from Paris to Toulouse to cost €200 (£160), and a return to Nice €230 (£180). After collecting your bike in Toulouse, the Pyrenees mountain range is a tempting first stop. Ride into Spain and head west towards the Picos de Europa. Pick up the N621 or N625 to experience the best this national park has to offer. Head off the beaten track by going either south, east, or west from Puentenansa. Or, if you’ve had enough of mountain ranges, head 12 hours south and take the ferry to Morocco. Fares
Letting the train deposit you and your bike where the good riding starts makes biking and economic sense
for the Algeciras – Ceuta crossing can be found on ferries.co.uk and will set you back around €120 (£95) return. AUSTRIA TO TURKEY » Mileage saving: 1672 miles » Contact: optimatours.de » Price: £550 return one bike one rider » Available: April – November 2015 » Travel with your bike: YES Pick up a motorail train from Villach, Austria to Edirne, Turkey. The weekly trains take 36 hours and a return costs €700 (£550) for one bike and one rider. If you’re planning on touring Turkey during June, July or August be prepared for average daily highs of 30°C in the south. ‘Turkey’s south and west coastal roads are stunning,’ says Armagan Babayigit from Turkey Motorbike Tours. ‘The government is investing bags of money into roads so surfaces are usually good. For a round trip of the west coast start in Istanbul and ride south to Antalya. Enjoy Fethiye, Izmir and Canakkale on your return journey up the west coast. Expect monasteries and twisty roads. Start from Antalya if you want to ride along the south coast. Head north towards the dramatic Cappadocia region.’
To celebrate our 500th issue we have teamed up with Oxford Products to give away £500 worth of gear. That’s six prizes which means six winners will win a bag each… 2 x Oxford X40 tankbag worth £110 2 x Oxford X30 tankbag worth £100 1 x Oxford X4 Tank n tailer tankbag worth £60 1 x Oxford First Time magnetic tankbag worth £40 The tankbag is one of those often underrated bits of luggage. Sadly, many riders seem to buy the first one they see – and that may not be the one that best meets their needs. Tankbags come in all shapes and sizes which is why we have selected the highly rated, Ride magazine recommended or best buy magnetic tankbags for you to win in celebration of our 500th issue.
TO ENTER VISIT:
www.bikemagazine.co.uk/oxfordcomp
AND ANSWER THIS QUESTION:
How many years has it been since the launch of Bike magazine? Terms and Conditions The prize draw is open to all UK residents aged 18 or over who enter on or before the closing date 26th November 2014. No purchase is necessary, but only one entry per household is allowed. Anyone who enters more than once, or via proxy
will be excluded from the draw. The first 6 names drawn at random will win one of the prizes - with the highest value prize being allocated first. They will be notified on or after 26th November 2014 . Full terms and conditions can be found at www.bauerlegal.co.uk/competition-terms