Any good at knots? HOW TO TAKE YOUR BIKE ON A FERRY! - Bike touring with kids - 10 TIPS for cyclists
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- čas přidán 17. 07. 2024
- What's it like taking your bike on a ferry? Here's ten of our tips from the last few years on the road.
We're the Family ByCycle - welcome to our first 'touring tips' guide to using ferries to have wild adventures with kids and bikes. Let's hear YOUR tips in the comments! Which one shall we do next? Trains or Cars? ;-)
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Crossings appearing in this video (not in order of appearance! Oh, did you spot the porpoise leaping out of the water near Ullapool, too?):
ENGLAND
The Ferry 'cross the Mersey - www.merseyferries.co.uk
Birkenhead - Liverpool
SCOTLAND
Caledonian MacBrayne - www.calmac.co.uk
Oban - Tiree - Coll - Castlebay (Barra)
Ardmhòr (Barra) - Eriskay (Sound of Barra)
Berneray - Leverburgh (Harris)
Tarbert (Harris) - Uig (Skye)
Stornoway (Lewis) - Ullapool
ENGLISH CHANNEL
Brittany Ferries (except not at the moment - tell them what you think!) - www.brittany-ferries.co.uk
Plymouth - Roscoff
Condor Ferries (Boo Hiss, never replied to our complaint from 2015 when they didn't keep their promise and pay for the hotel they put us in when the ferry got us into Poole several hours late, which they knew about but didn't warn passengers of - still sore about this, so not posting their link!)
St Malo - St Peter Port (Guernsey)
St Peter Port - Poole
NORTH SEA
Stena Line - www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry-to-...
Harwich - Hoek van Holland
DENMARK
Ærøfærgerne - aeroe-ferry.dk/en/
Svendborg - Ærøskøbing
Søby - Faaborg
This is the best, most informative and practical bike touring video I've seen! Please keep up the good work!
Thank you very much, Ron! Comments like that make it all worthwhile.
thanks for that ,mate! regards from Spain
lol so cool
This is so cool.. seeing a whole Family cycling !
Brilliant video, especially enjoyed the raspberry. I have yet to do a ferry crossing and this has been really useful. Good to see that even though it can be incredibly stressful you all seem to have kept your humour and remained calm. Thanks
Thanks, Paula! We really appreciate the feedback. Yeah, those moments of rapid action took us by surprise at first and we kept leaving things behind on the car deck, in particular! The more you prepare for what’s coming, the less stressful it becomes. We found that filming it, however chaotically, helped us work out what we could do to aid the process! It’s always worth it - rolling off a ferry into a new country or island is always a refreshing experience.
Fresh raspberries are always on hand for silly people and decisions! 😝
Those will come in extremely handy, thank you. We’re planning our first trip over to France and Belgium via Dover - Dunkirk, This summer. I will be using many of those tips. 👍👍🚴🚴🚴Ride safe
Thank you for your kind message. Glad it was helpful!
Cracking video Tom, luckily there's just me and my wife unless our grandkids want to join us. Memories of the Outer Hebrides are strong with us and we've been back many times since we first cycled from Barra to Stornoway, our first ever cycle tour and us mid to late 40's. Wished we'd done it years ago.
Tips? Probably not a good one for you in your situation but if you are at the back of the cycle queue, your bike doesn't have the weight of other bikes leaning against it.
Thank you for the kind comments! Yeah, as you see in the shots from the Oban - Tiree leg we did in 2014, we usually end up at the bottom of the pile, and doubly unpopular for taking a while to get out of the way, thereby holding up the other cyclists too. Mind you, at the other end, we then have to wait until everyone else has ‘unpiled’ their bikes before we can commence putting children in trailers and hanging panniers! It’s tricky to film because it’s often so fraught. Compared to the experience of parking the car on the car deck and getting yourselves sorted at leisure, with children shut in the car until you’re ready to move out, it is definitely a stress, but it’s worth it for the way taking a ferry expands your capability to cover ground and see new places. We love the Hebridean Way in particular and think it’s a great introduction to family cycle touring. With few exceptions (Vatersay if you go, the hills out of Castlebay and off Eriskay slip, ‘Mini Ventoux’ before Tarbert on Harris, and of course, Clisham) it’s on kind terrain, and it feels even more adventurous than it is!
@@FamilyByCycle there's a good way and a not so good way out of Castlebay. Done both and know which I preferred, west is best 👍
I live in Stornoway and since it’s a small place I find it so cool to see people travelling here on bikes bc I ride bikes a lot myself😀😎
We really love Lewis. Definitely headed back again before too long, we hope! The Hebrides are a brilliant place to cycle tour with children. Our last visit culminated in playing the tuba with Stornoway Salvation Army band! 🤣
Brilliant video. We are travelling Hull Rotterdam in the summer. Have you guys cycled from Europoort into Rotterdam? Is it easy?
Thank you, John! We are a bit further south from you, so have previously used Hoek van Holland rather than Europoort. We found decent infrastructure right to the port, there. Rotterdam isn’t exactly the pinnacle of the Dutch cycling experience, but we’ve been there, and we’ve ridden through Hull - I wouldn’t worry about it! 😜
Great tips, although I don't take my bike on ferry going abroad even to France just seems more of adventure than sitting in a plane for an hour
Thanks, Peter! It’s definitely an adventure in its own right - much easier than flying or even catching a train when it comes to taking a laden touring bike.
brilliant video - thanks for sharing. I am planning a trip from Ireland to uk for my brothers wedding, I also want to cycle to make an adventure out of it - I am very nervous of leaving my bike with bags on the car deck (damage and theft) but of course there is no way around it - although I am thinking to take my Brompton and travel light.....
Put your valuables in the bag(s) you can reasonably expect to take with you on the vessel. Risk of theft is very low, I’d say, and leaving clothes in the top/outermost parts of your luggage both helps to protect the rest of the contents, and makes them harder to find if you don’t know what you’re looking for 😉
Good luck with your trip!
Excellent video, thank you. I'm taking my loaded bike over from Dover by ferry this year instead of my usual route on Eurostar. Do you have any qualms about leaving your panniers on the bike in the vehicle deck? Obviously I'll take my my handlebar bag with valuables inside, but it would be a real faff to have to take off the tent bag and the other panniers. Is theft an issue?
I’ve never known a problem, Clive, but all our significant valuables go in the bags we remove. Drop us another comment when you’ve been - the Dover crossings we have driven many times but not cycled!