Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => On The Road => Topic started by: mrcharly-YHT on 15 April, 2018, 06:20:14 pm
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Was going to bring bike down to Cambridge tomorrow, partly to help getting out to a meeting. Made reservations on first two legs, York-Peterborough, Peterborough - Ely. Then checked next bit; Northern trains say they only carry folding bikes 7:45 to 845.
I guess I could lock it up at Ely and travel out one evening to fetch it. Part of the reason for taking it was so I could get to a meeting on Mon morning!
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Could you go York-Stevenage and Stevenage-Cambridge? Then you'd be against the flow, when bikes are allowed on the local services.
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You'll need to check it out and it may not suite your timetable, but Cross Country also run from Peterborough to Cambridge, I used it last year, can't remember if I needed to book the bike or if there were any time restrictions.
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I have to be in head office for 9:30; using Cross Country gets in to Cambridge at 9:08, which is cutting it a bit fine.
Might just have to use that next week to bring bike down. Or leave it at Ely and make a journey out after work in the evening to pick it up.
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Would loosening the stem and rotating the bars count as ‘folding’?
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I don't know what the trains are like from Ely, but I'd have thought it would be tricky even physically getting a bike on a rush-hour commuter train into CBG, let alone dodging the jobsworths. Wheels out, turn the bars, and wrap in bin liners as oversize luggage?
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You'll need to check it out and it may not suite your timetable, but Cross Country also run from Peterborough to Cambridge, I used it last year, can't remember if I needed to book the bike or if there were any time restrictions.
That's The Worst Train In The World for getting a bike on. It's a 3-carriage Class 170 - bike space opposite the reveal-a-door toilet, which makes thing theoretically straightforward. Crosscountry policy is reservations have priority, which doesn't usually help, and jobsworth conductors (the sort of people who insist you remove all your panniers so that your bike can take up more space) are a regular feature. But the real issue is that it's got an airport at each end of the route, and is the only train service to lots of little towns in the middle. When it's not jam-packed with luggages and prams, it's often standing room only.
Best handled during extremely off-peak hours.
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In the end, I left it locked up at Ely, then went back and picked it up after work.
Made for an extremely long day (started at 5am), topped off with needing to do the ironing for the forthcoming week. Me being something of a (junior) thought leader these days, I actually wear ironed shirts.
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You'll need to check it out and it may not suite your timetable, but Cross Country also run from Peterborough to Cambridge, I used it last year, can't remember if I needed to book the bike or if there were any time restrictions.
That's The Worst Train In The World for getting a bike on. It's a 3-carriage Class 170 - bike space opposite the reveal-a-door toilet, which makes thing theoretically straightforward. Crosscountry policy is reservations have priority, which doesn't usually help, and jobsworth conductors (the sort of people who insist you remove all your panniers so that your bike can take up more space) are a regular feature. But the real issue is that it's got an airport at each end of the route, and is the only train service to lots of little towns in the middle. When it's not jam-packed with luggages and prams, it's often standing room only.
Best handled during extremely off-peak hours.
Regrettably also true for almost anything from Manchester to Newcastle and back. And don't think your bike reservation will cut any ice with passengers already in the way - because it won't. And the trains are too jammed for the guard/ticket collector to even attempt a walk througfh the train. This is also where Northern is headed. Support the strikes before everyone becomes cattle! Bike provision is getting worse, not better, in my view.
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In the end, I left it locked up at Ely, then went back and picked it up after work.
Made for an extremely long day (started at 5am), topped off with needing to do the ironing for the forthcoming week. Me being something of a (junior) thought leader these days, I actually wear ironed shirts.
This doesn't compute. Ironed shirts.
I don't even tuck.
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Made for an extremely long day (started at 5am), topped off with needing to do the ironing for the forthcoming week. Me being something of a (junior) thought leader these days, I actually wear ironed shirts.
This doesn't compute. Ironed shirts.
Indeed. Non-iron shirts are a revelation - I have reclaimed sunday evenings.
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In the end, I left it locked up at Ely, then went back and picked it up after work.
Made for an extremely long day (started at 5am), topped off with needing to do the ironing for the forthcoming week. Me being something of a (junior) thought leader these days, I actually wear ironed shirts.
This doesn't compute. Ironed shirts.
I don't even tuck.
I think the need for ironed shirts reflects my junior status.
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I quite enjoy ironing shirts if I can do it in peace in front of the telly; but then I so rarely wear them that it's an occasional thing. Sheets occasionally get ironed so that they'll fit in the chest of drawers, but life's too short for anything else...
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[OT but thread drift]
Ironing is good for 'unshrinking' cotton things.
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I ironed a shirt today. But only cos I has an interview. I've got a tie on and everything.
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I don't even know where the iron is (we do have one, though it might still be boxed, I've never seen my wife iron anything either). I once ironed a pair of trousers, but mostly I find the creases fall out (or at least rearrange themselves) if you simply wear them for an hour or so. On the very few occasions I wear a suit, I just get it dry cleaned and pressed. I don't own a tie.
Ironing is indeed of waste of time that could be otherwise spent in innumerably better ways. Also, as a veteran traveller, there's no point in clothes that require ironing, especially if you pack your case like I do.
To further impress my Thought Leadership credentials, I do mostly wear a corduroy jacket.
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To further impress my Thought Leadership credentials, I do mostly wear a corduroy jacket.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pbAIJe7XDn4/TnbPX6UPZ4I/AAAAAAAAM9M/eCZd4jZpI50/s1600/Bike_World.jpg)