Spoiler alert: no, you don’t have to take your bike apart …
France has a great network of high-speed trains, the TGV (train à grande vitesse), and it is possible to cross the entire country in just half a day by train in great comfort. The trains are usually very punctual and reliable, and at 300 km/h an amazing piece of technology. It becomes quite problematic though, when you want to take your bicycle on-board, especially if you don’t want to or cannot take it apart. It is literally impossible to take an unassembled bike on a TGV. There are a few with a bike compartment which have room for 5 bikes but they are as hard to find as the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Luckily the not so high-speed but still very fast regional trains, the TER (Trains Express Régionaux), provide bicycle compartments for entire bikes and you can use them for free as long as there is enough space. So traveling within one of the 13 regions in France is usually quite straightforward.
It becomes quite complicated again when you want to travel across regions or the entire country in such TER. Though the network certainly allows it and there are great connections, they are literally impossible to find and book through the French Railway SNCF’s website or application. Such demand, to travel across regions with TER is simply not foreseen, hence any demand even at the train station will be denied. So unless you want to spend a weekend with regional train network maps, manually finding the connection points and then trial-and-error searching for connecting schedules, you’re back to taking your bike apart.
So this weekend I’m planning to go from Lille to Souillac in the South-West of France roughly 700 km. It is the weekend of the French frame builders’ association get-together, so of course I want to take my bike. The problem is that I need to get across 4 regions and I don’t want to take my bike apart with all the luggage, fenders and lights etc. Here is where looking across the border helps tremendously. I was recently made aware that the mobile application and website of the German railway “Deutsche Bahn”in France (and many other European countries in several languages). The service also allows you to select what types of train you want to travel with. So let’s try this: I want to go to a city within a day’s bike ride to Souillac so I can enjoy a little stroll. I chose to go to Limoge. Entering start, destination and time is easy and then all there is left to do is select “Local Transport Only”.
Et voilà, in 8h45 I can make the journey of close to 700 km entirely on the TER network, leaving my bike complete, with 3 changes - a reasonable effort which, in my view, largely offsets the hassle of taking the bike apart, stuffing everything into a bag and reassembling it at the destination.
All that is left to do is select those 4 trains on the French SNCF website or go to the trains station and book the tickets.
I hope this is helpful.
Bon voyage!
