No bikes allowed on Southern or Thameslink trains this Sunday due to London to Brighton Cycle Ride

Not in the UK, but in Switzerland you have to pay extra to take a bike on a train, unless it's in a bag/box, which then means it counts as luggage. So, all we used to do was get a bin bag, which is very simple to roll up into a ball in your backpack, and wrap it roughly around the bike to take it on for free.

If you can't join 'em, beat 'em!

Am i misunderstanding this - how is this going to impact most of the riders on the event? The restriction only lasts till noon so won't it only affect fast finishers? Sorry if I'm being thick but what does them doing this achieve?

McVittees wrote:

Am i misunderstanding this - how is this going to impact most of the riders on the event? The restriction only lasts till noon so won't it only affect fast finishers? Sorry if I'm being thick but what does them doing this achieve?

 

It says restrictions remain between Brighton and Gatwick for the rest of the day as well

So the first set of restrictions are to stop you getting a train up to London for the start (where you could be coming from anywhere on the network) and the second to stop you getting the train away from Brighton after.

Right, that explains it. How are most people going to get home? I don't imagine the bulk of those on this ride can manage the return trip.  Its for a f*****g heart charity. Why put people off doing it? Really grating.

McVittees wrote:

Right, that explains it. How are most people going to get home? I don't imagine the bulk of those on this ride can manage the return trip.  Its for a f*****g heart charity. Why put people off doing it? Really grating.

Probably by being picked up by car - which is a really sustainable and environmentally friendly solution.

It's a Sunday, space in the timetable and spare trains in the depot.

Any sensible business would see an opertunity (at a time because of the pandemic of reduced income through lower number of fares) to run a few specials, with prebooking and even charging a fee for the bikes.  Bit of advertising, and working with the organisers, watch the cash roll in.  Year after year too...

Lack of joined up thinking.

theres nothing stopping the event organisers, or even private groups chartering their own train service to fill the gap, if its felt theres such easy money to be made from it.

Awavey wrote:

theres nothing stopping the event organisers, or even private groups chartering their own train service to fill the gap, if its felt theres such easy money to be made from it.

I thought that the whole idea of having a comprehensive public service was that people didn't need to do such things.
In addition to the fact that public transport should, during a climate emergency at least, enable people to get where they need to go without using inefficient and deleterious methods.
And yes, I believe that attending mass cultural and social events is a public need, not a nice to have.

Fundamentally trains just shifting carriages of air around instead of passengers,for a one off yearly event is actually worse for a climate emergency, because 364 days of the year you arent carrying 1000s of cyclists back from Brighton all the time and so our trains arent built to cope with those large volumes of cyclists anymore because its deemed wasteful of space, if they even ever were to begin with. Even when Southern provided trains for this people complained they didnt fulfil their need, didnt stop exactly where they wanted etc etc.

So I'd far rather see a train carry 10 passengers that have ditched their cars for the day than 10 cyclists who have just ridden a cycling sportive, as public transport balances everyones needs, it's not there as some kind of service tailored just to our own particular needs at the time.

As I say if there is a market for it, it's possible to charter trains to do it, that no one ever does that, but simply complains about the situation ultimately means nothing will change.

Awavey wrote:

Fundamentally trains just shifting carriages of air around instead of passengers,for a one off yearly event is actually worse for a climate emergency, because 364 days of the year you arent carrying 1000s of cyclists back from Brighton all the time and so our trains arent built to cope with those large volumes of cyclists anymore because its deemed wasteful of space, if they even ever were to begin with. Even when Southern provided trains for this people complained they didnt fulfil their need, didnt stop exactly where they wanted etc etc. So I'd far rather see a train carry 10 passengers that have ditched their cars for the day than 10 cyclists who have just ridden a cycling sportive, as public transport balances everyones needs, it's not there as some kind of service tailored just to our own particular needs at the time. As I say if there is a market for it, it's possible to charter trains to do it, that no one ever does that, but simply complains about the situation ultimately means nothing will change.

Bit of a false dichotomy. In my industry we vary our schedules, capacity and offering for public events, holidays, time of year, even weather, and that's just internet shopping FFS. There's really no reason why the trains can't or shouldn't do the same.

Sunday service is usually fairly empty (certainly on my mainline) so refusing to allow people with bikes  is actually ensuring that trains are only moving air, on that day at least.