It was a beautiful Saturday in Lugano today but it was raining in Central Switzerland so hoardes of people took the train to Tessin. I decided spontaneously to grab my bike and join them. Being short on time and not being up to date on the newest SBB changes on the app, I booked the wrong ticket and couldn‘t book a bike reservation. And so the adventure begins..

I was able to load my heavy e-bike on the train (with help) and decided to wait next to my bike until the conductor showed up. I had a lot of explaining to do and questions to ask. When he finally showed up, he agreed that I had made a mess of things and needed to request a refund and rebook. Well, I could rebook but not submit a refund. I had overbooked by CHF 60 francs by booking a bike day pass twice and booking a class upgrade instead of a standard ticket.

The conductor was understanding but couldn‘t help me with the bike reservation (2 francs per train… required on all fast trains to Tessin as of March 21 to November). He kindly overlooked the missing reservation and asked me to go to the Lugano train station for my reimbursement.

I did and was granted a refund immediately. I was also shown how to book single bike reservations (remove the check next to my name in the bike pass/reservation on my app).

Bike reservations will list the carriage the bike is reserved on. It is quite possible that your bike will be in first class but your seat (no seat reservation required on some trains) will be in 2nd class, four carriages away.

Which is what happened to me on my return trip.

Despite the stress, biking was lovely and I will go again, hopefully much wiser.

Sounds like a grand adventure and certainly beats sitting at home. Glad your got your money back and had an understanding conductor.

Shame I can't take my trike on trains, not NS is very bike friendly anyway.

Transporting bikes on trains has become extremely popular and the carriages just don't often have enough capacity. Heavy e-bikes add to the stress as well, especially if you have to hang them up on a hook. I always bring my handy bungee cords with me so that I can secure the bike properly during the train ride.

Here's hoping you'll find a way to transport your bike on some of the more leisurely wide bike paths available in Europe.

We've been to a few nice routes in the north of the Netherlands now, trike in the car, bike on the bikerack.
We're heading to France in May. The main problem is we can't do some of the great routes as they are linear. A couple of them in France have companies that will take you back to your start point, but the route we originally wanted to do (Velo Francette) was already pretty much booked up when we started looking, and we aren't up to camping. So this trip we are using a few places as bases and heading out on circular routes from them, having checked the routes are trike friendly.

NS only allows a maximum of 3 bikes per train, which is ridiculous for such a bike-centric country.
When our GS and his 3 friends came up to stay before heading to one of the islands they had to split into two groups, and it took them nearly all day to get here as so many trains were already full - everyone heading on holiday with their bikes.

I hope you have some more adventures on two wheels planned.

What an excellent idea to explore an area using a base. There is so much to see in France that hopefully you'll still be able to see new things everyday.

Our trains should offer more bike spaces as well but that would be at the cost of passenger seats, which ultimately bring in more money. In addition, some of our trains have reached their maximum amount of carriages, due to the length of the existing platforms.

I'll be riding from Lyon to Orange this summer and will let you know how it went.

Happy travels!

Trip Report and Switzerland tags added