A tale of three bikes

As some of you might know, I'm (Matt) working at the moment for a company in Dublin. Most of the time the job doesn't take me further than my bedroom office desk near Munich, but I've just made the second trip to be on-site. I wasn't willing to risk train travel there the first time round (new job, turn up late and/or exhausted? ...no thanks). I did go back by bus and train, which was interesting enough, but didn't really warrant a post. As I was commenting recently whilst owning up to this blog, there's only so many blog posts you can write about train travel from Germany to Ireland.

Or so I thought.

This one isn't so much about the trains but the bikes and their riders that I met along the way. In fact my journey planning included some very serious consideration of investing in a folding bike. Through various incidents we're down to one bike from four in the Fullerton house, so I could use one. But the main motivation was a close connection in London. Only 30m between arriving on Eurostar and needing to head for Holyhead from Euston in order to make it to Dublin in the evening and get a good nights sleep. I had to pick up the ticket from a machine as well. I also considered borrowing Ronja's scooter, till I thought about riding it on busy London footpaths. In the end though I thought what's the point in lugging such a large object for what is a 12m walk. I'm on my own this time with one little backpack. It'll be fine. And it was fine, as I said, there's little to report here about trains.

It was raining in London. But I'd brought my coat. In fact I even had waterproof trousers with me thanks to the downpour near Munich at 5am. I arrived at Euston and the platform hadn't even been announced yet. I couldn't help but notice though a couple of wet and exhausted souls at the entrance. One of them having a bit of a meltdown. They didn't have a small backback like me. They had two giant, and I mean giant cardboard boxes. With straps attached by duck tape. Despite them talking in German (hurrah,  I'm not the only crazy one!), this was clearly not the time to enquire about their health or plans.

In Chester though, they were still there, and looking pretty chirpy, and I introduced myself and my common destination. We were all heading to Dublin, beyond that they wanted to get to Donegal, and bike to Galway. That's right, in those boxes were dismantled bikes. Because you can't take bikes on fast German trains. From then on I helped with the struggle of moving one of the monstrous boxes where it needed to go, all the way via a taxi to a hostel. We found a great taxi driver who was willing to drive with his boot ajar (and stop and get out and close it again once after a speed bump!) and give us an introductory tour of Dublin. Fantastic. As were my two days in Dublin and one day up "home" in Lisburn. Too short of course, but there are children on holiday at home to be looked after so back I go on the night boat to Liverpool.

Liverpool in the early morning light

We arrived on time... they have their bus shuttle to Birkenhead truly perfected these days. Although they overdid it, we were there around 7.00 and the station doesn't open till 7.36am on a Sunday. Yes, 7.36, on the dot*. This meant however that I finally got to see the actual Hamilton Square and not just the train station. I seem to remember first becoming aware that there was a lovely square when we had contemplated having to spend a night there due to bad weather in Germany in a previous episode.

Birkenhead Town Hall in Hamilton Square

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Now, ever since the port, I'd been noticing another biker. This one had a folding bike with a great many (too many? What was in them all?) side bags. And (the best bit) a kind of luggage carrier thing which he was carefully attaching and detaching to his bike with elastic cord. Genius. Respect.

When he was standing at the top of the staircase deep in the bowels of Birkenhead Hamilton Square, I offered to carry his bike. Then I and another traveller remembered there was another short lift, for the last bit of the drop to the platform. Well you can see where this is going perhaps. I had just become this guy's luggage carrier. But you see I've made so many trips laden down by luggage and children I couldn't really look away. We communicated in a mixture of French and English and German (he was heading for Geneva - another "hurrah, I'm the sensible one here" moment).

Now if blogs could make music, this is where we should cue the "bum bum baaa" sound of impending disaster or near disaster. I was very relaxed about this whole trip as there was plenty of time to get to London. But my eye caught a glimpse of the yellow LED signs way down the platform. "Cancelled". Next train - "Cancelled". But this is a metro system, there are frequent trains, and the third one wasn't cancelled, and left enough time for me to still make a train shortly after my planned one and the one on Geneva-biker's itinerary print-out. Then it started oscillating between various states of On time, Delayed, Cancelled. There was an announcement about over-running engineering works. I was starting to go from relaxed to nervous. I don't need this. Time to split and get a taxi. But we've got to get all these side bags, a bike and a trolley upstairs. Why do I even bother travelling light!?

Above, in the clear and present daylight, a little chaos, but not too much. By now Merseyrail have decided they just aren't running any trains on the underground loop and the staff upstairs are slowly grasping the situation and ordering taxis (paid for by Merseyrail, bravo). And yet, where was this taxi? Where!? It's around 8.20 when one arrives. The train is at 8.38 and a local says it takes about 10 minutes down through the tunnel. We can do this.

Now, it was actually planned by the station staff that Geneva -Biker would get a special taxi for his equipment, and three of us others would get another taxi. But he decided (wisely, in hindsight) to try and join us. They got the bike in but not the trolley. They were umming and aahing at the boot. But the clock was ticking and I had to act. I shouted back that I'd take it on my lap and he should get in. We were off. No, cut off by a bus. OK, now, we're off. Stuck behind a little car in the tunnel even though there's a second lane, driven by the most relaxed taxi driver you'll ever meet. You're a taxi driver! Come on!

And there, in the beautiful sunlight it is. Liverpool Lime Street. Its 8.30. We're OK. No. We're not. Because the taxi rank is still a long loop and many traffic lights away. This is going to be tight. We pull in, the train to Euston is on the other side of a fence. We're going to make it. I hope. Get our stuff. No, no, no. Now is not the time to ensure your articulated contraption of bike and trolley is in perfect working order. No. OK, then I had an idea. I'll steal, I mean help him with his bags then he doesn't have to attach them anywhere and at least I'll get to the train.

I go. Fast. I'm at the door. Biker is fiddling again. He makes it to the bottom of the platform. Then the whistle goes. Losing all inhibition, I yell "schnell!!!" down the platform. Well that did the trick. The conductor wanted to check it was a folding bike, I told him quickly it was. I dragged his stuff in, he counted his bags. We'd done it.

So that's it. Three bikes later and I'm back in a German train with still a fair few hours to go. I'll be quite happy not to meet any more bike transporters on this trip. You can't imagine how glad I am now I didn't bring one.

*A knowledgeable local informed us that its the law/safety policy not to open stations before 15m before the first train. Who knew? I suppose we can be grateful for them extracting every single one of those 15 minutes and not rounding up to say, 7.39