"interested to hear other's experience of Le Shuttle?" I have used all crossing methods both on bikes, in cars, in vans with without trialers and LWB Merc sprinters plus seven and half tonners on the commercial route (which is very different and not avaialble to private customers so not being mentioned here).My biggest concern is the bikes are parked with the front wheel against the LEFT SIDE kerb as the picture above, and is best on the side stand if you have one, starting from rest the train is always under control and gathers speed exetremely slowly, the other end the deceleration is also very slow, but my worry (and I coressponded with Eurotunel to try and get this changed) is that if there is any kind of harsh or emergency braking applied due to an "incident" then the bikes are not best placed, to park on the other kerb with with the propstand leading would be much safer, there is no where to sit, so you stand, or rest on the sides, and stay with the bike, which is also not good if there is an incident, (personel not being contained in any way) but we (1%er motorcyclists types) have only got ourselves to blame, because in the past (and it is still there but dormant) the last carriage was for bike parking, its the one with the doors opening for cars, and cross hatched on the floor, they had tie rings, straps etc, there was a staircase which took you upstairs to where there were 30 or so seats, and a hot/cold drinks machine (dont tell the cars!) all this was regularly getting vandalised so they closed it off and stopped using it, now it is a crew room and storage.
The direct route from Calais to Breganze would logically take you through France but if using motorways (fairly essential if you want only 1 or 2 overnight stops) the toll costs are horrendous, my Tom is going ice racing next month and will do 600 miles through France from Calais, to the French venue, there is no real option to this and the fuel cost for his Transit van (no trailer) will be about 300GBP the tolls will be about 350GBP! my advice no matter what form of road transport you have is to sail to Dunkirk, which neatly avoids using P&O which so far I have managed to do since their illegal sacking of all employees, and travel via Belgium and Germany, its not much further, I cant recall, but 70 miles is in my head, there are no tolls in either country, and the motorways are better and so are the service stations, and the bonus is that quite a few of the German roads are not restricted speed wise, but woe betide you if an accudent happens at above the posted RECOMENDED upper speed limit, I think they still do hanging, drawing and quatering!
CLEM
