Bikes on Trains in Turkey

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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ian5spot
Posts: 48
Joined: 26 Nov 2011, 8:05am

Bikes on Trains in Turkey

Post by ian5spot »

I am planning a trip to Eastern Turkey in the Summer, flying to Istanbul then taking my bike on the train to Cappadocia for a few days of cycling and then on to Erzurum for a bit more. Does anyone know if I can put a bike on a Turkish express train? Searching the internet seems to be a bit ambiguous and the Turkish Railway website doesn't give me an email address I can contact.
Thanks
Ian
cyclingnomad
Posts: 25
Joined: 15 May 2013, 8:10am

Re: Bikes on Trains in Turkey

Post by cyclingnomad »

No you can't get your bike on any of the trains as they are all high speed. The coach service is excellent though. We took the coach from Ankara to Erzurum 13hrs with our bikes very smooth. Just make sure you tel them you have a bike when you book tickets. Not all coach firms take bikes. I can recommend Erzurum to Kars and up around lake Cildir as a varied route. www.cycling-nomads.com will be updating my blog in a couple of days.
kawa9999
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Joined: 27 Feb 2012, 7:51am
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Re: Bikes on Trains in Turkey

Post by kawa9999 »

I also don't think you can put the bike on trains i Turkey.
Anyway, I confirm that Bus service is excellent. We used it twice last year for long trips (once about 6 hours, once I think about 10), and that was no big problem.
As for the company, we did both times take Metro, which was pretty good. Bus was quite big, you get drinks and something to eat, in both cases, we could put the whole bike in the bus luggage space.
Just had to take off the bags from the bike, and could put the whole bike in the bus.
ankaradan
Posts: 31
Joined: 11 Jan 2013, 2:31pm

Re: Bikes on Trains in Turkey

Post by ankaradan »

cyclingnomad wrote:No you can't get your bike on any of the trains as they are all high speed. The coach service is excellent though. We took the coach from Ankara to Erzurum 13hrs with our bikes very smooth. Just make sure you tel them you have a bike when you book tickets. Not all coach firms take bikes. I can recommend Erzurum to Kars and up around lake Cildir as a varied route. http://www.cycling-nomads.com will be updating my blog in a couple of days.



As far as I know, the only YHT routes are Ankara - Eskisehir and Ankara-Konya, all the others are normal, and pretty slow. For example the Ankara-Izmir train takes 11 or 12 hours, whereas the same journey, by coach takes less than 9 hours. Travelling by coach is the norm here, and pretty comfortable.
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bigjim
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Joined: 2 Feb 2008, 5:08pm
Location: Manchester

Re: Bikes on Trains in Turkey

Post by bigjim »

Be warned. Putting a bike laid down in a bus luggage space. Be sure that the bike is not supported on the pedal and moving around in the space. I got my bike out from the bus in France and it had been rolling around in the luggage space, supprted by the pedal. The constant sliding movement ended up shearing off the pedal at the thread. It could also do the same to the crank. Either take the pedal off or if possible leave a pannier on, as this will aslo slow down the sliding action.
Of course not a problem if the luggage space is packed.
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