| Baggage, & Other Light Topics (har!) Getting luggage moved around during a cycle trip is costly. Generally, you hire some guy to carry it, paying for his trip, salary, vehicle – and adding hundreds of smackers to the cost of your trip. Alone in the fraternity of cycle trip outfitters, we make this expense optional. We offer no fewer than four different luggage shipping services for different budgets, ranging from “every night” to “I give you a case at the start, and you give it back to me at the end.” We even help you avoid the whole business, and travel “self-contained,” if that is what you prefer to do. But it is an undeniable comfort to have an extra suitcase follow you around. You can lighten your saddle bags, or avoid them althogether, depending on which service you choose. And souvenir shopping is more fun, since what you buy can go into the case and not be dragged up all future hills.... We offer the following options to move things around that you don’t want to pedal with. The first three have a bag follow you through your trip, more or less closely. The fourth allows a variety of one-way baggage movements. Typically, three of the four services operate on any given trip departure. |
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“Daily” Baggage Transfer “Daily” Baggage Transfer service produces your bag every night, even in towns with two houses and a cow. “Half” Baggage Transfer “Half” Baggage Transfer provides for a bag to follow you through your trip, catching up to you on about half of the trip nights (those easiest to ship to — a source of significant economies). Please note that the “Half” service does not deliver your bag every other night. It delivers it for about half of the trip nights, on average. That means, for instance, that you may have your bag two nights in a row, and then not have it for two nights. In general, the largest number of sequential nights without the bag is two, but there are a few especially rural spots in our system where you can go for three nights without your bag.... The price is in function of the level of service and the cost of providing it on a given trip. For precise information regarding the Half Baggage Transfer’s delivery nights for the trip you are considering, look at the trip’s detailed itinerary(ies). “Half Baggage” signifies that the town is a scheduled baggage stop. Operational considerations may require us to modify these stops, but the overall number of nights with baggage service will not decrease, nor will the maximum number of sequential nights without baggage increase. Only one or the other of these services generally operates on a given trip departure. “How Do I Know Which Service is Operating?” Initially, both “Daily” and “Half” services are proposed on each trip departure. But at least 4 people must generally subscribe to a service in order for it to operate. (Baggage Transfer “Lite” — see below — always operates on trips of two or more weeks, regardless of the number of subscribers.) Once the “Daily” service is confirmed for a given departure (if it is), then the “Half” service will not generally be offered to future sign-ups for that departure. Conversely, it will be operated for people who have previously signed up for the trip, and requested it, regardless of their number. So there is an incentive to sign up early for your trip if you are attached to the provision of the “Half” Baggage Transfer service. “Baggage Transfer Lite” Guests on trips of 2 or more weeks may subscribe to “Baggage Transfer Lite.” Costs less; you see your luggage less often. The cost of the service is half that of the “Half” service, and luggage is available half the number of nights of the “Half” service. The maximum number of sequential nights without luggage is at most double plus one the maximum announced for the “Half” service. “One-Way Bag Shipping” We offer luggage shipment between trip meeting points, trip disbanding points, and / or Paris. Cost is 45 €uros / $65 US or C, per piece, and regardless of distance. This allows you to forward stuff which you do not need on your cycle trip. On trips of 4 or more weeks, you can also send a case to the trip midpoint, re-pack there, and then send it on, for the price of two shipments. Storage charges in arrival cities are included in the cost. DETAILS, a.k.a. ”Terms and Conditions” Jump directly to any of the individual topics by clicking on the titles: “Can I Bring ALL My Stuff?” (Number of Pieces). Hint: “no.” Multiple Piece Discount Size / Weight Limits How Shipments Work Pick-Up & Delivery Times What if You’re Late, or We Are? Storing Luggage in our Paris Office Luggage Insurance Responsibility During Baggage Transfer Norway Particularities “Can I Bring All My Stuff?” The simple answer is “no.” The precise answer is “yes, BUT....” Our Baggage Transfer Services are priced PER PIECE. The cost of travelling with the contents of your garage (see photo, above) is prohibitive. You may use One-Way Baggage Shipping to forward additional luggage (not needed during the biking part of your travels) to the end of your trip. You may also subscribe to one of the Baggage Transfer services for multiple pieces (there is even a discount for more than one piece subscribed to the same service — see “Multiple Piece Discount,” next chapter). But why not leave the scuba gear home? The most common complaint we hear, usually in the form of a whine, is, “Why did I bring all this stuff?!” Multiple Piece Discount If you subcribe multiple pieces to the same Baggage Transfer service (Daily, Half or Lite), you receive a 20% discount for all pieces after the first (50% for passengers on our Day Trip to the Loire Extensions). The discount does not apply to One-Way Baggage Shipping. For the purposes of pricing, guests travelling together are assumed to have evenly distributed luggage (except for the Pagnozzis), even if one person signs up and pays for the shipment of all pieces. Size & Weight Baggage Transfer pieces may be of any size. However, they must weigh no more than 35 lbs. (16 kg.). We do not actually recommend that you bring a 35 lb. suitcase. You still have to carry it quite a bit, and always to and from your room. Your steamer trunk’s wheels will not work on cobbles, gravel, mud, train tracks, hotel stairs (elevators were rare in the 17th century).... A train can be half a mile long. As you pack, ponder wrestling your luggage the length of one, down the corridor, to your seat. “One-Way Baggage Shipping” pieces may weigh up to 44 lbs. / 20 kg. each. In any event, please take this restriction seriously: it will be applied with delight and malice by railroad baggage services across Europe. We will not accept overweight pieces, since if we do, we wind up going through your things at the station to decide what to throw away, and we usually guess wrong, and then you’re mad. A hint: a soft-sided piece with wheels is the best combination of portable and light-weight. How Shipments Work Usually, your bag travels from hotel to hotel. You will find it when you arrive, in the lobby, or under the stairs, or out in the courtyard.... Very rarely, you pick up or drop your case at the train station, never more than 500 yards from the hotel. In cities from which the cycle is shipped onward by train (never more than once per trip), you may need to claim bags at the station where you drop the bike off, and return to a more distant hotel by public transport (always available) or by cab. You also carry your own baggage to and from rail stations and aboard trains when the trip is travelling by train. Pick-up & Delivery Times On mornings when luggage is to be shipped, in the absence of contrary information, it should be made ready for departure by 10a (it is not actually needed that early on most days; times available the previous evening). It will usually be delivered by 6p, and is guaranteed to be delivered by 8p if it is to be available for only one night at that stop, by 10p if it is to be available for two or more successive nights. Exceptions:
Neither of these circumstances will occur more than once in any two-week period. |
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