5:07am. Even when it is cold and dark, there is something magical about riding the streets of London while most of the city sleeps. Every light is green. The only other traffic is the occasional delivery van and a handful of cabs cruising like sharks in search of scraps. I skirt round the back of King’s Cross and down a deserted side street to find the underground parking at St Pancras station.
In a perfect world I would be taking my bike with me on the Eurostar so I could simply ride off at the other end in Belgium. Sadly, despite the growth in demand for sustainable travel, Eurostar only offers limited options for carrying bikes on journeys to the Continent, so I’m obliged to leave my bike in the car park beneath the station. At least there is a proper lockup and it’s free of charge.
As I wrestle with my padlock, I can’t help musing on the lost opportunity to promote the concept of train-bike holidays in favour of fly-drive (I even wrote to Eurostar about it, but reply came there none). Imagine pedalling to your local station, popping your bike in the guard’s van, catching a series of trains to a European destination and then pedalling the final stretch to your holiday villa. It sounds great to me, but current infrastructure and transport company intransigence renders it almost impossible. Which is a shame – it would
