Getting your bike on the train (1 Viewer)

[supertramp5000]

I’m really curious if it’s possible. How do you get it on without damaging it ? where do you stash it ? how do you get through the yard with it ?

 

[Romanriff]

If I were to do that I'd try to build or buy a cheap cruiser bike. Not a road bike or mountain bike where a derailleur can get bent. If you can manage to get it into gondolas or even boxcars if you find one. Another Idea is bring a folding bike or even a regular bike that you can take the front wheel off easily.

 

[blankityblank]

Ive used a single speed old beater bike. If you take the front wheel off you can stash it in an IM well. It can sometimes kinda poke out but it's mostly hidden. Metal kinda blends in anyways. You can just kinda throw it up and then get up yourself and stash it.

 

[Faceplant]

In some of member Gabriel Pullman’s YouTube vids, he takes a beater bike, lays it down on the end of a well car and shoves it as best he can under the grating. I think he rides on the adjoining well car. But you’re not gonna want to do that with a good bike.

 

[scutellaria]

me and my friends all ride with bikes. i travel full time.or whatever w a bike. i usually ride with a simple fixed gear bicycle but i have a bmx right now.

honestly i usually ride my bike straight into the yard (i can ride a full size bike with skinny tires on most anything except really loose ballast). i chase trains on my bike all the time. if im crossin strings, i sling it over my shoulder, pass it to a friend or just throw it tbh.

i usually throw my bike up on whatever my ride is and take it apart or get it settled however once im on and drop my pack. i usually take my front wheel off, dependin on the ride. if im alone, i sometimes just ride with my bike and when im with someone we usually knuckle up w our bikes. i can get a bike on most anything i would ride, you figure out ways to get your bike down. with a big bike, i always lower my seatpost all the way, too. the extra few inches can mean the difference between my rear wheel or forks or bars stickin out or not at all.

also carry bike tools. a pump, patch kit, whatver wrench you need for your axles/adjustable wrench, simple bicycle multitool, and an extra tube.

when i bail, i try to throw my bike off flat so the cranks, bb shell and saddle take most of the impact. i bent my fork the other day because it got thrown off wrong and we were bailing on the fly. your bike will get fucked up. having decent parts can help in that theyre tougher but also more on the line when youre, ya kno, chucking your bike off a moving freight train.

also i strongly recommend steel/chromoly frames (i mean always, but especially for trains). if i can bend crmo/steel bailing w my bike, analuminum bike wouldnt last a week in my life.

 

[nastynaty]

Its completely possible if you scope the right rides. I have hopped with a carbon bianchi frame for the past month or so and its possible but honestly a pain, so i second the cromo necessity. Only thing i would add is I only hop with a fixed gear or track bike simply because it has less parts that'll need repaired.

 

[Matt Derrick]

i've only done it a couple of times, and only in yards i was very familiar with.

 

[nastynaty]

Heres two on a unit.

 

[Grimy Poe]

Riding out of LA wouldn't be too difficult. I would walk it to the hop-spot. I would take a single-speed, take the tires off (maybe the bars), stashing the bike on its own ride (if it's a DS). Here is where a foldable bike would come in handy, that would pretty much take itself.

 

[train in vain]

I know a bunch of people that have done/currently do this. Ive always wanted to. I still want to build some kind of harness to attach everything to my pack.

 

[Desperado Deluxe]

I havent done it but i plan to. my whole idea of going about it is basically get on anywhere it's stopped and get my bike on by pulling it up onto the car or maybe even devising a system to attach to the upper part of the frame to hook onto the side of the rail car. I've heard of people using drop bars and turning the seat to similar effect.

If there's anywhere I can't get on while stopped I'll just ride my bike to the next spot..
I figure I could ride it along bull runs n such to get to a ride quickly.

having a steel frame is probably a plus. If my derailleur f*cks up I'll just replace it no biggie. Chain breaker tool. Although i might switch out for a beater fixie.

People tossing their bike on and off might consider using card board and duct tape to wrap their forks. Might take too long tho.

 

[Deleted member 24782]

Heres two on a unit.

We need to contact UP mechanical and get some bike hangers in the units! HAHA.

 

[Deleted member 11392]

It takes practice, patience, and some trial and error. (Hah!) Know your bike extremely well. Know your exact set up and learn to develop a routine for disassembling your bike, (quickly!) getting it on the train in as few moves as possible.

You will likely arrive at a time where you will be laughing at the ridiculousness of your bike being in several pieces, with a flat tire, in the middle of a fenced off yard, while a worker drives by and sees a scraggly looking person desperately trying to....GODDAMNIT MY BIKE PUMP MUST HAVE FALLEN DOWN THE SLIT NEXT TO THE CONTAINER!...

I remember one time scaling a 10 foot barbed wire fence with a fully loaded bike, in an IM facility in Jacksonville. In the middle of the day over 6 hours piece by fucking piece, with my makeshift camp behind a parked line of truck trailers. Fun times! In retrospect it would've been much quicker and simpler to have just biked out the MAIN GATE. Which I attempted and got cold feet right in the middle of, so resorted to plan B.

It's pretty sweet the other 90 percent of the time though!

 

[Desperado Deluxe]

It takes practice, patience, and some trial and error. (Hah!) Know your bike extremely well. Know your exact set up and learn to develop a routine for disassembling your bike, (quickly!) getting it on the train in as few moves as possible.

You will likely arrive at a time where you will be laughing at the ridiculousness of your bike being in several pieces, with a flat tire, in the middle of a fenced off yard, while a worker drives by and sees a scraggly looking person desperately trying to....GODDAMNIT MY BIKE PUMP MUST HAVE FALLEN DOWN THE SLIT NEXT TO THE CONTAINER!...

I remember one time scaling a 10 foot barbed wire fence with a fully loaded bike, in an IM facility in Jacksonville. In the middle of the day over 6 hours piece by fucking piece, with my makeshift camp behind a parked line of truck trailers. Fun times! In retrospect it would've been much quicker and simpler to have just biked out the MAIN GATE. Which I attempted and got cold feet right in the middle of, so resorted to plan B.

It's pretty sweet the other 90 percent of the time though!

I was gonna ask you is that how you used to get around? Was it effective or not worth it? Having a rack and bags n s#. Or would it be smarter to just have a underseat mount bag?