When I wrote about the upcoming Tour of Britain recently, I forgot about a more obvious use for van hire in the cycling world – one-way van hire after one-way bike rides. Although a more obvious solution for getting home after a long journey is a train, taking bicycles on a train can require careful planning, especially if you are in a group – as Sunderland charity cyclist Fraser Kennedy recently found out.

Fraser had just finished the ultimate one-way bike ride in the UK; Land’s End to John O’Groats. Having done all the legwork and raised £2,500 for charity, he was looking forward to a relaxing journey home by rail.

Unfortunately, ScotRail had other plans and refused to allow several members of his party on board because they had not made cycle reservations. ScotRail apparently requires bike reservations on long-distance journeys, including all journeys between Wick, Thurso and Inverness.

The end result for poor old Fraser was that he had to find a van hire company in Inverness who could rent him a van (one way) to complete his journey back to Sunderland, resulting in a lot of extra cost and frustration.

The moral of the story is that Britain’s railways do not welcome cyclists in the way they did when all trains had guard vans. If you want to travel any distance by rail in the UK, make sure you plan it carefully and make the appropriate reservations along the way.