Bikes-only chunnel train

BMW dealerships are taking bookings for the World of BMW Biker Meeting trip. There are two packages available: a hotel option that costs £400 for a solo rider in a single room or £355 for a solo rider sharing a room. The cost for a couple is £510. The camping option costs £100 for a solo rider or £135 per couple, with overnight stops at prearranged campsites.

Both options include return Eurotunnel crossings, a Biker Meeting T-shirt, and all necessary maps and route details. In addition, the hotel option includes half-board accommodation at Strasbourg and Hockenheim, and two nights B&B at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The camping option does not include site fees.

Details: bmw@worldofbmw.com (external site)

Bikes are taking over an entire Eurotunnel shuttle for a run to the 2005 BMW Biker Meeting this summer.

BMW says 250 bikes and riders from the UK will be carried under The Channel on the one specially-chartered train, on their way to Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the edge of the German/Austrian Alps.

The event is on July 1-3 and includes a display celebrating ‘25 years of the GS’.

The massed group of British bikes will get off to an early start when it gathers at the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone at 6.30am on Thursday June 30. Once the ‘motorcycles only’ shuttle reaches Calais the bikes will split into groups to ride 385 miles across rural France to Strasbourg, on the border with Germany.

After an overnight hotel or camping stop, the groups have a further 255 miles to ride through Germany to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where they will stay for two nights of the Biker Meeting.