Ordinary person bike hire

I am sort of toying with a business venture (not bike related) which could as a side line offer bikes to the general public for gentle Road and Forest trail bimbling when on holiday. I’m satisfied that there is a market for that and there is no local competition, a relatively captive and financed audience and enough picturesque quiet roads/trails to keep people entertained. There are some hills but nothing too big. No real mountain biking suitable for a hire market. So I am thinking hybrid type.

anyone here ever got involved in that? Do the public ruin them? Is hub gears worth considering for ease of maintainence? I assume if nicked or damaged by user that is tough and can’t be insured economically. How often does that happen (I realise it will be variable – but quiet holiday town). Are there deals to be done on buying 20+ bikes and helmets etc? How much time is spent fettling bikes when abused by non cycling public for short periods. Is there a magic mix of sizes that provides some sort of statistical maximum utilisation for typical UK families.

Thats a bike related business is it not?

PM Me

Buy cheap, don’t do more than absolute basic maintenance (punctures etc), sell off and buy new bikes regularly.

As a hire fleet it might be looking at something like the PaperBike rather than Hybrids. They’re designed on the same principles as things like Boris Bikes, post office bikes and the like in that one size easily adapts to suit all, and you don’t need to be dressed like a cyclist to ride one (they can be ridden in a dress/skirt/kilt) so suitable for hires to people who hadn’t planned to cycle during their trip. With a hybrid or similar you’d need a range of sizes and could still end up with unrented stock whist still be turning people people away because the customers don’t fit the bikes that day

As Scotroutes, PM for more info. (It’s my day job).
Beware of promoting rides through Forestry Commission Land as they may come around asking for some money for using their amenity for your business.

I reckon with increasing reliability, electric bikes could become significant in this market- whether people will pay the premium to hire them to cover the higher cost of owning them is another matter.

“I reckon with increasing reliability, electric bikes could become significant in this market- whether people will pay the premium to hire them to cover the higher cost of owning them is another matter.”

Ive been toying with trying this in the inner city – how ever captial repayment and security on my investment have been sticking point – as you say insuring push bikes is hard enough without having a load of dosh hired out on expensive electric bikes……makes it a risky business.

seeing what folks charge for electric bikes – then doing the maths and finding their numbers to actually be realistic.

It will be a growing market and i do see a gap for a demo/retail centre in citys – marketing will be key. Showing folks you can get out of your car and not get sweaty/soaked every day most of the days while getting some exercise when i ride to work and its raining i hardly get wet due to full length mud guards – i swear you get wetter from road spray than from rain in the uk.

Bruneep, no I meant the main part of the venture would have nothing to do with bikes but it would be quite possible to run a sideline hiring bikes (suitable storage, staff there anyway, no competition, suitable market).

Scotroutes and Sandwich I’ll mail you when at a proper computer later. I don’t think there is a FC risk because it’s in scotland.

Maccruiskeen, yes that’s the sort of issue I saw. Never tried a Boris bike, are they usable for more than a mile or two?

TomB – electric had crossed my mind, but having never tried one myself I thought one step at a time.

Fc exsist and are doing their best to **** up scotland too.

Want to ruin your car on the dirt track up and park in a muddy hole where you stand a good chance of getting stuck.

Welcome to scolty now cough up your pennies and pay your parking charge.

trail_rat – Member
Fc exsist and are doing their best to **** up scotland too.

Want to ruin your car on the dirt track up and park in a muddy hole where you stand a good chance of getting stuck.

Welcome to scolty now cough up your pennies and pay your parking charge. Aye, but the land reform act is quite clear that access is freely available for non-motorised responsible use even as part of commercial activities. If the rental facility isn’t on their land then I can’t see any argument? Especially since half the obvious routes are not actually FC land!