Author Topic: Cost of hire bikes  (Read 1805 times)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Cost of hire bikes
« on: 11 September, 2019, 06:35:47 pm »
On Monday, while cycling from the Twitey's Tipis camping weekend towards Cirencester, I caught up with an Irish woman heading the same way on her own short tour. We chatted for a while and one of the things she mentioned was the cost of hiring a bike relative to the price of the same bike new. She was riding a Bristol Bicycle she'd hired from Bristol Bicycles at £80 for 8 days. She was quite enthusiastic about this and the bike itself, as her original plan had been to hire a bike in Bath, but that would have cost £120 for 7 days (she was less enthusiastic about Bristol as a city!). Her point was, if you hire out a bike that would sell for about £500 new at £100 a week, you've got a level of return that would never be matched in car hire. I suspect her Bristol Bicycle might have been closer to £600 new, but her general point stands.

Thoughts, comments and musings from the brains of the parish?
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Cost of hire bikes
« Reply #1 on: 11 September, 2019, 06:48:59 pm »
Cheap car hire is subsidised by the ease with which they can upsell insurance and other junk and charge all sorts of spurious fees after the fact. DAMHIKT.

If bike shops have found a high margin way to keep themselves in business that provides a useful service then good on them.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Cost of hire bikes
« Reply #2 on: 11 September, 2019, 07:00:52 pm »
Expected life of a hire bike?  Can't be more than a year or two.  I expect the bigger hire companies want to sell them on before they need to start mucking about with anything that's more complicated than replacing a gear cable.

And then the expected duty cycle - how much of the time is it sitting idle?  Somewhere like Rutland Cycling at Witwell is going to see a very different pattern to a city centre based multi-day hire.  I expect the trail-oriented hire demand is very peaky around warm summer weekends, with a lot of the fleet sitting idle the rest of the time.  You also need to stock a range of sizes (if there isn't a bike that fits dad, the whole family will go elsewhere), with the less popular ones seeing much less use.

I suppose a lot of the cost isn't the bike itself.  You need somewhere to store them, and staff.  Which is probably easier to manage with a smaller fleet operated as a sideline to some other business (bicycle shop, hotel, etc.) than a primarily hire business with very seasonal demand.


The cost of weekly hire always starts to make buying a cheap bike seem like an attractive option, if you can accept the faff of finding a second-hand bargain, or the spec of a low-end bike from Decathlon or similar.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Cost of hire bikes
« Reply #3 on: 11 September, 2019, 07:08:26 pm »
For this woman, it worked out cheaper to hire than to bring her own bike over, which would have added £50 each way to the cost of the flight, she said.

I think the people at Bristol Bicycles, aka Jake's Bikes, sell their hire bikes off after two years. Or maybe it's only one year. I know they had one case where a regular customer came and hired the same bike every weekend, so when it reached the end of its hire life they gave her first refusal (she bought it)! Clearly the bikes are still in decent s/h condition when they cease to be hire-worthy.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Cost of hire bikes
« Reply #4 on: 11 September, 2019, 07:13:21 pm »
I'm paying €10/day for an Omafiets in NL next week, and happy with the deal. These guys have to make a living.  (pick up collect is €15)

Oh yeah, and I'm hoping to book it to expenses  ;D

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Cost of hire bikes
« Reply #5 on: 11 September, 2019, 07:15:09 pm »
For this woman, it worked out cheaper to hire than to bring her own bike over, which would have added £50 each way to the cost of the flight, she said.

Makes sense if you're not too fussed about it being your preferred bike.

fuaran

  • rothair gasta
Re: Cost of hire bikes
« Reply #6 on: 11 September, 2019, 07:19:08 pm »
How much maintenance is needed on hire bikes? Probably plenty of bits getting broken or worn out. So costs to repair / replace parts, and staff time.

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: Cost of hire bikes
« Reply #7 on: 11 September, 2019, 07:40:55 pm »
The last time I hired a bike (not with an app) I paid 9 EUR a day. This was before I was really cycling. It was a horrible heavy dutch bike in the Netherlands, must have weighed nearly 17 kg. Not knowing any better I walked away with one with a nearly bald rear tyre, and p*******d it on the way home from a 50 mile spin in the countryside. Had no idea what to do with it being a cycling ignoramus at the time so I rode it with a flat rear wheel for a few miles and got a train and swapped it for another one the next day.

Still had a great trip! ;D





YACF touring/audax bargain basement:
https://bit.ly/2Xg8pRD



Ban cars.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Cost of hire bikes
« Reply #8 on: 11 September, 2019, 08:01:41 pm »
I'm paying €10/day for an Omafiets in NL next week, and happy with the deal. These guys have to make a living.  (pick up collect is €15)
So that's quite a bit cheaper than Bristol and almost half the price of Bath. Bargain!


Quote
Oh yeah, and I'm hoping to book it to expenses  ;D
:thumbsup:
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.