Hi Corey, my name is Rafael, I was the fleet manager for the Bike Library here in Fort Collins,CO and although this is a free to all rental service it really is no different from the traditional for profit format in that the customer does have to pay a deposit for security purposes, once the rider returns the bike in sound condition, they get their money back, in your case you'll keep the $ and the user is expecting you to do so.
Go to the policies section in their site to check out their service agreement.
http://www.fcbikelibrary.org/Index.asp
This Library operates under typical rental protocol, there are fees for late returns, for damage, theft, on so on; helmets and locks are provided.
Once a person becomes a member of the Library, she can check out bikes indefinitely so long as they keep a clean record on their check outs.
Aside from that I'd say first step is to make sure to tell your insurance carrier what you're up to in case that your current coverage needs to be modified.
Of course your liability nightmare would be a malfunction in one of your bikes, so I advise you to, regardless of the number of bikes you're looking to start with, make sure to have in place a meticulous and comprehensive system for inspecting every bike upon return and to perform all regular maintenance in order to accomplish *top safety* with *efficiency*.
I Hope this info helps.
Good Luck !
Rafael Cletero Project Coordinator Fort Collins Bicycle Co-op ph (970) 484 38 04 www.fcbikecoop.org
On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 11:54 AM, Corey Grazul cgrazul@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sure the topic of bike rental has been discussed here before, but if anyone has a link, personal experience, or just some solid advice to share, I'd really appreciate it.
I am part of a non-profit community bike shop in Jackson, MI and we are looking into starting a bike rental service through our shop to get more people riding and to generate a bit of income to resource our work. The primary purpose of our rental will be recreation, not transportation.
What I'm looking for are some starting points in the insurance/liability/waiver arena. What are my choices, what is most cost effective, what are some specific companies worth looking into, should I just look into a rider for our current insurance, does anyone have a good template waiver to share, etc...?
Any other info. about starting a bike rental service would be super helpful.
Thanks, Corey Grazul The Fitness Council of Jackson
On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 4:11 PM, <thethinktank-request@bikecollectives.org
wrote:
Send Thethinktank mailing list submissions to thethinktank@bikecollectives.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to thethinktank-request@bikecollectives.org
You can reach the person managing the list at thethinktank-owner@bikecollectives.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Thethinktank digest..."
Today's Topics:
- Re: Suggestions for paid work (Chris Wells)
- Re: Suggestions for paid work (Scott Gibson)