At BICAS we have a fleet of rental bikes that are mostly coaster brake bikes of varied sizes. They are spray painted all different colors so that they are ugly and easy to spot. We have a name plate welded inside the main triangle that says BICAS RENTAL and has our contact info. These rental bikes have been returned to us after being lost before but sometimes do go missing.
We charge $5 per day or $20 for the week or about 30 min of work-trade per day. I joke around about how these rental bikes are gold mines but some of them that have been around for years but seriously I would not be surprised if some of these bikes have raised $500 dollars or more for our organization. And we are talking about heavy, single speed, ugly bikes with ripped up seats and solid tires.
The lock situation was really hard because we used to buy locks and then end up with a bunch of locks and keys that did not match but then we started welding chains to the frame and pad locks to the chains. All the keys for the rental bikes are the same key so we don't have to match a key to the lock and if a key disappears then we only need to make a copy and not get a hole new lock. This has worked really well.
We do sign people out for them and get a phone #, email, or ID # but its mostly just a formality than anything. No deposits are taken.
Troy Neiman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Giordano"
To: "The Think Tank"
Subject: [TheThinkTank] 'rental' bikes
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 12:22:25 -0600 (MDT)
we do rentals with whatever is on hand. good income. $1/day, $5/week,
$15/month, negotiate for longer. most come back. some marked with 'free
cycles checkout', some painted green. some with fenders, baskets etc.
sometimes they do the work to get it rolling. no deposit- too messy.
flexible.
we also have a community fleet with 60 (mostly one speed, rear derailer
limit screw cranked) bikes.... goes to large groups, like Korean and
Japanese teachers coming to missoula next week thru university program.
we had 500 helmets donated by hospital. not many takers.
local gov't group gives us free blinky red lights. not great, but usable.
sometimes we do locks, sometimes not. (we want to make our own!)
we give brief training/ rules of roads to all...
many times a really good bike will be a checkout for awhile, and then go
into the build a bike program.
-bob g. free cycles missoula.
info@re-cycles.ca wrote:
>
> We take a similar approach and sell people a discounted AS-IS bike
(tuned-up used department store bike) for around $40 Cdn if they promise
to dontate it back when they are finished with it. This avoids a lot of
hassles with tracking the rentals and with our lack of insurance
coverage
> for rentals.
>
> Chris Wells
> (Email Handler & one of many Volunteer Head Mechanics)
>
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