Help with Bike hire business

angelcake

I live in a small village on the somerset Levels. Thinking of doing a bike hire as in our village there has been 4 'holiday lets' built and was looking at hiring bikes, Need advice as a few questions if anyone can help please:

What sort of insurance that may be required
What do I legally need to provide, helmet etc?
How do I make sure the bike comes back (How much deposit and how is it paid)

Lots of other things to think about, where do I start the lettings have a family in one who have asked where they can hire a bike... they want a couple tomorrow....

andygb

As a cyclist who has hired bikes in the past, I would say these would be essentials.

You need to buy however many bikes you reckon you could hire at any one time - including overlapping hiring periods.
All the bikes should be the same (apart from a variety of sizes obviously) make.
Every single bike needs to be maintained perfectly, so you need to have experience of bike mechanics.
I suggest you contact a local bicycle hire company to find out what insurance they have, because it could be quite costly, but if you ignore it and someone has a crash, which is down to a badly maintained/dangerous bike then you could be sued.
Good luck, there are probably lots more things which I have forgotten.

Mistral001

I think the only insurance you legally need is employer insurance if you have any employees. However, maybe someone else can confirm that as hiring vehicles (if bicycles are classed as vehicles) might have different laws to most businesses. As for the insurance it might be advisable to have, that is another matter. However, I would have thought that you would need legal advice or business-insider advice as to the wording of your disclaimer. I suspect it would contain a long list of clauses.


PS. Is the there a trade association for bike hiring businesses? If there is they might prove helpful.

paddyrg

Insurance-wise I imagine you'll need public liability too, in case your bike fails and injures someone as a consequence.

Savvy_Sue

A thought about helmets:

You don't legally need to provide them, because it's not a legal requirement to wear one.

If you DO provide them, you need to make sure they are clean inside when hiring them: little visitors hiding in the interior isn't going to be a great USP.

Also if you DO provide them, how do you know they haven't been damaged while out on hire?

A quick google indicates that some hire companies do NOT provide them, while others provide one if you want it, FOC.

paddyrg

Perhaps sell inexpensive (but CE marked) helmets whilst renting out the bikes. Not sure I'd want to hire a helmet anyway, but if you offer a service to buy them, maybe even that you'll keep the helmets safe and labeled on site for regular renters. If you do rent out protective gear, you will have an implied liability for it to perform. That sounds like a pain!

mandragora_2

What research have you done that suggests that there is a demand locally? I don't mean that in a hostile way, just that I enjoy cycling, but would take my own if I was going to a holiday let. Is there a good cycle route nearby? Would you get any business from that? It would only take one or two of the holiday lets to put a couple of old bikes in their garage for lessees to"borrow at own risk" for a good proportion of your business plan to be scuppered, and it's always seemed a business that needs quite a hefty investment up front to me.

oldoakey

I used to hire out cycles some time ago.

You can use any make of bike they are much the same anyway in terms of repairs and cables etc. As long as they are mountain bikes, which can take more hammer than say cross overs or road bikes.

The way I used to do it was to buy second hand then give them a service renewing any cables, brake pads or bearings as needed. Learn how to do this your self its not difficult and find a wholesaler who will supply the parts.

You can hire by the hour, half day, full day or weekly with rates dropping accordingly.

Then get your self some public liability insurance and away you go.
I did supply helmets at an extra optional cost.

You may need some legals so speak to a solicitor first.