Touring bike hire?

[CRC]

Apologies if this has been covered before. I did a quick search and couldn't see anything recent.

This July I'm planning to go on my first tour, from Bilbao up through France to Paris, in time to catch Cav win on the Champs.

With it being the first time I've toured, I'd rather not go out and buy a bike for the sake of a fortnight, not knowing if it'll ever get used again! So, my question is... does anybody have any experience of hiring touring bikes in the UK? Has anyone used The London Bicycle Tour Company or OnYourBike?

Ideally based in the south of England, as I'm in Wiltshire.

Cheers

 

[Iainj837]

here is a list of all the bike shops near you
http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourc...2k&fp=15190511c3d0bdbe&ion=1&biw=1024&bih=677
Hope this is of use to you

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Why do you want a specific touring bike for your first tour? I ask because my first tour was done on my mountain bike which I added an old man mountain rear pannier rack to (via qr skewer & P clamps because the mtb was not designed to take a rack). It worked great for the 2 weeks we were on tour and we ended up completely addicted to touring and purchased custom fit dedicated bikes for touring as a result...

 

[CRC]

Thanks for the replies.

Our plan is to camp, so I'm assuming we'll need front and rear panniers, to carry tents, sleeping bags, mats, cooking equipment etc? I've not yet bought any of the camping gear, so don't know how small these pack down.

No reason why we couldn't use a mountain bike, if we can find them with the necessary fork attachments or racks like the ones you mentioned - good thinking.

I'm beginning to wonder if we'd be better off buying cheap off of ebay and flogging them when we get back.

Cheers

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

We did a 2 week camping tour of Denmark with rear panniers, rack pack and bar bag only. So depends if you want to camp in style or keep the weight of the bikes down. That's our bikes full laden for a 2 week tour.

Having gone off to cycle around the world, I personally don't find the need for front panniers for 2 weeks. Learn to pack light and you will make your life much easier.

 

[CRC]

Wow! That's impressive. What size were the panniers you used?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Wow! That's impressive. What size were the panniers you used?

just standard rear ortlieb (20L each is it?). Rack pack is 30L so combined is 70L - I just equate that to a rucksack and suddenly you realise you only need rear panniers & rackpack.. front panniers would add an extra 25L to that...

 

[CRC]

Definitely coming round to your way of thinking! The less weight over the Pyrenees the better!

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Definitely coming round to your way of thinking! The less weight over the Pyrenees the better!

inital setup costs were not cheap. I have put a link in the found a bargin thread to some cheap ortlieb rear roller panniers - if you don't mind the colour they are something like £73.50 for a pair of them which is an excellent price. http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/found-a-bargain-do-tell.16260/post-2307163
the rear roller classics clip into the 25L and 30L ortlieb rackpacks which adds to stability. just google ortlieb rack pack - but in the picture it is the matching colour bad across the rear panniers held in place by the rear panniers clips - more obvious on the red one. best investment we ever made. some mtbs can easily take pannier racks, some (higher end ones) are more difficult but none are impossible to get a rack onto - the photo above shows my old Scott Scale 40 mtb which had no rack mounts at all - I used an old man mountain rack that used the quick release skewer and some P clips around the stays and it was fine.

 

[CRC]

Will go on a hunt for a bike at the weekend I think. Once that is sorted I can start on everything else. My carbon road bike definitely isn't up for this job, and you can never have too many bikes, so... new bike time!

Thanks for the link, they look perfect.