Hiring a bike around La Rochelle, Royan, France

[400bhp]

Hi, having just come back from France I'm planning to go again in September for a week.

One of the main reasons for going will be to pootle around on bicycles with wife & daughter. I've looked at prices of driving/Ferry/own bikes vs flying/hire car/hire bikes. There's very little in it. I've also looked at taking our own bikes on a plane, but it seems too much hassle which would cost at least £100 extra to carry

At the moment I'm considering hiring 2 bikes for the week, including a child seat. I would like to hire 2 hybrids.

There's quite a few bike hire companies so I was wondering if anyone had any experiences with any?

The cost looks to be about Eur10 a day per bike. I'm almost tempted to pop to the Decathlon in Saintes and buy two bikes, then ship them back.

 

[slowmotion]

What about going out on the ferry as foot passengers, buying the bikes in France, and coming back on the ferry with your new bikes? It might just work.

Edit: Actually, why not take your own bikes both ways on the ferry? I'm probably being dumb...

 

[brockers]

There is a bike hire scheme (Yelo) in La Rochelle if that's any help:

http://www.yelo-larochelle.fr/

They're city-clunkers a la Borisbikes, but a mate and I took them over the motorway bridge to the Ile de Re, did a tour of the island, and had a (lager-fuelled) race back into town putting twenty five miles on the things. As taking them outside the city limits is frowned upon, we scarpered pronto after we returned them as they were covered in tell-tale sand and one had a slow puncture!

 

[400bhp]

Thanks-ferry as a foot passenger is an unlikely option, considering I am based in Manchester and have a child to attend to.

Not sure about Boris style bikes.