i am headed on vacation to (approximately st. petersburg) florida, and i would like to rent a bicycle for transportation purposes. has anyone ever tried to rent a bike with a rack? panniers? lights? is one expected to just bring one's own?
also: if anyone has any experience renting in that area of florida and can point me to any shops where such a thing might be possible, those tips would be greatly appreciated.
Nothing concrete, but I did find this, things going on in Tampa this Sun and Mon., if you'll be there by then. Lists a bunch of participating shops (links don't work), places participating in this are prob your best bet. Tampa is the "city" of the area, so for a utility bike, more likely to find something there as opposed to the vacational areas;
http://bicyclebash.blogspot.com/
This looks like a good shop. I love a good bike shop. Have rentals.
http://stpetebicycles.com/
thanks for the work, edmonds. i tried to, but failed to go to the bike festival, as i was entertaining others.
turns out pretty much everywhere in the area has bike rentals. there's a 50 mile trail heading north out of st. pete, and there's one or two rental places at every major road crossing. i figured if i went in and asked for a few extras, they'd be happy to help. and that's the way it worked out. 50 bucks for 5 days (!), and they would've put a rack on it and given me a trunk (i didn't make them, because i didn't bring my pannier). pretty sweet deal.
this part of florida is pretty strange when it comes to cyclists. there are people on bikes seriously everywhere. but every single road is 7 lanes wide. some have bike lanes:
nice. also, no one wore helmets, except the roadies i saw. tons and tons of people riding department store bikes as their means of transportation, most of them still riding on the sidewalk. because the infrastructure is awful. we like to say if you build it, they will come. well, in western florida, they've already come, and it still hasn't been built.
the rentals are pretty great, though. on the day mine was due back, i came in and swapped it out for a tandem for a few hours, for no extra charge. my first time on a tandem:
why didn't anyone ever tell me how much fun this is?
