bike rental portugal

DBCyc

Hi - does anyone know if I could rent a decent road bike in portugal (near lisbon). I'd love to take my bike over but I would need to acquire a bike box to transport it and I don't have space to store this at home (or so I have been told! :mad:)

I know that its easy to find places that rent mountain bikes for short leisure cycles in most holiday destinations but do the bike rental companies provide road bikes for say 100k spins?

p

Can't answer your question, but FYI, you don't need a bike box to put a bike on a place. All you need to do is turn the handle bars (might not even apply to a racer) and deflate the tyres.

I flew Santiago De Compestella > London and London > Dublin with Ryanair with my bike like that with no problems.

Also, I did use a bike box once, on the outbound part of that trip, for Dublin > Biarritz, and just picked up cardboard bike box from my local bike shop and packed it the night before, wasn't that big a deal.



I'm sure you'll have no problem renting a bike in a city the size of Lisbon though.

lukester

I work with a Portuguese guy, he found this crowd: http://www.ciclovias.com/site/contactos.php

stuf

p wrote: »

I'm sure you'll have no problem renting a bike in a city the size of Lisbon though.

Not sure about bike hire in Lisbon but I did live there twice and there aren't that many bikes around the place. Cobbled streets and big steep hills tend to put the general public off from cycling.

Saying all that a quick google yields these:

http://cycling-rentals.com/
http://www.bikeiberia.com/

The first place does road bike hire

DBCyc

Thanks for the links guys...I obviously missed some in my google search. All i could find was bike tours!

Luckily I will be staying a bit outside Lisbon so I wont have to tackle those cobblestones! You would need a gumshield on if cycling those I reckon

Hopefully I will get a bike sorted cos it looks like there are some great routes to cycle there.

blorg

I used to have a client in Lisbon and did some work there. Cycled from Lisbon up to Obidos via Sintra. In or anywhere near Lisbon was a bit of a disaster for cycling IMHO; Portuguese drivers act like they have never seen a bike in their lives and road surfaces in Lisbon are eh interesting. It did get better the further away we got from Lisbon. If you are planning on doing this I would suggest the further away from Lisbon the better.

Lisbon is probably the only place I have cycled that was worse than Dublin.

Brought my bike over on the plane BTW.

stuf

well the cycling rentals place is in Sintra which is in the middle of some great countryside and a DART-equivalent ride from Lisbon. Their bikes look good too.

where are you going to be staying?

stuf

blorg wrote: »

I used to have a client in Lisbon and did some work there. Cycled from Lisbon up to Obidos via Sintra. In or anywhere near Lisbon was a bit of a disaster for cycling IMHO; Portuguese drivers act like they have never seen a bike in their lives and road surfaces in Lisbon are eh interesting. It did get better the further away we got from Lisbon. If you are planning on doing this I would suggest the further away from Lisbon the better.

Lisbon is probably the only place I have cycled that was worse than Dublin.

Brought my bike over on the plane BTW.

Obidos is a cool spot

BTW - portuguese drivers are just mad - doesn't matter if cyclists are involved or not. There's one street in the Baixa (low area) of central Lisbon which has trams going two ways and cars going one way. Being a passenger in a taxi overtaking a tram on that road was a regularly interesting experience.

blorg

BTW none of this was meant to dissuade you in any way, I'd cycle a bike anywhere, just take from it to avoid main roads (the one between Lisbon and Estoril en route to Sintra is the worst I have ever been on) and Lisbon itself and you could have a very pleasant time.

blorg

stuf wrote: »

BTW - portuguese drivers are just mad - doesn't matter if cyclists are involved or not.

Yes, this is very true indeed. Cycling a bike in Portugal is a very different experience to cycling a bike in Spain (I think it helps in the latter country that they dominate pro cycling.)

DBCyc

I actually will be staying near Obidos and planned on cycling to Sintra among other places.

I wouldnt be disuaded from cycling there though I will probably avoid the main roads and Lisbon so I'm sure it will pleasant enough.

I was just reading through some old posts there about flying with a bike and see that a lot of people go without bike boxes and use pipe insulation and other means to protect their bikes on planes. I might try that...bike rental seems expensive (on top of car rental anyway!) Although I will be a nervous wreck flying over hoping nothing happens to my precious bike