Bicycle (Bike, Cycle) Hire (Rental, Renting) in Hamburg, Germany

Hamburg like most of northern Germany is fairly flat. It is a university city, so there are a lot of cyclists and cyclepaths. It seems to be well equipped with bike hire shops. We have checked an earlier list and these companies appear to be still operating. The order does not play any role. We can make no recommendations. This is an edited version of an earlier list.

Hamburg City Cycles

Bernhard-Nocht-Str. 89-91

20359 Hamburg

Tel.:  +49-(0)40-74214420

Mobil: +49-(0)176-64330623

Web:   www.hhcitycycles.de

Cruiser and city bikes: 13€/day, 55€ a week. City tours offered. 
(These prices updated summer 2016)

Bardowicks Go-Kart-Hof und Fahrradverleih
www.go-kart-hof.de
Vierlande
Neuengammer Hausdeich 101
21039 Hamburg
Tel. (040) 723 38 66
Fax (040) 72 37 06 60
E-Mail: bardowicks@go-kart-hof.de
Tourenräder: 13,00 € pro Tag inklusive Transport, Tourenvorschläge, Karten

Fahrradverleih Altona
www.fahrradverleih-altona.de
Altona
Thadenstraße 90-92
22767 Hamburg
Tel. (040) 4 39 20 12
Fax (040) 430 73 15
Mobil (0171) 6 95 15 15
E-Mail: tom@fahrradverleih-altona.de
Opening times: Mo - Fr 10 - 18 Uhr, Sa 10 - 13 Uhr or by appointment
15 City bikes (7 Gear): 8,50 € per day, 22,50 € per weekend (three days), 51,00 € per week (Rebate from three bikes)

"Hamburg anders erfahren"
Stefan Petersen
Hire only on condition that the bicycles are delivered probably free of charge.
www.hamburg-anders-erfahren.de
Tel. mobil (0178) 640 18 00
Fax (040) 6 40 18 00
E-Mail: petersen@lassraeder.com
Over 200 bicycles;
City, Trekking and Mountain-Bikes: 12,00 € per day; 49,00 € per week; 150,00 € pro month (Minimum charge 40,00 € per order; (06/2013)
Road bikes, Child bicycles, Tandems, etc.: ask about rates or check the home page. The website has an English section, but you will to look at the German to find the prices.
Also: City tours, short bike tours

KOECH 2-Rad Technologie
www.koech2rad.de
Horn
Sievekingsallee 96
20535 Hamburg
Tel. (040) 219 46 34
100 bikes: 9,90 € per day/39€ a week for seven gear ladies trekking bikes with a back pedal brake.
Child bikes, trailers can be ordered, delivery possible

If you don't find what you want above then check the ADFC Hamburg's website. It is likely to be more up to date than our list.

Radsalon Mannheim 2013

For several years now the City of Mannheim in conjunction with the chamber of commerce and the city's marketing agency has organised the Radsalon, an annual cycling festival with an exhibition. This is held in a square in the middle of the main shopping area of the city and attracts not only bike freaks but shoppers out to pick up some new clothes. Last Saturday (22 June 2013) stands included the ADFC - the German cycling club, a secondhand bike sale, a number of local and regional bike shops, bicycle manufacturers, an energy agency, the car sharing club, free bike checks - as part of the Baden-Württemberg provincial campaign to encourage cycling and VELOTransport - a government sponsored project to encourage the use of cargo bikes by families and by small businesses.
I would like to have visited the Riese and Müller stand with its cargo e-bike and electro- and normal versions of these exceedingly clever bikes, but we had very little time to spare. We were on the ADFC stand advising folk about buying cycling helmets, discussing the advantages of membership and giving out our tour programme.
The VELOTransport stand was next door to ours and I did notice the lads on the stand were kept busy with visitors. In a quiet five minutes I had a quick chat with both members of staff and looked at the five or six cargo bikes and trikes on the stand. The VELOTransport project is designed both to demonstrate the usefulness of cargo bikes to young families aiming to dump the car or small businesses who need to move small amounts of stuff in city centres where car parking is expensive and restricted. The stand offered hands-on experience of these bikes. The group had cleverly visited a wide range of events over the last year including the biannual German Protestant Church annual meeting, an Ideal Home exhibition and a caravan show, so did not restrict themselves to cycle exhibitions. As a back up the project offers a well thought out and extensive database of bikes, trikes and equipment for cargo carrying available in Germany (http://www.velotransport.de/). The website is in German unfortunately, but a lot of the links are to English language websites and if not there is always Google Translator.
The highlight of the Radsalon is a mass ride around Mannheim and Ludwigshafen, across the Rhine in  Rhineland Palatinate. This year over 650 riders on all sorts of bikes and trikes took place. The trip across the Rhine was cancelled because of a major fire in Ludwigshafen harbour.

Before the Ride

The smoke from the fire was visible from Mannheim

A new source of campsites?

If like us you prefer quiet small campgrounds, it's worthwhile casting an eye on www.campinmygarden.com. The website aims to link house and garden owners with campers seeking a micro camp site. At the moment only the UK in Europe is well covered, but give the site time.

Rixen & Kaul Klickfix

We are fans of KLICKfix products. The company offers a range of devices to fix devices: bags, maps, water bottles, locks, etc. on bicycles. As we write guide books (available from us, Cicerone, Amazon and Smashwords) and therefore need to do a lot of exploratory cycling, we find the KLICKfix map holders, a simple perspex clip to be a very good way of attaching a paper map to a bike. If you pop the map in a sealable plastic sachet it is reasonably waterproof as well.  On our last trip down the Weser, the first tour of the year after the winter, I assembled the map, plastic cover and clip on the bike. A minute or two later the clip cracked open. I wrote to Rixen & Kaul the makers of the device to enquire whether because we'd stored the clip inside the plastic map cover, plasticiser from the bag had caused some form of stress corrosion cracking. The company replied the same day to tell me that this was unlikely, but that the odd Minimap can be highly stressed as a result of processing  and cracks in use. We received a new Minimap clip by Post a day or two later without needing to send in proof of purchase. Well done Rixen & Kaul!

I was also interested to noticed that Rixen & Kaul now do a handlebar bag (PadBag) for an iPad/tablet with a transparent plastic covered drawer to hold the iPad which can be pulled out for reading and navigation. This bag solves a problem that we had been debating about using an iPad/tablet with one of our e-guide books.

KLICKfix products are distributed in the UK by

Greyville Enterprises GB-WS 14 9TZ Lichfield, phone +44 (0)15 43 / 25 13 28 email: sales@greyville.com  website: www.greyville.com

and by 

Zyro Limited YO7 3BX Thirsk Business Park, phone +44 (0)1845 521700 email: customer.services@zyro.co.uk  website: www.zyro.co.uk and in the USA by  United States: VeloFred LLC New York, phone +1 (0)646 4359805  email: info@velofred.com  website: www.velofred.com.  We have no financial interest in Rixen & Kaul or any of their distributors. We just like the gear.

Würzburg bike parking

Würzburg lies on the River Main in Germany and is also the start of the Romantic Road to Füssen. It has has much to offer, the Residenz - the bishop's palace said by Napoleon to be the finest vicarage in Europe, the Marienberg Fortress, the cathedral, the churches in the old town amongst other items and the beer is not bad either. If you want to play the tourist for a couple of hours but are worried about leaving your bike, but don't want to push it around the city, then the city's tourist office offers a solution that we have not found anywhere else. The tourist office has set a up a guarded bike park in conjunction with the city's parks department, the city council and the employment office. It costs one Euro a day and  if you buy a meal, a snack or something by the Bike & Park Payback Partners for more than 5 Euros, even this will be returned to you. It is still advisable to take your core valuables, passport, camera and the 20 000 Euros in cash your auntie gave you to pay into a numbered account with you, but your panniers with their dirty washing can be left behind.

Accommodation on the lower River Weser IV

We cycled into Bremen, stopped for a quick glance at a historic building or two, lunch and then, as ever, had trouble getting out of the city, even though we had only drunk coffee with our Bratwurst. We stopped underway in a village between Bremen and Bremerhaven. We would try to avoid the hotel in future. It was very noisy, so we will mention neither its name or the village.
The next day we fought a Dutch style headwind to reach Bremerhaven where we were faced with the problem of finding our hotel. It was for once dead easy to find. We followed the cycle route into town and arrived at Bürgermeister-Smidt-Str 1 near the Columbus Center. Our hotel was the havenhostel (T: +49 (0) 471 30 96 69 0) at Bürgermeister-Smidt-Str 209. Part of the Straße is in a pedestrian zone where cycling is only allowed between 22:00 and 10:00, so watch out  and walk unless you wish to contribute to the city's coffers.
The havenhostel is a former navy barracks, built around 1902. It offers simple lean but clean accommodation. The rooms are large and all ensuite with plastic floors. Breakfasts are self-service, but good. The staff are very friendly. At 75 Euros a night plus 6.50 Euros pp for breakfast in a big city the rooms are good value for money. One slightly weird thing is that the website is only in German though the staff speak English. Evening meals can be available during the week, depending on demand. It was weekend, anyway, when we were there. We ate an excellent Lobscouse in the Treffpunkt Kaiserhafen, "The last pub before New York" in the docks and a good Italian meal in a nearby restaurant the night after.

Accommodation on the lower River Weser III

We met our one flooded section on this day and discovered the only way through is to pedal fast and ignore the wet feet.

Keep on pedalling!

So far we had been paying about 50 Euros a night and decided to make a stop before Bremen where, according to the Bett und Bike website, prices for a double room can be as high as over 100 Euros. We arrived in Thedinghausen and discovered that the bridge over the River Eiter on the edge of the village was being rebuilt. As a result the village was host to a number of visiting building workers and there was no room at the inn for us. We talked to the mayor, but he was unable to help and so cycled 2-3km to the off route village of Morsum where we stopped in Döhlings Gasthaus at Zum Fleet 1 (http://www.doehlings-gasthaus.de/,  doehlings-gasthaus(at)t-online.de, T: +49 (0) 4204 91710). It was fine. If you decide to eat the cold cuts Platte then order one between two of you. Two were too much for us.

Accommodation on the lower River Weser II

The next night we stopped in Bücken, Lower Saxony in the 18th century Pension Rosengarten, (Manfred Behrmann, Markstraße 15, D27333 Bücken. T: +49 (0) 4251 6522, F: +49 (0) 4251 671796, E: info@weserradweg-rosengarten.de/). This is an excellent B&B where we enjoyed a pleasant room, a superb garden and an extensive tasty breakfast. 

A garden is a thing of beauty and a job for ever,

The house was built in 1740.

Accommodation on the lower River Weser I

We cycled last week from Minden to Bremerhaven along the Weser Cycle Route. It was a great trip. We started in pastoral splendour amongst large fields dotted with cows and good views across the river with the occasional barge.  We visited the ancient city of Bremen and then followed the Weser estuary with sea going vessels as far as Bremerhaven. The route appears to be unknown in Britain which is a pity.
We had met our friends Maxa and Tim when they joined our train in Kassel and we travelled to Minden together. After lunch in Minden we set off down the Weser or parallel to the Weser as although  the river levels were not as high as on the Elbe, parts of the cycle route were blocked by flooding. At about 16:00 after about 20km we discussed where we wanted to stop the night and decided to stop at the next Gasthaus. Within 200m a notice board pointed us left to the Mühlengasthof & Pension "Zum Letzten Streich". * This was an excellent decision. We had small but comfortable ensuite rooms and for one night lack of space is no problem, especially at these prices: 27 Euros per person in a double room. Dinner in the beer garden was excellent and breakfast equally so. A bike repair service and e-bike battery charging is available. The owners are mildly offbeat souls. The house and gardens are decorated with mosaics and ornaments that remind me of those created by the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The owners feed and offer shelter in the garden to 18 ± sterilised cats, castoffs from the local farmers. (No fear if you have a cat allergy, the cats know their place. They stay in the garden and on the ground floor. Just check the chairs before you sit sit down.) The pub has an annual blues night at the end of June. What more could one want?

*Mühlengasthof & Pension, Großenheerser Mühle 4, T: +49 (0) 5765 7330,
info (at) windmuehlegrossenheerse.de

The decision makers at work. The notice board is on the left of the photograph.

Mühlengasthof & Pension "Zum Letzten Streich".

Bike Hire in the Ruhr

As we have written before, we are rewriting our Rhine II downstream from Basel to Rotterdam cycle touring guide as an e-book. We have altered our philosophy. We no longer attempt to describe both banks in detail but lay down a route which is mainly on the left bank. If there is anything very interesting on the other bank,  Heidelberg, for example, we will run our route through the city. We will however describe the Ruhr in very general terms, but not run our route through it. If you find yourself in Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund or one of the other Ruhr cities when Schalke or Borussia are not playing then think about taking a cycle ride. The Ruhr like Gary, Indiana or the Black Country used to be an area of heavy industry: coking plants, steel works and coal mines. These industries have declined since the 1960s leaving some magnificent industrial architecture and a number of railway mineral lines that have since been converted into cycleways. Check out Ruhr Tourismus: www.ruhr-tourismus.de . Bikes are available to hire at various sites. We will add to this list over the next few weeks. 

Radstation am Bochumer HBf (Main railway station)

North exit of HBf Bochum

Kurt Schumacher Platz
Bochum

ViA Bochum

T: +49 234 41411-24,
radstation(at)via-bochum.de

Very reasonable prices for 7 gear trekking bikes for daily (9 Euro daily) or weekly hire (5 Euro daily). 

Radrunde Allgäu (Around Allgäu)

A high percentage of Germans like to cycle on holiday. Many Germans like to go on holiday in their own country. This is good news for the rest of us as it means tourist authorities all over Germany are hard at work laying out new cycle routes and improving those they have already.  The Allgäu is a area between Baden Wuerttemberg, Bavaria and Tyrol, which is much visited by people who want quiet rural holidays. In order to cater for normal cyclists six counties, three provinces: Baden Wuerttemberg, Bavaria and Tyrol, and two countries Austria and Germany have developed an amoeba-like circular route around the Allgäu and incorporated two earlier routes across the middle. The Allgäu is the cheese producing region of Germany, home to thousands of light brown cows with soulful eyes, green meadows, high roofed farmhouses and forests with the Alps in the background. We have cycled along the eastern edge to Füssen on the Romantic Road and written two guide books about the route: "Cycling the Romantic Road from Würzburg to Füssen" (eBook) available from Smashwords and Amazon.
“The Romantic Road from Würzburg to Füssen Culture-nature-romance A Cycle Guide from North to South and South to North” available from Bergstrasse Bike Books (http://www.bicycletouringeurope.eu/)

The route is 450km long, mainly tarmac with some hills. The Iller and Allgäu routes cross in Kempten and link the parts of the Allgäu route together. It is due to open on 2 June 2013. Our summer activities are already planned unfortunately, but given the chance I suspect we will go.

The sketch map is taken from the website www.radrunde-allgaeu.de (in German) which is published by Allgäu GmbH, Gesellschaft für Standort und Tourismus, Allgäuer Straße1, 87435 Kempten, Germany. 

Heller's vegetarian restaurant in Mannheim

Vegetarian Restaurants are fairly rare in Germany: Most restaurants can prepare simple dishes though, like boiled veg with Hollandaise sauce. This probably gets a bit boring after a while. There are also a lot of Italian restaurants in the Fatherland who will dash off a cheesy pasta dish or even a vegetarian pizza. It is nice however to be offered a good choice of dishes and if you are following the Rhine either upstream or downstream you can pass through Mannheim. Our recommended routes suggest following the Neckar to Heidelberg (upstream) or from Heidelberg (downstream). In the centre of Mannheim between the Wasserturm and the Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) you will find Heller's Restaurant in N7 on the ring. This is a very successful self service vegetarian restaurant. This excellent restaurant  has been going for 25 years offering vegetarian and vegan wholemeal food. They also have a coffee bar at the back offering delicious healthy cakes. The cooks succeed in cooking healthy food that does not taste like healthy food, but like good home cooking from an inspired cook.
Our Rhine upstream e-book guide is available from Smashwords in a range of formats or from Amazon. (Look for Judith Forsyth as author to see all our books.) Our downstream guide is in preparation at the moment.

Bike Hire in Vienna

We are hoping to spend some time in Vienna this summer and intend to hire bikes for a few days. There are 1200 km of bike route in Vienna. Here are the results of our searches. I will report on our experiences. So far we have found the following companies:

Pedal Power, Austellungsstraße 3, 1020 Wien T: 0043 1 7297234, F: 0043 1 7297234, eMail: office@pedalpower.at, http://www.pedalpower.at/z_englisch/01.php

There is a city bike system similar to London and Paris:
Rental charges: The duration of the rental starts with the removal of a Citybike from the bike box and ends when the Citybike is returned to a bike box. The first hour is free, after which a usage fee is charged:
2nd hour: 1 euro per started hour
3rd hour: 2 euros per started hour
4th - 120th hour: 4 euros for each started hour. Flat fee for exceeding the hours or loss of the bike: 600 euros
Obviously it pays to use the bike;  pop it into a dock; play the tourist on foot and then pick up a bike again.

More information under http://www.wien.info/en/vienna-for/sports/cycling.

If you do not wish to register, Pedal Power offers a special service for tourists: You can rent several bikes at the same time with your credit card, without having to register with Citybike.

How to do it: Leave your credit card details with Pedal Power as security in return for the desired number of Citybike tourist maps (one per bike) for the desired duration  - and off you pedal. Map rental fee: 2 euros per day

Citybike Tourist Card at Pedal Power

Bicycle Rental Pedal Power

Ausstellungsstraße 3 

1020   Wien
www.pedalpower.at
Radverleih Pedal Power - City Office
Elisabethstraße 13
1010   Wien
www.pedalpower.at    

I suspect it is slightly cheaper to register.  The one-time registration fee costs 1 euro. It depends how much bike maps cost and how many you need.

VIENNA EXPLORER

Franz Josefs Kai 45; 1010 Wien

Email: info@viennaexplorer.com
Tel/Fax: 00 43 (1) 89 09 682

Skype: viennaexplorer
Facebook: Vienna Explorer – city tours & day trips
Twitter: @ViennaExplorer

The company offers city bikes (€14 a full day) and slightly more expensive trekking bikes (€19 a day). Bikes cannot be hired online.

RADVERLEIH DONAUINSEL

Herta Aschauer 1210 Wien, Donauinsel / Parkplatz Floridsdorfer Brücke 
The company offers a wide range of bikes, trikes and four wheeled pedalled vehicles. 

The Swabian Potato Cycle Route

There are a number of culinary bike tours in Europe and we hope to describe some of them over the next few months. We will kick off with the Swabian Potato Cycle Route. It is a 215 km long family-friendly loop south from the Danube in the four districts of Günzburg, Augsburg, Ulm and Neu Ulm through the Allgau Bavarian Swabia. It is hilly in parts.  Ten inns along the route have joined together and each one offers very innovative and interesting potato dishes.
It is a round trip, so you can simply enter where you want.
http://www.radtour-schwaben.de/ (In German, but the sketch map of the route is understandable whether you speak German or not,)

Youth Hostels

The regular reader of this blog will have noticed that we are fans of Youth Hostels, even though our youth was some time ago. We noticed recently that some German Hostels are now offering one night membership for €2.50, rather than insisting that one takes out annual membership to stop for one night. This is unfortunately only for people 26 and under,  for some hostels and is only for a limited time, but I think it is a pointer to the future. The Swiss Youth Hostels have a similar system for everybody and Dutch Youth Hostels do not demand membership, but offer you a rebate if you are a member.

Basel Cycle plans

We have cycled through Basel fairly often and it is an interesting place to cycle, what with other cyclists, trams and motor cars, lots of motor cars. We are rewriting our Rhine II Basel to Hook of Holland guide as an e-book so I have been doing some research to update our notes. I was interested to read that Basel City has produced a new cycle plan which aims to separate the commuter cyclists and tourists, children etc. (http://www.bzbasel.ch/basel/basel-stadt/so-will-basel-zur-velofreundlichsten-stadt-der-schweiz-werden-126338189). The link is in German. As well the planners want to ensure that the needs of cyclists are taken into account in new road schemes. When this wonder is going to happen is not clear, but don't hold your breath.

Strasbourg's city bike scheme

As we have recounted before on one of our early trips across Strasbourg there were no cycleways and in order to get away from the traffic we ended up carrying our bikes up steps and over a giant bridge in the harbour. Things are much better these days. There are any number of cycle paths and the city even has signposts pointing to the German town of of Kehl.
One item that could be improved is better rail links to Mannheim and Frankfurt. After a high speed TGV trip from the South of France, it's still necessary to wait for the local train to Offenburg to catch an ICE north. We had an hour between changing trains at the central station a few weeks ago. I checked out Vélhop, the Strasbourg cycle rental scheme which is similar to schemes in Paris, London and major German cities. The bikes seem to be sensible roadsters.

You can pick them up at a number of points in the city both from automatic stations (1 € for an hour or 5 € for 12 hours) using a credit card as ID or from manned stations (one day for 5 € and 15 € for a week  leaving a 150 € deposit and showing ID). The shops offer extras like helmets, baby seats and children's bicycles. There is more information under www.velhop.strasbourg.eu.

New Books about Cycling in Europe and on the Romantic Road

We have produced two new e-books.

"Cycling the Romantic Road from Würzburg to Füssen" available from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/291295. We have a printed book which is similar but covers the route in both directions. You can order it from us via http://bicycletouringeurope.eu/.

"Cycling in Europe" available from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/245564
 and from Amazon. Check your local Amazon shop for "Cycling in Europe" on the Kindle site. "Cycling in Europe" is a collection of advice and hints about cycle touring on the continent.

We are in process of writing "Rhine II" Basel to Rotterdam. Here are a few photographs taken on our last research expedition.
Judith hard at work in Zons, an historic village between Cologne and Düsseldorf.

 Neil photographing the harbour quarter in Düsseldorf.

To find out what is in the green baths, visit Düsseldorf or drop us a line via the comments facility.

SPEZI Special Bicycle Show Germersheim 2013

Our impressions and what struck us as being of interest. 

The Spezi 2013 website can be found at: http://www.spezialradmesse.de/index.php?welcome.

The exhibition has got larger. There is now a second area for test riding of e-bikes rather than mixing powered and unpowered bikes together on the bus station which is what happened until this year.

New trends: e-bikes, cargo bikes and trikes, pedelec cargo bikes, and trailers. Riese and Müller are aiming to produce more pedelecs than unpowered bikes in the future. Obviously the major trike manufacturers were also represented, but to my not very learned eye the improvements in this area were all detail changes.

www.bike43.com a transport bike prototype for up to 2 children. The geometry is similar to that of a Brompton, at least for the rider. The weight distribution is designed to avoid doing a wheelie with a child on the back of a bike. This it would appear is a danger with conventional child seating.

www.bicicapace.com (Website in English) very stylish cargo bikes, to be expected as they are designed and built in Milan. The basic model is to be seen on the right hand side of the photograph above.

www.kemper-velo.de (Website in English) practical and stylish bikes including Pedersen bikes and a wide range of cargo bikes. The grey one above is the Filibus. The company does also sell bikes via eBay, but that bit of the website is in German.

www.family-cycling.com (in German but with good photos). Manufacturers of children-adult bike linkage and trailers. British distributor: http://www.cyclesense.co.uk

www.pedalpower.de (in German only) Long Harry cargo bike

www.radkutsche.de (in German only) interesting cargo bikes.

www.drymer.nl (in Dutch, but take a look) A all weather electric trike similar to the BMW C1. the trike shown above is the basic bike without the bodywork.

A neat Hungarian solar assisted velo car -  http://pannonrider.pannonsolar.hu/pannonrider/pannonrider_main_english.html

Bikes on buses in Germany

Germany now has long distance buses crisscrossing the country. Until this year long distance bus services were forbidden and had been forbidden since the 1930s when the Nazi government wanted to protect the railway monopoly. The present government has reversed this decision and long distance bus services have sprung up all over Germany.
The MeinFernBus company offers accompanied bicycle transfer for up to five bikes a trip. The company offers trips between Heidelberg and Nuremberg, Berlin and Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich and Cologne/Düsseldorf  to Freiburg. Prices are much cheaper than trains, but the journey times are longer. You can book your bike online. Bike transport costs nine Euros a trip. We realise that you are coming to Germany to cycle not to sit on a bus, but Cologne for example is a major hub for low price airlines and if you want cycle in the Black Forest or around Lake Constance then the Cologne/Düsseldorf to Freiburg services could be very interesting. The website is at www.meinfernbus.de in English and German.