Danube Cycle Way: Hire bikes for a one way trip between Passau and Vienna

We've just spent a few days in Austria cycling down the Tauern Cycle Path from 1100 or so m down to Passau on the Danube. As usual I took the chance to check out bike hire facilities on the way. In Passau we found the Fahrradklinik (www.fahrradklinik-passau.de) in the old town not far from the Danube Suspension Bridge.  This shop has an innovative bike hire policy and rents high quality bikes with puncture proof tyres and in part Rohloff 14 speed hub gears. These are better bikes than we have at home. The company also offers bike trailers, Ortlieb panniers, tandems and e-bikes. Prices seem reasonable to us starting at 13€ a day for one day hire and 70€ for a week for the normal bikes. E-bikes and tandems cost twice as much. The real clincher though is that the shop offers one way hire to the edge of Vienna for 29€ extra. The shop also offers repair and service of your steeds.

Fahrradklinik,
Bräugasse 10
94032 Passau
T: +49 (0) 851 33411

eMail: info@fahrradklinik-passau.de

There is a second shop in Passau in addition to Fahrradklinik offering one way hire bikes for the trip down the Danube as far as Vienna: Bikehaus. This organisation will pick up bikes from hotels and B&Bs along the route. Prices are much the same as those from Fahrradklinik: One Day: 13€, One Week 70€. Pickup prices are slighly higher than Fahrradklinik at 35€ per bike, but the company will pick up their bikes from any hotel or B&B en route between Passau and Vienna whereas Fahrradklinik uses one hotel near Vienna. The bicycles have only 8 gear Shimano hub gears rather than the fourteen speed Rohloffs offered by Fahrradklinik. The hire base is in part of the Hauptbahnhof (railway station) in Passau. Opening hours in season are surprisingly long for Germany: 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 6pm every day of the week including public holidays! The company also offers a repair service and sells spare parts, tyres, maps, panniers, clothing and drinks.

Bikehaus
Bahnhofstraße 29
94032 Passau
T:  +49 (0) 851 - 966 25 70
Mobile: +49 (0) 151 - 1283 4224
E-Mail:  info@bikehaus.de

Over the Hills of Rheinhessen on a hired E-Bike

Rheinhessen is a wine growing area of Germany south and west of the Rhine knee near Mainz. It is an area of rolling hills with smooth roads through the vineyards which makes it ideal for tours made easier using an e-bike. We put a route through the area in our book "Following the Rhine gently upstream, Rotterdam to Basel, a Cycle Tourist's Guide" available from Amazon and Smashwords. It was hard work surveying the route and so we were pleased to read that the local utility company EWR together with Riese and Müller, the bicycle manufacturer, the Rheinhessen tourist authority and three cycle shops have organised an e-bike hire system to take the hard work out of cycling through the vineyards of Rheinhessen along one of the ten regional cycle routes with a total length of about 600km:

The pedelecs used are Blue Label Swing from Riese & Müller, fully sprung with hydraulic brakes and a range of about 70 km. Chargers are on the e-bikes, so that the battery can be charged during lunch. The new rental system now allows a ' one way rental', - so you can rent the e-bike at any rental station and return it at any other rental station. Costs are  EUR 21.00 per day or EUR 15.00 for a half day, 

More details available from: 

Rheinhessen-Touristik GmbH
Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 17
55218 Ingelheim am Rhein
Telephone (06132) 44 17 0
Telefax (06132) 44 17 44
Email: info@rheinhessen.info
Website: www.rheinhessen.info