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Ive been contacted by someone asking me about thier business idea since I ride bikes. They want to hire out e-bikes and do guided rides with lunch in the Chilterns. They were wondering what Id pay for that sort of day out.
I said Id pay nothing, since I have a bike and know the Chilterns, but also offered some thoughts as to their idea.
- I dont think you can charge much and the market will be very small
- e-Bikes are not cheap, so you will spend £3k + on each, plus they will be abused
- you will need transport to rescue those who fall off, cant ride, break down
- lunch wont be cheap unless you make your own, which you cant carry
- you will need insurance, which will require some leadership qualifications
- you will only be able to herd around 4-5 riders at most till it gets impractical
- to cover those costs you need to charge £150 a day
- those sorts of customers will be high maintenance and expect too much
- perfect trails, perfect bikes, perfect weather and perfect lunch
- riding conditions in the Chilterns range from great to gloop
- you can only ride for about 3hrs max till the average rider has had enough
I reckon you may get a few who have a instagram inspired idea of a nice day out in the Chilterns, but they will only want to pay about £40.
Any thoughts as to what people may pay for his idea ? I may be completely wrong.
Compare what guides and rental in Whistler charge and half as the Chilterns isn’t quite Whistler.
Your still talking £150-200.
Whether people pay it here is another thing. Plenty of old people in London with £££ looking for a day out. He could test it simply by renting an ebike for his first few tours even if it makes 0 profit to gauge demand.
Personally I wouldn’t but I think most of us here are far from his target market.
True North Adventures near Leek do this sort of thing around the Peak District, alongside their shop / workshop and coaching. From their social media it looks like they get quite a variety of customers / skill levels.
I guess whether it works as a standalone venture would depend on if you have other income streams to cover the seasonality etc.
I did say to him I was not a good example of the typical customer and agree, there could be some potential clients in London with a different idea of what a day out costs.
There may well be a few, but I do doubt he will find enough to pay off the cost of about 4 e-bikes.
Ridelines in the Tweed Valley do guided rides as part of their business. A general guided day ride is listed as from £105 without rental. In my experience, Enduro / Ebike rental seems to be around £50 - £80 per day around the UK. As above, £150 - £200 per day would seem fairly normal.
A day with Freeride Madeira is about £75 (without rental or food) and I find that incredibly good value.
Insurance costs...
A mate runs a Peak based training/guiding business, though seems increasingly gravel oriented. There is a market, but margins are tight. He still has to do Bikeability training and a couple of days a week with a normal job to make ends meet.
Would he need to provide ebikes to start with? Plenty of ebike owners might be interested in being shown nice places and getting a nice lunch.
Good point, there may well be a load of urban types who bought an E-Bike this summer but dont know where to ride it. Seems a lot of bikers cant read a map or take themselves on an advetnure without someone spoonfeeding it to them.
There are companies that do this for motorbike green laning and beginner trials, so it could cross over. Likewise prior to lockdown Bikepark Wales had started offering all-inclusive packages (equipment, bike hire, uplift, guide/coach) to novices just for riding the new green trail or going on a ride about on ebikes.
In the motorbike world this sort of "experience" setup tends to be sponsored by a manufacturer (eg Mick Extance is currently KTM, was Honda) who loans the bikes and it can act a bit like a demo centre for them. Saves the big capital cost of buying the things upfront.
frogstomp
True North Adventures near Leek do this sort of thing around the Peak District, alongside their shop / workshop and coaching
Having an existing premises where you can store/repair/charge a fleet of EBikes is crucial, I'd say. For someone just starting out in the tour business without a premises, it's much harder
Most hire bikes are bought at trade price and sold after a season, so it's depreciation between those prices you need to cover - but EBikes may be trickier to sell used, and will obviously cost more.
Most guided rides I've been on have just had arrangements with a cafe/restaurant, you turn up and they have a table reserved, but you buy your own lunch. You need a certain type of place that's happy to accept ten filthy mountain bikers for a sit down lunch though, and one which has space to store the bikes safely during lunch.
– e-Bikes are not cheap, so you will spend £3k + on each, plus they will be abused
Not quite. You buy bikes at trade price and then sell them on at the end of the year for trade price. Same as the normal hire/demo bikes you see at a trail centre bike shop
A mate did a similar thing for a year or so in the Peak District, he essentially set himself up as a dealer to buy all the bits, built the bikes (decent entry level hardtails) but it was a huge amount of work with all the insurance, BikeAbility and his home insurance (where the bikes were kept) went up massively plus things like fuel as he drove the bikes out to families etc. He did do guiding as well although that was less often required, most people were happy just to hire the bikes and pootle off.
Then there was all the cleaning, the wear and tear etc. It wasn't uncommon for him to have a fleet of 8 bikes or so returned on a Sunday night needing a total rebuild after they'd been smashed through puddles and rocks by complete novices.
I reckon it needs to be a business where the overheads are already covered so an addition to an existing business (like a cafe/trail centre as mentioned above). Doing it as a one-man-band is much harder.
I used to do weekend work in a Lake District bike shop and manage/maintain a hire bike fleet - weekends were always the busiest time for bikes going out and quite often I could leave a lot of the maintenance for the weekday workers but those bikes got some abuse - wasn't uncommon for them to need new brake pads every week, lots of new tyres and tubes, new chains probably every 2-3 weeks (novice riders shifting gear under load) so factor in cost of spares / repairs as well. You will need a workstand and a well equipped workshop! Plus lots of electrical points to charge the all up which thankfully I didn't have to worry about back then (pre e-bikes!)
Plus lots of electrical points to charge the all up which thankfully I didn’t have to worry about back then (pre e-bikes!)
and spare motors, batteries or full bikes. Can't imagine any e-bike hire fleet having 100% availability very often
You also have to factor in that from the end of October until March there will be very little business.
I guide people near the river Danube in Austria. You can easily take 15 people if they are capable riders.
They need to be told if they cannot ride a bike, they go home - no refund (this happens often on bike tours here).
I used to do weekend work in a Lake District bike shop and manage/maintain a hire bike fleet – weekends were always the busiest time for bikes going out and quite often I could leave a lot of the maintenance for the weekday workers but those bikes got some abuse – wasn’t uncommon for them to need new brake pads every week, lots of new tyres and tubes, new chains probably every 2-3 weeks (novice riders shifting gear under load) so factor in cost of spares / repairs as well.
Yep, I'd be super careful with a hire bike, but I suspect loads just don't know / care...
Another thought, which may or may not be relevant/of interest - I'd be willing to bet that anyone using an E-bike on something like this will;
A - Use it on full turbo-reheat-supersonic mode. All the time.
B - Have the mechanical sympathy of a rock.
Suspect that may impact maintenance schedules/costs a bit!
How much does a stupid Segway tour cost, similar to whinlatter or grizedale as that's your target audience I'd of thought.
The expectations of those doing the guiding and those riding will not overlap. Someone who this would appeal to and have the money for a £200 day out will not be the same people who have the fitness and bike handling skills for a whole day out.
3 hours over anything other than a fire road tour isn’t suitable for non-MTBers, try taking someone with no or very little experience on anything but the tamest blue trail and they’d be overwhelmed.
You are right, even on e-Bikes its quite physical for the upper body if your not already a seasoned mountain biker.
definitely... I would 😂... so unless you can lock the software to eco-mode or something be prepared to carry a REALLY heavy backpack full of spare batteries or leave your clients stranded with no juice left!!A – Use it on full turbo-reheat-supersonic mode. All the time.
The difference in skill/fitness levels within each group would also cause issues - it'll be boring for some, and too extreme/tiring for the rest - meaning only the few inbetween feel it's worth the money?
Seems a lot of bikers cant read a map or take themselves on an advetnure without someone spoonfeeding it to them.
+1, I think they would be better off, offering a days guiding for people who already have bikes* with food stop & backup. Easy enough for people to drive or train it out of London much harder for them to gain local knowledge.
*or maybe occasional demo rides if friendly with any local shops.
Similar to something I thought about, mainly for noobs (mainly retired/older people) to have a proper go on before buying. I'd have a tie-in with a decent LBS and some sort of subsidised/free bike supply/commission in return for a stream of punters. That way LBS also doesn't need a demo fleet, so it could be mutually beneficial.