You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Plan A had two of us flying/driving with boxed bikes and associated luggage. This was not a problem. Hire a medium sized car at airport, fold rear seats flat, shove everything in, job jobbed.
Plan A has now been replaced with Plan B that has a third person joining us. They're not bringing a bike.
As this knackers the 'hire a medium-sized car' part of the plan, does anyone have any experience of successfully manipulating the inside of a people carrier to have three seats plus the space for two bike boxes and several bags? Was it a C-Max size (not sure they'd have the height/width with just half the rear seats folded), a Touran or a bigger van-looking thing? Not sure if a bike rack or roof rack is an option as we'd still have to carry the boxes for the flights.
Or do you reckon just settling for a three-seater van be the simplest, safest (i.e. can definitely fit everyone and everything) idea?
Thanks all.
Fiat Doblo.
Got 4 people and 3 bikes plus luggage in one of them just.
Watch out for the "or equivalent" though. The first car they gave us was a Fiat 500L and argued that it was equivalent to a Doblo. I got grumpy. We got a Doblo.
Hi
I have an older shape C-Max and if i remove 2 of the 3 rear seats (they simply clip out), i can get 3 people and 2 bikes in bike bags with the wheels off upright in there, or two bikes on there own with just front wheels off.
Not tried with larger bike boxes.
I previously had the Peugeot Partner car version, that would easily fit 3 bikes in whole with 2 of the 3 rear seats out, something like that would be ideal? In fact with the wheels off the bikes would fit sideways across the boot space fine.
OP think need country ?
Make sure you add into the notes what you will be carrying and why you need the space/seats etc. You can also call the local desk for a lot of companies and talk to them about what they actually have in their fleet
We used a dodge caravan in Canada for similar, I’d consider a van for ease and guarantee of shifting everything (depending on airports size of car hire fleet etc?
Three seat van like ProAce?
If not, any mid to large people carrier will do that no problems.
Good point; which country?
Europe - I'd go for a Doblo
North America - Dodge Caravan or the various other reinventions of that idea.
Never had a problem renting either of those two types in the respective areas (bar the 500L attempt mentioned above).
We booked a Chrysler Grand Voyager (or similar) for the same from Geneva, might actually have had three bikes but can't remember exact details of the trip now! Similar turned out to be a Galaxy which caused a bit of a panic as the Grand is a fair bit bigger. The Galaxy was ideal, could fit the bike bags upright and a person in the back seat.
Watch out for 7 seaters, the folded down seats may not get out the way enough to let the bike bags sit upright - from memory the Voyager's seats would have folded into the floor. The hire company was going to remove them for us if the bikes didn't fit as we'd expressed concerns that it was smaller than the one we selected but there was a fair bit of reluctance to have a set of seats kicking around for a week. Galaxy will definitely work though.
For three seater vans the third seat isn't comfortable. I spend a couple of hours in one at the weekend and my knee still hurts.
We have used something like a Peugeot Partner in Mallorca. You have the height to store the bike bags upright with a single seat available in the back and a bit of room left over for bags.
Pretty sure we had 3 people and 2 bike bags plus luggage in it.
Thank you's and biscuits all round for the answers chaps.
just book whatever with a largish agency, try it, and if that doesn't work nip back to the office and ask for something bigger.
We've definitely had 3+3 in a old santa fe (bagged up) before, depending on the bike luggage you're using, if you can collapse it you'd probably get 2 bikes + 2 (empty, collapsed) bike bags + luggage for 3 plus 3 in a mid-sized estate (think focus).
I've had 2 bike bags (bikes in) in the back of a mondeo with the '1' split seat up
Dodge Caravan or a decent-sized SUV. Something like a Santa Fe would do, or (if in N America) a mid-sized Chevy/ GM SUV will swallow a bike box without even putting the seats down.