Mongoeric

Would anyone have any information on picking up a rental electric bike in SF and dropping it off in LA?

My wife could only do this ride with an electric bike. She owns one but shipping the electric bike appears to be impossible.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Eric

skidder

I know plenty of places that rent them for the day, typically near the beaches, but none for a point-to-point ride like you want.

Q: Since most of the electric bicycles only go about 30-40 miles on a full charge, how far were you planning to ride it per day, and how were you planning to recharge it at some of the more remote points along the Central Coastt?

ChrisAlbertson

Riding an electric bike from SF to LA will require a LOT of planning and likely you will need support. e-bikes have very limited range and very limited uphill speed. If she owns an e-bike she would know what it can do. Has she planned out each segment and where and when the e-bike will be charged? Is this even possible? I doubt it. They also need either hours to recharge or you need to haul with you a set of batteries and chargers. Maybe either do this later on a normal road bike after your wife has had more time to train or find a different route more suited to what today's e-bikes can do. I've done this route in a car a few times and there are remote areas and hills that would really zap a battery.

If this is a solid must-do goal. I would suggest starting in LA ad renting a car. Put the e-bike in the car and drive the route backward and keep real good notes about where you can stop ad how far between each stopping place. then drop off the car in SF and ride back.

You CAN ship e-bikes. Put the thing in a huge box and cal a freight company and have it delivered to a hotel in LA. I have shipped 1,000-pound machine tools. The truck comes out with a forklift and off it goes. Cost is a lot less than you might think, maybe just a few hundred dollars to ship a palletized e-bike via a company like "Yellow Freight". You pack the bike in a huge box then strap the box to a pallet. My guess is $400 to go across North America and it might take a week or so.

That said this will take a huge amount of planning and I'd 100% recommend dring the route backward from LA to SF to double-check your planning.

Ok, if you MUST rent. Rent from a shop in LA and drive to SF, taking notes about where to stop and charge. Save the GPS locaton of each charger stop. Then drop the car in SF and ride back to the shop in LA. I live near LA (in Redondo Beach) and there are MANY e-bike rental places near my house. You'd have no trouble finding one.

Also, you will be on a road shoulder with fast-moving traffic. Hopefully, you are both used to riding on highways. It is a VERY scenic route. I was riding along the So. Calif. coast just this morning. It really is like i the movies. Big bluffs amd white sand and surf a bike route close enough that I ca hear the surf crashing and I had shorts on today. I'm actually thinking of taking the Amtrack train North and riding back.

2old

Be aware that you must have a Li battery larger than 300 wh shipped by a hazardous goods broker (fine for not doing it properly is $50,000).

ChrisAlbertson

Yes, but it is EASY. Do a Google search on "freight broker". All you do is tell them what you have and the to/from address and truck show up with one of those hand towed forklift things. We are not talking about UPS or the Post office. The broker's job is to find a trucker for you who has space on the truck and can do what you need. Typically the trucker will want the load to by palletized and strapped down.

2old

Perhaps i didn't search adequately, but I needed to ship a 400 wh battery (only) and the nearest hazardous freight broker that I could locate was 100 miles away. Wasn't worth the drive to me just to ship the battery.