MikeEckhaus

Looking to rent a decent quality road bike around Memorial Day. Any recommendations?

Anatolia

We rented bikes at Tri Town Cycles in the Hydes Park area. They were mountain bikes but it's a good shop and as I recall they also rented some nice road bikes too. In fact, I was going to go that way until a last minute decision to ride the hills 6 blocks away. It was a very nice experience -- and riding around town is almost as easy as riding the greenbelt.

MikeEckhaus

Thanks, I will check them out.

MikeEckhaus

FYI for anyone looking in the future, the only place I was able to rent a road bike was Idaho Mountain Touring, which is in downtown. They are a multi-sport store with a lot of different products. For road bikes, they only offer Giant Contend aluminum bikes, but they are well maintained and ride decently. They have pretty squishy seats on them, so if you may choose to bring your own. Helmets are free to borrow, and they had SPD-SL pedals available to loan as well. So I only needed to bring my kit and shoes. They were happy to set the bike up to my preference, tire pressures, seat position, etc. I brought my own lights.

The weather was iffy, so I shortened my planned route, but there is a nice, flowy, low traffic loop called the dump loop that passes through some wonderful farm country. The base loop is only about 20-22 miles with maybe 1700 feet of climbing, but it’s very pretty. There is also Bogus Basin Road that climbs 3500 feet in about 16 miles one way to a ski resort, but it was clearly raining/snowing that direction. I combined the dump loop with just a few miles towards the ski resort for a nice couple hour ride. Would love to go back and head to the ski resort.

I would recommend Idaho Mountain Touring for rentals. They were friendly and super helpful. If you’re into mountain biking, they have a wider selection of mountain bikes, including some pretty high end stuff.