Rent a Bike

San Francisco was my first.

I was at a meeting in San Fran. I didn't want to rent a car. So I did a wild and crazy thing - I rented a bicycle!

What a great idea!

I had been commuting by bicycle at home. I no longer liked the shut-in experience of car driving. I loved the fresh and open experience on a bike. I loved the sounds and the smells and the immediacy of life on the two wheels.

So in San Francisco I biked down the Wharf. I biked to Ghiradelli's chocolates. Best of all, I biked the Bridge!

Biking over the Golden Gate bridge changed my life.
Feeling the wind of the bay in my face, I decided to rent a bicycle wherever I would travel!

And I have!

My favorite places to rent bikes are the Cycling Hub north of Orlando and Naples Cyclery here in Southwest Florida.

An ideal vacation for me is to fly to Ft Myers in the winter, stay at the Pelican Bay, and walk across the street to Naples Cyclery for a sweet bike.

Check the beautiful bike they rented me for this week!

The nice thing about bike shops - they are generally Mom and Pop operations. The people who work there love to bike. They will tell you the best bike routes in the area, the best ice cream, the best Thai restaurant.

At Naples their Frank took the extra time to lube the pedals I'd brought from home so I could clip in better.

So I've now rented bikes to rove the dairy country of Southwest Wisconsin as well as the hill country around San Antonio Texas. I've biked the cougar scented hills around Salt Lake City and the rocky coast of Acadia National Park in Maine.

If you must rent a car, rent a Prius. Six years now and my Prius hasn't given me any problems. And if you need to take a bike somewhere - just press a button to lower the back seats, pop open the trunk and a bike fits in the Prius like a hand in a glove. With room for a suitcase, too.

I just can't figure out why a rental company in southern Florida would even have a black car with a black interior.