Is It Worth It To Rent My Bike?

By: Watson Lu

A big concern for most owners is increased maintenance costs and risk. For the sake of this post, we'll go over maintenance costs as those are pretty objective while individual risk tolerance is very subjective. If you own a bike, you are likely already familiar with maintenance costs based on your own riding habits, but what does it look like when you rent your bike to others? Surprisingly similar actually. Renters ride bikes just like you do. This post will help you understand the typical maintenance costs of renting your bike out.

At a glance, the chart in the header shows you how significantly rental income can offset the cost of your maintenance. Below we break out the handful of assumptions we have made to get to the chart above. We do not assume any costs that would otherwise come from a crash or improper bike handling.

While we cannot tell you if it's worth it to rent your bike, we can tell you that renting your bike will significantly offset your ownership costs and maintenance. If you have read this far and want to do your own calculations, I've made this template available so that you can run whatever scenario makes sense for your bike!

If you have any questions or comments that you'd like to share with us, feel free to email us at info@upcyclebikes.co