Tandem bike rental for RAGBRAI

Hello. My girlfriend and I are going to do RAGBRAI this year at the end of July. The idea of doing it on a tandem has come up several times as a way to complete it together in an enjoyable way. A preliminary search for tandem rentals brought up only results for those bike rental places on the lakeshore for tourists. Does anyone know of a bike shop in the chicagoland area that would rent a good quality tandem for a week? By good quality, I mean something that we can clip into and feel ok spending a week riding across Iowa on.

Ray

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Permalink Reply by Phil Fox on June 30, 2012 at 5:50pm

My advice would be to rent this outside of Chicago. The big tourist bike rental operations charge $70 a day for a tandem. I found a few places in Iowa charging $110 per week. That said, I am sure what availability will look like for the dates you need... the RAGBRAI forums might be more useful.

Also, when renting a bike, you can always bring your own pedals if you are concerned the shop won't be able to meet your needs.

Try contacting the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau at (309) 277-0937 or visit their website at www.visitquadcities.com. The rent tandems and promote cycling in Davenport (which is near the end town of Clinton, IA).

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Permalink Reply by mark stetson on June 30, 2012 at 10:31pm

You might consider buying a 10 year old Trek or Cannondale and reselling it afterward. The advantage being that you get a chance to set it up to suit and get some experience on it before the ride starts. If bought for market value, you should be able to resell it for no loss. If you do some cleaning and tuning you might even make a profit.

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Permalink Reply by Duppie 13.5185km on June 30, 2012 at 11:39pm

We did RAGBRAI in 2008 on a rented tandem from Village Cycle Sports in Elk Grove. They are the only tandem bike shop in the Chicago area and they rented a Trek road tandem and a Co-Motion flat handle bar tandem. All at reasonable rates. If I remember correctly, it was less than $200 for 9 days for the Trek.
They also rent them by the hour, so you can go there beforehand and try them out on the trails across the street (20 or so miles round trip).
Here is their website: http://villagecyclesport.com/
Good luck. Unless you are equal riders, tandem riding is definitely the way to go.