My daughter teaches in Central London and wants to use a moped to commute to work, approx 5 miles, on a bike to avoid congestion charge when using her car. She has moped entiltlement on her car licence and, before passing her car test, used to have a 50cc Vespa moped. She wants to hire a moped to trial the change but is having difficulty finding anywhere who will rent one to her. Companies she has tried either don’t do mopeds or only offer electric or are expensive because they only offer London delivery insurance. Has anybody any recommendations for a moped renter?
Try Sootech; sorry, I can’t post links. (@Jay is this restriction on links permanent?)
5 miles is not very far. I would also suggest she hires a Lime bike and tries cycling a test run. Lime bike will be too dear to use every day - 5 miles will probably cost her a tenner - but it will show her how easy it is by e-bike.
Central London is increasingly difficult to park motorbikes in, an e-bike might suit her needs better. My partner is a teacher and swapped from her 125cc Piaggio to an e-bike when our council brought in more restrictions on motors in our area. Her commute is exactly 4.5 miles and she finds the e-bike is quicker than her Piaggio was because it can use several cycle-only routes and it goes door to door, whereas the scooter has to be parked in a motorcycle bay further down the street.
Also significantly cheaper. When she was commuting by Piaggio, a round trip was £4.54 - I keep a spreadsheet cos I’m the one dealing with servicing and MoTs, ±£23 a week.
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I would be looking at an e-bike for 5 miles. I doubt I am much quicker than an electric bicycle through the central london bit of my commute. Plus there is minimal ongoing cost (no insurance, MOT etc)
Is she just wanting to try out the route? If so why not hire an electric scooter if they’re available
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I met friends at a concert last night, I had cycled, they had Uber’ed. Leaving the venue in the crowds they knew they had no hope getting an Uber, they decided to get Lime bikes. It was the first time for them and they had to download the app but got going in minutes. The journey happened to be 5 miles (I’ve just looked on Maps) and they had an absolute blast on the ride home. They are a hoot to ride, and not slow.
in central london, an ebike is probably quicker than a moped. you can use the cycle lanes and filtering is easier.
I commuted 10miles each way on mine, its great
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Why not electric?
She tried a Lime bike a few times and arrived at school a sweaty heap. Maybe think of electric scooter but charging will be difficult where she lives
I could ride to work bearly sweating if I wanted to put little effort in. Never tried a lime bike though, not sure how they are.
Some electric mopeds have a removable battery, you can bring it in to charge, not sure if the rentals will though
I use Lime bikes on a 2.5 mile commute now and then and I live in a hilly part of South London and you can get a bit of a sweat up if really pushing them but cruising they are super easy to ride and baring any effort.
Ugh, you should be able to post links. We restricted link posting for new signups as a measure to protect against the spam attack, but higher level members weee mean to be unaffected.
I’ll have a look as soon as possible (can’t do it whilst mobile)
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you can hire scooters from Scootech City, nr Farringdon
Thanks Zombie but, like other hire establishments, they only rent out 125s, I am looking for moped hire, i.e. 50cc