Renting a Bicycle in Thailand

Bicycle hire in Thailand is cheap, informal and mostly fine. A basic town bike from a guesthouse or a shop outside a historical park costs a few tens of baht for the day — often 30 to 60 baht, less than a pound or a euro and a half — and comes with no paperwork worth the name. What you are paying for is a bicycle that exists, not one that has been serviced. The single most useful thing you can do is spend two minutes checking it before you ride off.

This is written mostly for the visitor hiring for a day or a few days. If you want a bicycle you would choose to ride hard — a road bike, or something with gears low enough for the northern climbs — that is a different market, available in Chiang Mai and Bangkok only, and it is covered further down.

• Basic town bikeRoughly 30–100 baht a day
• Better hybrid or hardtailA few hundred baht a day
• Road bike from a specialistBooked ahead, several hundred to over a thousand a day
• Usual depositCash, or a passport — see below

What you get for the money

Prices move with season and location and none of these are quotations — treat them as the order of magnitude. Weekly and monthly rates exist everywhere and are far better value than the daily rate multiplied out; ask, because they are rarely advertised.

Check the bike before you ride off

This is the part that matters. Hire fleets in Thailand are maintained reactively — a bike is fixed when it stops working, not on a schedule — and the failure modes are predictable. Two minutes with the bike in the shop saves an afternoon.

• Both brakes. Squeeze each one hard while pushing the bike. It should stop the wheel, not slow it. Check the lever does not touch the bar. This is the most commonly neglected item and the most dangerous.
• Tyres. Squeeze them. Soft tyres are the main cause of punctures on hire bikes. Ask them to pump them up, and check the sidewalls for cracking — tropical sun destroys rubber.
• Wheels. Spin each one. Look for a buckle and for a wheel rubbing on the brake. Check the quick releases are actually closed.
• Chain and gears. Lift the back wheel and run through the gears. A dry, orange chain is a chain that will break.
• Saddle height. Set it properly before you leave. Make sure the seat post clamp actually holds — a slipping post on a hire bike is very common.
• Bell and reflectors. Often missing. The traffic law expects both; see bicycle law in Thailand.
• A lock. Ask for one. Bicycle theft is real, particularly in cities.

Photograph it

Take a short video walking round the bicycle before you leave, in the shop, with the shop visible. Get the frame, both wheels, the drivetrain and any existing damage. It takes thirty seconds and it removes the entire category of dispute about a scratch that was there before.

This is the same practice recommended for motorbike hire, where the stakes are much higher and the disputes far more common — the method is set out in the motorbike rental inspection video and it transfers directly. Damage claims on bicycles are rare, because a bicycle is cheap; they are not unknown, particularly in resort areas.

Deposits and the passport question

Many Thai hire shops will ask for a deposit. For a bicycle this is usually a modest cash sum, and cash is the right answer. Some shops — particularly guesthouses and small operators in resort towns — will ask to hold your passport instead.

Do not hand over your passport. It is your most important document, you may need it for a hotel check-in or a bank the same day, and recovering it from a shop that has closed for the evening or disputes a charge is a genuinely difficult situation. Offer a cash deposit, or a photocopy of the passport page, or another form of ID. Most shops accept a cash deposit without argument once you decline politely; a shop that insists on the passport for a 50-baht bicycle is one to walk away from.

The same problem in its more serious form — where the deposit is a scooter worth tens of thousands of baht — is dealt with in passport as deposit for motorbike hire in Thailand. The reasoning there applies here in miniature.

Where to hire what

Sukhothai and Ayutthaya. Rows of hire shops outside the park entrances, cheap, basic, entirely adequate for flat riding among ruins. Sukhothai charges a small extra amount to bring a bicycle into each paid zone.

Chiang Mai. The best market in the country. Guesthouse bikes for a few tens of baht, dedicated hire shops with serviced hybrids, and specialist operators with modern carbon road bikes booked in advance. If you want a real bicycle in Thailand, this is where it is — see cycling in Chiang Mai.

Bangkok. Day hire at Bang Krachao, at Suan Rot Fai and at the Sky Lane. Longer hire of a good bicycle generally goes through a tour operator.

Islands and beach towns. Hit and miss. Koh Yao Noi has operators who will deliver a decent mountain bike to your accommodation; Koh Samui and Phuket have bikes but hills that make them hard work.

Isaan and the smaller provincial towns. Assume nothing. There is very little bicycle hire outside the tourist circuit, which is one reason touring in Isaan is something people do on their own bike.

Hiring a bike you would actually choose to ride

If you want to ride the northern climbs or do a serious training block, hire from a specialist and book in advance. Send your height and inside leg rather than a frame size — Thai stock skews small and a shop's idea of a large may not be yours. Ask what the lowest gear is, in writing, and check it against the gradients in the north's hills and big climbs before you agree.

Confirm what happens if something breaks. A good operator will have a phone number, a van and a spare bike. A guesthouse will have a shrug. For a week in the mountains that difference is worth paying for.

Insurance and what happens if you crash

Bicycle hire in Thailand comes with no meaningful insurance. If you damage the bike you will be asked to pay for it, and if you injure yourself you are on your own and your travel policy is the only thing standing between you and a hospital bill. Check before you travel whether your policy covers cycling and on what terms — some treat it as a sport with conditions attached, and the general shape of the problem is in does travel insurance cover driving in Thailand.

If the worst happens, the process at a Thai accident scene is not intuitive and it is worth understanding in advance: what to do after a road accident in Thailand.

Frequently asked questions