Welcome

Bicycle hire in the South West of France in the Pyrénées Atlantiques, between the mountains and the sea

Bike hire has never been easier...

The Gunpowder store where our bikes liveWelcome to our bicycle hire website - Prêt à Rouler (ready to roll). Discover the Béarnaise countryside using a 'green', economical and healthy form of transport (see the Daily Telegraph article on the right).

We have our business in a 16th century gunpowder store within the ramparts of Navarrenx, the first 'bastide' town to be built in France.

We have several types of bike: VTC (Vélo Tout Chemin) for cycling around town and through villages and VTT (Vélo Tout Terrain) or mountain bike for off road trips. If you prefer a more traditional bike we have 'Velo de Villes' made in France. We have hundreds of kilometres of marked circuits around us and many hundreds more drawn up by us and our friends ready to print out and give to you to follow. Have a look at our 'routes' page.

Dave is a very keen cyclist and in 2010 did a trip last year from the UK to SW France and in 2011 cycled from the Atlantic Ocean to The Mediterranean Sea. You can read about these trips here: Cycling from Suffolk to SW France and From the Atlantic to the Med


Special Delivery!

pick-up 1968 We have just bought a beautiful 1968 aircooled VW pick-up to make deliveries, so if you don't want to come down to Navarrenx to pick up your bike, let us deliver your bikes in style! See our 'Prices' page for delivery charges.




...And Kids can come too!

cycle hire Children are well catered for too with smaller sized VTTs and if you have particluarly young children we have a 'baby buggy' trailer that clips onto the back of your bike and tows the children safely behind. We have some child seats that can be used with our VTCs and we have recently added 'tag-alongs' to our stock. These are like half a bike that you tow behind you.


Updates

A Blog is born!

Click here to read about some of our trips on our new blog.

A 1968 VW pick-up joins our fleet! pick-up 1968

New Bianchi Camaleonte Uno VTC Deluxe bikes have arrived. See our Bikes page for details.

This year the Daily Telegraph printed a special feature about Aquitaine in which we get a mention...


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But it's not just Béarn's waterways that are ripe for carbon-zero exploration: 10 years ago, British couple David and Lindy Gander set up a bike rental shop in the fortified town of Navarrenx. Cycling around the quiet lanes is a lovely way of exploring the villages and surrounding countryside;

pdf downloadYou can download the whole article (5.3mb) as a pdf. Specific pages about the Béarn and the Pays Basque start from page 10.

The 'Wheezing Geezers' ride again!

We (that's me, Barry and Shaun) are cycling across the bottom of France, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea in September. We're doing it for a good cause too. Have a look here.

New T-shirts

We have some new t-shirts designed for the new season. As we're moving to the medieval 'Poudriere' we thought an appropriate woodcut theme would be great for our new shirts. Have a look on our Merchandise page

We're moving!

But not very far... Our new premises will be the medieval gunpowder store called 'La Poudriére' just 200 metres from our old shop in the square. More details will follow soon.

Finished!

Well, we have completed our cycle ride and are back home (see below). If you'd like to read about where we went and what we did, have a look here

Help!

Two of us are cycling from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk to here in Navarrenx SW France in september. If you'd like to see where we're going or even donate some money to charity, have a look here

Links