I'm considering a bike trip in Europe, primarily the Netherlands, over a week or two. But I'd rather rent a bike (in fact, two) than bring mine all the way from Australia.
Are there any options for 'one way' bike rentals, so that I would hire a bike (a relatively decent multi-speed one, kitted for touring), say, in Amstrerdam and drop it off a week later in Brussels? While normal for car rentals, I haven't heard of such options for bikes...
I didn't think this was possible, but Google came up with this site (in Dutch) https://www.fietsverhuur.nl
Apparently they deliver rental bikes in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Luxemburg. I assume they can also arrange a pickup at a different location, if the price is right 😉.
It isn't clear if this is just for groups, but you could contact them if you want.
This seems very unlikely. It's possible for car rental because the same company has premises in both cities and they do enough volume of business that having a few cars move from place to place won't make a huge difference to them. That doesn't seem likely for bikes.
However, Brussels is only two hours from Amsterdam on the train, and you can take bikes on trains. Returning the bike to Amsterdam and getting yourself back to Brussels would only take an afternoon.
Unlikely, but possibly possible, according to the other answer. I'll leave this here, though, because I think that using the train to return the bike is an option that should be mentioned.
In the end, the only option I found is Rent a road bike. They do have hybrid bikes (which are cheaper than road bikes), but they charge a fee for cross-border one-way rentals. Overall on the expensive side, but they do exactly what I asked.
There are public rental bikes available in many major European cities Amsterdam and Brussels among them, but these are mainly locally based and meant to be used locally and not to travel between places. Most are operated via a membership system, long-term, short-term or daily, that is only valid on the local territory. The idea is that you use the bike to travel between stations, put it back in a stand and release another one when you move on.
But I think that you may find bike-shops where you can hire a bike for a longer period, although you'd most certainly have to return them to the same place.
Ad-on: Check youth-hostel websites. Some may be linked to reconditioned, second hand or rental bike schemes.
