ketchpa

After a five day hike in the Swiss Alps, a group of five relatively fit 40 yr olds plan to visit Colmar in late August on a meandering trip towards Munich. All seem interested in some biking around the area, perhaps in search of a wine-producing village or two. Unfortunately the only day that we would have the necessary time for a biking would be on a Sunday.

I've not yet been able to locate a bike rental shop that might be open on Sunday. This is understandable, but if anyone knows of a bike rental shop that might be open, please let me know.

Also, any bike route suggestions would be much appreciated.

StCirq

Have you checked the official Colmar Tourist Office site? I imagine they have vélibs now like every other city in France.

Rastaguytoday

Try www.google.fr

The French google will give you all the hits you need.

FrenchMystiqueTours

The link below will show you info about where you can rent bikes from two locations every day, just notice the hours:

http://www.colmar.fr/vie-quotidienne...ion-velos.html

FrenchMystiqueTours

The link below has info about 24 different bike routes in the area:

http://haut-rhin.ffct.org/balades%20hr.html

Here are some other helpful links about biking in that area:

http://fubicy.org/ancien_site/itiner.../68/index.html

http://www.route-verte.com/html/seit...lang=en&nav=49

FrenchMystiqueTours

Hmmm, that first link I provided doesn't seem to have live links for the bike routes. I'm sure you can ask at the tourist office and they'll have info about good biking routes in the area and probably maps too.

When I bike in France I just use the Michelin maps of the scale 1:200,000 or 1:150,000 to find bike routes. Stay on the small country roads and avoid the roads with gradient arrows (if you don't like hills) and you'll have a great time wherever you go. In general, heading west of Colmar will put you in the mountains so try one of the other three directions.

bilboburgler

Sorry, but all my usual links have let me down as well. There is a bike company on the main square and Geiswiller tel09 75 92 05 21 used to do it, but they seem to have rented out their website to Cyclotheque who appear to be taking over all the cycle websites in the area.

I'd email Colmar Tourist info http://www.ot-colmar.fr/en/

maps at http://www.colmar.fr/colmar-a-velo-l...,27544,fr.html

and a possible at
http://www.colmar.fr/vie-quotidienne...ion-velos.html but on sunday only after 1pm (sorry FrenchMT just noticed you are there before me.)

If it helps a good tool is www.yell.fr, type in "Colmar location de Velo" and surf the sites that throws up

FrenchMystiqueTours

I already tried googling "location de velo colmar" and only found the sites I already listed. When I tried the yellow pages (pagesjaunes.fr) the only places that came up were also the ones already mentioned, although there are other places I found in towns not far off from Colmar. It looks like the bikes for rent in Colmar are fairly basic bikes so if you are looking for something of a higher quality you may have to try another town, unless the Colmar tourist office has suggestions for you that bilboburgler and I haven't found.

bilboburgler

These six are bike shops some of which may be offering rental. Frustrating that I cannot offer more

Geiswiller SA
6 Boulevard Champ de Mars, 68000 Colmar, France
+33 3 89 41 30 59 ‎ · velo-oxygen.fr

Culture Velo
8 Rue Timken, 68000 Colmar, France
+33 3 89 27 41 13 ‎ · culturevelo.com

Décathlon
16 Rue Emile Schwoerer, 68000 Colmar, France
+33 3 89 21 55 30 ‎ · decathlon.fr

Free Bike Sa
64 Avenue Alsace, 68000 Colmar, France
+33 3 89 23 87 23 ‎ · free-bike.com

Peche Et Loisirs
73 Route de Neuf-Brisach, 68000 Colmar, France
+33 3 89 24 30 05 ‎ · pechecolmar.com

Moto Expert
10 Rue des Frères Lumière, 68000 Colmar, France
+33 3 89 24 52 57 ‎ · motoexpert.fr

ketchpa

Thanks very much.

This is already significantly more information than I was able to find after a decent amount of internet search and thumbing through a few guidebooks.

Certainly the suggestion to contact the Colmar tourist info regarding routes and specifics is a good idea. Thanks also for the listing of bike shops. Even if they do not rent bikes, they would likley be able to point me in the proper directions.

After our Alps trek, I would guess that our biking will be fairly low key - so no particularly high quality gear would be needed.

Thanks again.