Bicycle hire and repair in the tourist towns and the flat districts

A first step

Borrow or buy three second-hand bicycles, service them with the help of a local mechanic, and park them outside a guesthouse or café in a flat tourist town with a daily price chalked on a board. Offer the owner a share of each hire in return for the space. The proof is how many days in the first fortnight the bikes go out, and at what price.

Who pays first

A backpacker or cycling couple staying in a flat town who wants to reach the nearby sites cheaply and at their own pace.

What leaves today

Every visitor who cycles instead of hiring a car spends the saving locally, and the town keeps a repair trade that serves its residents too.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
  The harbour on the main sea lane
• Ch. FourteenThe List
  Defend the port before expanding it

More from cluster 22

• 426Motorbike courier networks in the districts for the small exporters' parcels
• 427Shared depots where twenty producers fill one container
• 428Refrigerated three-wheelers for the fish and dairy trades
• 429Tourist shuttle services on fixed routes and published timetables between the sites
• 430Airport transfer companies with drivers trained, insured and rated
• 431Luggage-forwarding for tourists, so they can walk the hills and meet their bags at the coast

All 10 ideas in this cluster