Orcas Mopeds

We had some friends in town a few years ago and wanted to show them Orcas Island. We were running late to the ferry from Seattle so we took a chance, parked our car and ran onto the ferry! We didn’t know what we were going to do or see on the other side so we started Googling moped rentals. We found this place, called before we lost cell phone service and reserved 4 mopeds. We walked right off the ferry and across the street to pick up our bikes and got a short lesson. We were the last people to get rentals that day and we got SO lucky!!! Some people walked up behind us and were turned away. :(We rode up to the top of Mt. Constitution, stopped for dinner and returned the bikes at the end of the day! SUCH a good day, we still talk about it! Yeah, so they are a little disorganized but they were really nice and we had a great time. Relax, you’re on island time.

I have mixed feelings about this place. We were in a rush to catch the ferry but saw this place in passing and decided to get bikes. The bike rental here is much cheaper than on Friday Harbor. However, if you plan to bike ride on the San Juan Harbor, I’d say go there instead and pay the extra money. Here is why: In case your bike tire pops, it is much more convenient to go to a nearby place.
Our experience was both negative and positive. Mike, the store owner rushed to help us get 7 bikes ready, even though he was pressed for time. I thought that was really nice of him. He was fast and efficient. We caught the ferry just in time! He made sure that the bikes were the right size in accordance to our heights.
However, after we got to Friday Harbor and biked for about 2.5 miles, a tire popped. Since one of the bike’s tire popped and we were in a group, we couldn’t leave the one person stranded. This meant our entire afternoon was wasted because we had to go back to town and have the tire fixed. Since the bike rental places on the island doesn’t have an arrangement with each other, we had to first find a bike place and then pay for the fix ourselves. I wish they had provided us with some fix it kits. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways because the bike repair shop said that they tire tree was already worn and susceptible to this kind of problem.
The one positive was that Mike was really nice about the entire situation. We kept the receipt and he refunded us for the fix. He also refunded us for the broken bike rental. In this day and age, I don’t encounter many businesses who would take responsibility for situations like this one. They usually blame the customer and the customer is the one who is screwed. He also seemed genuinely sorry that we had a bad experience like the one we had. Even though we wasted an afternoon dealing with this (being stranded on the side of the road and needing to get back into town that was 2.5 miles away with a broken bike), he tried to make it up to us. For that, I’m grateful.

The gentleman on staff seems like a nice guy, he gave us thorough training on mopeds and seemed to be concerned with the well being of the riders. However, he doesn’t appear to keep a schedule and it was by sheer luck that he was able to scrape up enough mopeds for our reservation. The group after us was not so lucky, they arrived to be told they didn’t have mopeds available. It seems there is no system in place to organize/​schedule, which leads to many headaches for customers.

I never actually rented a moped here but I want to leave a nice note, I made a reservation recently and had to cancel at the last second as I couldn’t drive due to a corneal abrasion (ouch!). They kindly cancelled the reservation with no penalty and wished me well. We will certainly try to rent from here on our next trip out to Orcas.