Blazing Saddles

Place was subpar
Overpriced
Crappy bikes that were like 15 years old
Staff was somewhat helpful
And drinks were overrated

It was a bike rental shop and they provided a bike. Not real organized weird policy on keeping license and credit card.
We will not use them again.

We rented a tandem. It was a little dirty, but, we didn’t think much of it. We walked it down to the biking trail and realized the chain was off. It also got black grease all over the back of my legs. :(We walked it allll the way back up and traded it for another tandem. This tandem didn’t have chain issues, but, only one gear worked and the brakes didn’t work well. The bell was also not in working order. The employees I dealt with were decent to us.

Over priced crappy bikes and subpar customer service. They guy we dealt with seemed to have the personality of a piece of toast. We rented the bikes for the day but only to realize that we could have rented much better bikes for the day at half the price at a bike rental place just off the pier. Best advice, look around the pier and find the better deal for your budget.

Great prices for bike rentals and quite the selection. Grab a friend and take a nice bike ride along the path around the Santa Monica Pier.
If you go on the weekend, I would suggest getting out there early so you do not have to dodge all the tourists and screaming children running back and forth without parent supervision.

Rent your tandem and bikes at Blazing Saddles! This shop is one of the cheaper places to rent at in the area. I highly recommend the tandem and then just biking along all the way down to Venice Beach and back.
Oh – be sure to ask for a lock and a basket (it’s free) so that you can put your stuff in the basket as you ride along and so that you can park & lock it as you walk through the streets and along the beach!

For our staff retreat, we came to Blazing Saddles to do their bike tour of Santa Monica. The tour included Santa Monica and a fair amount of Venice.
Each person gets a headset so you can hear the tour guide as you’re riding along.
Bob Street was our guide, and not only had great knowledge of the area (he grew up around Santa Monica) but brought historical photos to show us at different points during the tour.
The tour took about 2 hours or so, and offered great info that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about the area.

My then-​boyfriend had taken me to Santa Monica Pier to surprise me with a bike-​ride to Venice for his 2-​part Valentine gift (the first part was a day at the spa, The Raven).
I wasn’t too excited since I barely knew how to ride a bike (I learned when I was around 15) and I’m still actually kind of sucky at it. Anyway, the man working (I assume shop owner?) was very friendly and helped us choose our bikes. We signed our contracts, got our bikes and off we went! Even though half the time, I had a hard time staying on the bike, and biking in a straight path and my butt was sore the next day from sitting on the tiny seat, I still had a really fun time biking from the pier to Venice.
We were 15 minutes late returning our bikes, but the man working let it go and told us not to worry about it. He was just very friendly and even took a picture of us with the bikes haha Would i go back though? Maybe if I liked to ride bikes, yes. But since I suck at it, probably not =/

There’s not a lot you can do wrong with this sort of business– you give your customers a good working bike, a good hourly rate, and you tell them to come back at a certain time to get within that hourly rate bracket. Well, this place only got ¹⁄₃.
Nick and I always wanted to bike along the Santa Monica bike path, and decided to do it on a clear Thursday summer afternoon. The man in the shop gave me a cruiser bike and Nick a bike where you can shift gears, made us sign the contract, and told us to come back by 4:30 PM. But wait, we signed the contract at 3:30PM, but after you had explained everything and gave us our bikes, it was already 3:45PM! Unfortunately we were finally out of the busy pier section by the time I realized we got ripped off 15 minutes (a quarter of our time!) and didn’t want to bother turning back. We also didn’t want to show up at 4:45PM and argue and risk getting charged an extra hour, so we complied. When we were paying, I realized that they time stamp the contracts RIGHT after you sign them, which explains the whole 15 minutes of getting ripped off for choosing bikes part of it. I think its a little ridiculous– how do you charge us for standing around picking and adjusting our bikes? Ugh, to make it worse, there were other bike rental shops below the deck right next to the path away from all the human traffic!
I just read Tania T’s review about how they give you a 20 minute grace period. They definitely forgot to tell us that! They were good bikes, but for ripping us off I’m only giving them one star– check out the places below the deck and save yourself the money, and the time and hassle it takes to get out of the pier!

This place is the brother rental store to the other place a mile away down toward Venice. I know this because that place rented a tandem bike but then when we rode it down to the pier the chain fell off. I called to ask them what to do and they said to just switch it out at the blazing saddles at the pier next to the gas station. When we got there they didnt have tandem bikes so we had to get separate bikes to ride. And all this effort and we still got charged 2 hours… a lot of wasted time and frustration. The bikes were all old and rusted. Im going to give this place 3 stars but the other place 2 stars, since this place let us have two bikes nice but the other place gave us rundown bike.

Friendly service, but the one guy who was working was completely overwhelmed. He brought the four of us four random bikes to ride that were a size too large for each of us. They should not start the clock on your hourly rental until you are actually fitted and out the door, BUT they do allow a 20 minute grace period upon returning, so I suppose that is why.
All in all, this place had mediocre service and mediocre bikes. While conveniently located right on busy SM pier, next time I will opt for another bike shop that is off the beaten tourist path and has a better selection of gear.