General Cycling Discussion - Car rental in Italy WITH bike racks

Does anyone have any experience with renting a car or van in Italy (Milan, to be exact) with a bike rack? And, are the racks good quality?

Or, any other suggestions about touring northern Italy and Provence with bikes on a rented car. Bring a rack? And suggestions for what kind works on most cars? Etc.

I’ve done Internet searches for info; can’t find any. None of the car companies have any information about bikes racks for rent.

About 10-12 of us want to bring our own bikes from the U.S. and do loop rides, 60-90 miles or so, on road bikes in the Dolomites, near Bormio, in Piedmont, and then Luberon. Trains don’t give us enough flexibility to reach the small towns and starting points of the planned rides (and they don’t get us to the restaurants and wineries we plan to siege!). We need cars or a van and can’t figure out how to do the bike rack thing.

Thanks for any help you can give me. This is the one snag I’m running into. I’ve even thought of contracting with one of the tour companies just for van/car service to haul bikes. But we really want to do our own thing in general.

Cheers

I was in Italy in June for 2 weeks and we had a group of five family members. We rented a van with seating for seven. Ended up with a nice Renault minivan, diesel. If you can arrange your rental stateside, do it. Doing it there is very expensive! Even then the rental was for one of the two weeks and was over $700.00 with unlimited mileage. I suppose you could rent a van and buy a rear rack (less expensive) over there at a local shop. Might be cheaper and less hassle than traveling with a rack and then not having it fit when you got there.

I know you have specific areas that you want to ride, but have you checked out The Italian Cycling Center (http://www.italiancycling.com) ?
A couple of friends did it a couple of years ago and liked the central location, ability to mix it up with the local cycling scene, good food and lodgings and not outrageous like some of the bike travel companies. I plan on going there next time I visit my favorite country.

Good luck.

Thanks for the info. Yes, I know about the Italian Cycling Center. I love the concept, and it sounds like a nice place with good terrain. It's just that we've long dreamed of climbing the high peaks of the Giro -- Pordoi, Sella, Staulanza, Stelvio, Gavia, et al. So we want to base ourselves further north. Actually, I think I wrote to the Center to see if they do car hire stuff.

The van idea might work. This has been a tough one so far. Thanks for your suggestions.

Ciao