Although most bike rental services serve relative okay bikes, some are outright ridiculous. So this post starts with a warning. After that, we'll look into various bike services aimed at the general public. Daily bike rentals are easy to find in Amsterdam.
The 'new kid on the block' is Flickbike, comparable to bike rental programs in more cities: easy to rent and easy to use for a short period of time. You can just download the iOS or Android app and you can easily rent bikes which are scattered all over the city. You can also leave the bike anywhere within the designated area (which is almost anywhere in between the ring road A10), which makes is very convenient for short trips, not for a days rental.
Sounds good? Well, better don't. For now the bikes are awful. Too small for the regular grownup and Dutch kids wouldn't want to touch them either as they are very slow. Even old ladies without electric bikes will overtake you easily. Maybe not too bad for tourists, but very annoying for regular commuters who want to use the bike to get from a to b after using other means of transportation.
Don't get me wrong: I think a simple short-term bike rental service (many use the word "bike sharing" but that would mean in my opinion that there is no rent involved, hence: bike rental service) in the country known for its bicycles is needed. Even for the people who own bikes themselves: you're not always in possession of your bike in case of getting somewhere by train or by other transport, like you hitched a ride from a friend or a colleague dropped you off somewhere.
In case of using public transport: if you own a public transport card you are entitled to the use of the OV-Fiets. Brilliant plan, but lacks the possibility of leaving your bike elsewhere: the service assumes you're going to use the same train station at which you arrived. Okay, you can leave the OV-Fiets at another train station, but than you have to pay an extra 10 euro.
All in all, there is also a lot to learn from what's happening in China with the explosion of bike sharing programs in many different cities, like Ofo or Mobike. Every service its own application and service.
There's a Dutch open source initiative by the inventor of OV-Fiets Ronald Haverman called CommonBike. With this initiative users should be able to rent every bike. In the future a certain blockchain might be used for the system as well, called Bike Coin Ledger.
But back to Amsterdam and bicycles. If you're a tourist and not used to cycling in a busy city, maybe better walk. Otherwise, enjoy cycling and use the bell only when necessary :p
And to designers of simple rental bikes: make sure the gear ratio is good and look at the regular length of the inhabitants of a country ;)!