Most visitors take a scooter and about half of them did not need one. The honest comparison.
This island is flat and it is three kilometres from the harbour to the southern point. That single fact should decide what you hire, and usually it does not.
A bicycle at ninety rufiyaa a day is genuinely enough for most people staying in the village. The furthest beach is twenty minutes of easy pedalling, there is nowhere to park a scooter down there anyway, and you will never queue at the fuel shed.
An electric scooter at two hundred and eighty is the right answer if there are two of you, or if you are going up and down more than twice a day. Sixty kilometres of range is about three days of island use, the charger comes with it, and it is silent, which matters in the village lanes in the evening.
A petrol 110 at two hundred and fifty is the cheapest powered machine and the one most people take. It is the right choice if you want to carry a cool box to the beach and come back for lunch and go out again.
The 125 is worth the extra fifty only if there are two of you with luggage. The geared 150s are for people who ride a geared bike at home and want the southern sand track, and we will ask you what you ride before handing one over.
One thing nobody expects: the soft sand at the south end. It looks like road for the first fifty metres. An automatic scooter digs into it and goes over, slowly, usually onto your leg. The map that goes out with every hire has it marked, and we would rather you walked that stretch than paid us for a mirror.