So I’ve grown bored with my current bike, I get itchy feet and like to know what else is available so fancy some demo rides. Got a spec enduro on sat-sun for nothing bar leaving my drivers license and now want to try an ibis hd3 and a yeti sb6. Everywhere charges £50! Rip off!

How is it a rip off? You want to use £6k bike for free?, do you not think there would be an endless line of people with no intention of buying one just using it for the weekend instead of their hatdtail for an uplift day.

Most shops charge for demo but you get the £50 off the bike if you buy it. The shop buys that bike and have to maintain it and set it up for each person that uses it.

Depends where you go, lots of LBS will help regular customers out, but why should the shop provide you with a bike free to try?
You hear stories of ppl using demo bike to race on, is that fair?
Distributors try to provide demo days are free.. Whyte are doing one in eversham tomorrow apparently (IIRC you local-ish)

EDIT: Silverfish were out at Stourport the other weekend, could have tried the yeti then (probably) for free… buck your idea’s up and stop expecting a free ride.

How is it a rip off? You want to use £6k bike for free?, do you not think there would be an endless line of people with no intention of buying one just using it for the weekend instead of their hatdtail for an uplift day.

Most shops charge for demo but you get the £50 off the bike if you buy it. The shop buys that bike and have to maintain it and set it up for each person that uses it.
+1. Perfectly reasonable and you will likely get it off if you buy. Allows the shop to keep a decent fleet of demo bikes, and stops people treating it as a free hire service.

Depending on the outlay, and how many bikes I could test in the day. £50 is about right-ish.

As an aside, normal bike hire from my local place is about £30 for all day use for the top end stuff.

I got a demo bike for the whole weekend free, but this was the importers demo bike the shop got. If it is the shops own bike, can understand it.

I didn’t want that to come across as harsh but I deal with this a lot and most people who are willing to spend £6k on a bike wouldn’t bat an eyelid at £50 to make sure they like it first. However the people who ring from miles away because they are spending the weekend in Wales and want to know if we have demo bikes seem to change their mind about wanting it when they here £50 charge.

If we’re asked to supply one of our demo bikes to one of our dealers we will make a £50 charge.
This is for all of the reasons listed above but also you need to remember that we’re also shipping a whole bike to a store and getting it shipped back to us again via courier for that £50 charge.

That’s not too unreasonable is it?

Evans will let you demo a bike and refund the £50 if you just turn up! But I think their demo is limited to the car park.

My LBS charges £50 as well, but you get as many bikes as you want for 24 hours at a time within 30 days and occasionaly does demo days where they get a few importers to bring their demo fleet over.

Anohter option if you’re part of a club is to go directly to the distributor, we’ve had Orange bring their fleet down for a mid week night ride, although the guy looked less than happy when (another STWer) someone launched the demo 5 off the big drop on Stripes in Guisbrough, the bottom out was a little ‘harsh’!

Just go to a demo weekend somewhere, Like this*
There will be 50+ bikes for you to try for free!!

*Not the Ibis or Yeti.

Lots of solid reasons for the charges above, and I agree that it’s entirely reasonable to charge.

Even more so when you factor in the increasing likelihood that someone will demo at a shop and then just buy it online from Germany or wherever anyway.

Wow, some harsh replies!

OP one of the demo day things is good to get a lot of different bikes ridden, there was one at glentress a few weeks ago. They don’t seem to advertise them very much so you need to hunt them out. Quite interesting seeing the difference in effort the different companies there make to set up your bike for you for your demo too!

Failing that as above you will get the demo ride cost off the price of a bike if you buy it, so you need to narrow it down a bit first.

Show them your VAG Golfchick and you never know, you might get a free ride if the guy hiring is also a VAG lover.

Worth a try.

To add, we are running a year of demo events so you can try out an HD3 – see here:
http://www.ibiscycles.co.uk/demotour

There is no charge but you will have to leave ID.

I hope that helps.

Mark
2pure.