So we had a visit from the bike thieves recently, and I’m down a nice hardtailand a not bad fs camber that was fine but I never really clicked with it.

Now the insurance as come through, and Im thinking of going to 1 decent do it all bike instead of the pair.

I have to use wheelies direct thttp://www.bikereplacement.co.uk/c1/Bikes.aspx to get the bike.
But apart from orange, and spesh whose model line up always confuses me I don’t really know a lot about these manufacturers bikes.
Budget is£4k,
Riding long xc and trail centres as well as light rocky stuff in Wales.

So from the list these guys offer, what should I be test riding at that price point?

You can get the cash. Search the forum.

what did you not like about the camber ?

You are correct you can get cash, but 25% less cash than credit. That’s a big chunk out of 4k.

Re the camber, you know I’m not sure, I just never reached that point of being connected to it and really felling everything it did on a ride. Could have been anything from tyres to the comparatively high spec components on my hardtail, which got ridden more often.

Read this – then ask for the cash

The thread linked above was the one I started. I was in the position of the OP here. I could have had cash to the limit of my contracted payout or more than this In wheelies vouchers. There was not an option to get the same in cash as I would have had in vouchers as I was being given the max in cash anyway. I considered various options but to get a suitable replacement for the cash I was due I would have had to go 2nd hand (limited choice for a 27.5 er) or go via wheelies and take advantage of the extra. Thanks to the good feedback from my thread I went into this with eyes wide open.

Speak to wheelies before accepting the vouchers. There is a lot of their stock on the site which is not available and they cannot get so options are limited. I was going to get an orange which can be specced using the orange website configuration tool and they get direct from orange. However after lots of discussion found I could get a lapierre zesty and use the leftover budget to order more parts which I could swap out and sell the unwanted new parts. I found they could also order in parts which were not listed on the site. Again I had to go through the process of checking what was I stock and what was not. If you were building custom you’d have to wait for all the stuff to arrive (I’m still waiting for a stem and chainring which are being sent on), I asked for the parts to be sent withy the bike rather than being built on. I am finding they need to be chased up but if on the phone are pretty responsive. If I had gone into his without knowing I would have had a nightmare but I know what I was getting into and deemed the extra budget an acceptable trade off.

you can get cash, but 25% less cash than credit.

Yes, but that’s partly because the prices on bikereplacement.co.uk are artificially inflated from wheelies.co.uk (even though they are the same company)
Ask yourself why the cash settlement is less than the ‘credit’ and you’ll begin to suspect that somebody is pulling a fast one.
Just take the cash and buy what you want, when you want to and from where you choose. This way you are the focus of the deal, not wheelies.

Belugabob – you are correct however it was better for me to buy from wheelies. I bought a bike which is not currently discounted as a brand new model which was worth more than my cash payout. I then had enought to upgrade forks, tyres, bars, stem and narrow wide and have a bunch of new stuff I have removed to sell. Appreciate it does not always work out best, but in my case it made sense. I am sure my going via wheelies was better or at least no worse a payout for the insurance company, but it was better for me too so it won’t keep me up at night.

Thanks for the info, the bikes I’m looking at do seem to have stock problems at wheelies unless I want to buy a specialized. Which I don’t. Will can the insurer next week and see what gives.

Ask yourself why the cash settlement is less than the ‘credit’ and you’ll begin to suspect that somebody is pulling a fast one.
Just take the cash and buy what you want, when you want to and from where you choose. This way you are the focus of the deal, not wheelies.

It’s fairly normal and we even has a section in our policy explaining it. Insurer makes deal with supplier to use them for all replacements, supplier then agrees a discount for volume with insurer.

Therefore if you had a bike that retails at 4k stolen, the insurer can get a replacement for less than retail, if you want to source it yourself they will pay you what it costs them to replace it ie less 25%.
A very quick check show the bike replacement quoting RRP on the first 2 oranges I looked at, hardly over inflated.

@razorrazoo – I’m glad things worked out for you. When you’ve had your bike stolen, the last thing you need is grief from the insurance claim process.

@mikewsmith – your explanation of the 25% makes a certain amount of sense, and the prices between the two sites do seem a lot more in line, today, than they did in January.

I would, personally, opt for the cash option, as my bikes are all custom built and the range of items and stock levels at wheelies just wouldn’t allow me to recreate them.

I suppose, like most things in life, different things suit different people, but I do know that it was a less than smooth experience for my friend.

@belugabob RRP prices at wheelies are a lot more restrictive when looking to build a custom as unlike bikes you can generally pick up components at significantly less than RRP elsewhere. I started to try and spec a custom build but pikes @£770′ reverb @£300, shimano parts at list price etc soon ate away any of the extra value in taking vouches over cash. In any other year I would probably taken the cash and built nearly new frame from the classifieds, but given the market direction I wanted 27.5 wheels and there is very little option in the used market in this area at the moment.

Just get someone who knows the law regarding cash settlement to speak to the insurance company. That’s what I did and we got the full payout as a cash settlement.

Just finalising my claim. funnily enough I am offered most of i.t in cash as the company doesn’t deal with Planet X.
A stack of components can be replaced via Wheelies or I can have the cash at about 20% reduction. Thing is I can take the cash and buy everything cheaper again with a touch of research so I get it all back plus a few hundred quid. Worth checking if its better to take the low cash settlement then shop around.