Anyone heard of them,had dealings with them?
Cheers John.
Bike Forum
mountain bike leasing.
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Posted 9 months ago #
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Dirt has a short piece about it this month. I wouldnt.
Posted 9 months ago # -
That's where i saw it,looks a little dodgy?
Posted 9 months ago # -
Awful website but the concept is the same as when you lease an expensive car, could be a good way for people to afford an expensive bike...
Posted 9 months ago # -
I'd worry about damaging the frame & what they'd say about it when you took it back, a small dent on your own bike & you'd probably just keep riding it , but they might want you to pay for a replacement frame.
Posted 9 months ago # -
There's a lot they're not saying on the website. To me it is flawed in many ways when compared to leasing a car. Maintenance/wear and tear and insurance are a couple.
Financing well specified bikes by judicious use of STW classifieds will continue to be my option of choice.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Is this a serious business proposition?
Itd be like offering brand new offroad ready defenders on lease and expecting them back in a similar condition.
0% finance is the sensible option for all scenarios if you want an expensive bike.
What a dumb business idea....unless its a rip off
Posted 9 months ago # -
Well, this image on their website seems to suggest they won't really be that bothered how you abuse it !
Posted 9 months ago # -
The Terms & Conditions look rather harsh.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Also they require a 25% deposit (non refundable!!!) as far as i can see in their FAQ.
so giving an average Full Suss bike costs around £2000 you will have to drop £500 as the deposit apparently to "minimise lease payments" which you don't get back. Sounds ridiculous to me, if you want a dream bike it usually appears in the classifieds at some point or the 0% option is always going to be better if you really want a new bike.
Daft business plan i reckon it will take the mick out of people when it comes to handback time for the leased bike.
Posted 9 months ago # -
the T&Cs allow hiring.
is it aimed at hire fleets?
Posted 9 months ago # -
Hello,
I am the owner of the company in question so I thought I would post a reply to these posts to try to answer your questions and observations. I will make every effort to stay within the bounds of the forum rules.
Firstly, I acknowledge the feedback about the website and we have hopefully gone some way to addressing it this weekend.
We have a new website that is hopefully easier to read and gives a clearer overview of what I am trying to achieve - which is purely and simply to provide an affordable way to ride high end bikes.
To answer some of your concerns:
Re: damage of the bike etc - we expect the bikes to be ridden hard! After all they are made to be enjoyed! All we ask is that you look after them as if it were your own. I hope that you see this to be a reasonable request.
We expect the bikes to have scratches and small dents on them and clear evidence that they have been enjoyed to the full!
We don't expect them to come back broken - but if they do there is no drama.
The frames are warrantied in most cases by the manufacturer. If they break due to something that's outside the warranty then the manufacturers all offer crash replacement policies so that they can be replaced at a fraction of the original cost.
We will organise a replacement for you with the manufacturer at trade cost, not retail!
We ask that you replace parts that break. If you take out a lease with us you'll already be paying much less than buying and you can replace anything that breaks on the bike at trade prices and not retail prices. (If you lease a car you need to maintain it and repair any damage - unless you buy an expensive maintenance contract on top + you need to insure it).
All in all, I think that we are being fair and reasonable. I hope that you agree.
Re: insurance, we no longer make it a pre-requisite that you have to insure the bike. We strongly advise that you do insure it for your own sake. Household policies are the best value for money.
If the bike is lost or broken beyond repair then our terms and conditions state that your maximum financial risk throughout the lease will only be equal to the lease cost plus 35% of RRP; and it reduces as you make the lease payments.
Seeing as the lease cost is so much less than the RRP in the first place then your maximum financial risk would only be a little more than the RRP.
In reality, the downsides (e.g theft, write-off, maintenance etc) of leasing and buying are the same, but the upsides of leasing far outweigh the upsides of buying. This is all explained in more detail on our website.
This can be a difficult message to communicate clearly and succinctly. Frankly, we have struggled to do it up until now. Your assistance and advice would be most welcomed. Feedback on firums like this helps! Hopefully, our new website makes things clearer.
Re: the deposit. We have to hold our hands up and admit that we used the wrong language. We meant initial rental, not deposit. This has now been amended.
The initial rental is deducted from the total lease cost so that both the total price paid over 2 years and the weekly lease payments are much lower than buying.
I understand that some people are cautious of something that is new and different. We're the only company leasing high-end bikes in the UK. Cycle to work schemes are only really beneficial for employees who want to buy something up to £1000. Self emplyed people cannot take advantage of these schemes. Leasing lets self-emplyed people offset the entire lease cost against tax and recover any VAT paid!
There is nothing dodgy about the business. We have had to go through a vetting process to get our Credit Consumer License. These are given to Limited companies. Our limited company is Great Product Finders Ltd and we have 4 brands, mountainbikeleasing.com, racebikeleasing.com and triathlonbikeleasing.com, bikeleasingcompany.com
They all have a common theme - to make high-end bikes affordable.
Personally, I am a mountain biker. I ride mostly around the Surrey Hills and Bracknell Forest. I sometimes venture over to Wales when I want to get really jelly legs!
I'm 41, married, with 3 kids. I started the business because my bike was £3.5k when I bought it 5 years ago and it needed replacing. If I wanted the same model now I'd have to fork out £5k. I have expensive tastes in bikes!
I couldn't afford that so I looked for another way to do it. It was then I realised that lots of other people face the same problem. And here we are....
I hope that I have gone some way to answer your questions and address any concerns that you may have.
I apologise that we did not initially get our message across as clearly as we should have done. I hope that you can now consider leasing in an objective way compared to buying.
Enjoy riding and keep well.
Best regards
Paul
Posted 8 months ago # -
No idea if your business proposition will work, it's not something I would particularly use but others might.
Good luck - it's one more choice for riders.
Posted 8 months ago # -
As my Mum used to say, if you can't pay for it, don't buy it.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Posted 8 months ago #
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Good answer tho
Posted 8 months ago # -
well I say fair play to Paul for reading this, taking on board what's been said, acting on it, and coming back to give thanks and clarification. if only all business owners had a similar way of listenign to customers the (mtb) world might be a better place...
Posted 8 months ago # -
well I say fair play to Paul
Agreed.It's not for me - I don't lease cars and can't see myself leasing a bike but...
it's one more choice for riders.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Ok I've not even looked at the site, but why is leasing so bad? I would never spend 5k on a bike because they depreciate so quickly, in fact I think anyone who buys a 5k bike is nuts!
I imagine (hope) that leasing this 5k bike would cost less than buying one on 0% finance over 2 years so where's the problem as you get a new bike every 2 years?
Posted 8 months ago # -
can someone post a link please?
Posted 8 months ago # -
+1 to the fair play to Paul.
Nice to see from a business owner
Posted 8 months ago # -
what ever happened to saving up money or insurance, having accidental damage insurance on ur bike means u will never have to buy another one again
Posted 8 months ago # -
Missed this thread initially but saw them at the bike show today and I have to say I think it's an interesting idea. As someone that spends perhaps more than they should on bikes I'd seriously consider it for my next purchase, the only things that put me off a bit are the lack of choice of brands/models atm (my next bike would likely be a 29er for example) and the 10-15% initial rental on renewal, I can sort of see why it's needed but I'd still just prefer you hand back the old one and get a new one with whatever change to the weekly payments.
I don't see why it's a dumb idea compared with 0% finance, with that you're left with a 2 year old bike at the end that you've paid full RRP for and if you want a change you're going to take a big hit selling it on (I know from experience...). As for the other way around - I don't think I've ever seen my dream bike appear on the classifieds, let alone in the right size + given the fact it will have no warranty and there's a risk of getting scammed I don't think that's always the no brainer way of buying bikes (especially if you want a newly released model).
Posted 8 months ago # -
We have had to go through a vetting process to get our Credit Consumer License. These are given to Limited companies
[Pedant mode] It's the Consumer Credit Licence and is available to non-limited companies, place I work for is a partnership and we have a licence[/Pedant mode]
Fair play to Paul though, trying something different, hope it works out for you.
in fact I think anyone who buys a 5k bike is nuts!
I have done, a couple of times. But then I think anyone who spends more than a grand on a car is barking. Question of priorities...Posted 8 months ago # -
Hello again,
Thank you for coming to see us at the Cycle Show FuzzyWuzzy (although I am not sure what you looked like - Did you have the Singletrack T-shirt on?)
We really enjoyed the Cycle Show. We had a 21 square metre stand there full of Bionicon, Transition, Ellsworth and Devinci bikes and frames. We'd hoped to have more but hey, that was all the bikes we could get with 2 days notice!
The purple Transition TR250 got an enormous amount of attention - it was a seriously pimped up bike!
Further to your question about 29ers,
Right now we can offer Ellesworth 29ers.
We'll soon be able to offer Merida's competition winning Big Nine, Devinci's Atlas 29er and Transition's Bandit 29er. If the Yeti SB-66 29er comes here we'll be offering that as well.
Of course there are also the Kona 29ers and we're talking to other manufacturers who we met at the Show about offering their ranges as well e.g. Commencal, Pipedream etc.
We're even about to offer off road Wheelchairs. We found an awesome peice of kit at the show by Mountain Trike.
Regards
Paul
Posted 7 months ago # -
Just saw this on Bike Magic...interesting idea.
What's the craic with upgrading the bike whilst you lease it?...ok provided it doesn't 'damage' the bike and you keep the originals sort-of-thing?
Any news on other manufacturers coming on board e.g. Orange for example?
Posted 7 months ago # -
Very interesting.....
(goes to have a quick look)
Posted 7 months ago # -
So, do you collect payment weekly?
Posted 7 months ago # -
Paul - just for my own understanding, could you post an example quote? An Intense Tracer, for example. For a good quality build (XT level, say) - what kind of deposit, weekly cost & lease period are you looking at?
Posted 7 months ago # -
don't see why it's a dumb idea compared with 0% finance, with that you're left with a 2 year old bike at the end that you've paid full RRP for and if you want a change you're going to take a big hit selling it on
I think the point is you wouldn't own the bike after 2 years? So regardless of the "take a big hit selling it on" it's still more than the nothing you get giving it back to the hire company.
The same system works in a lot of other expensive sports (sailing for example). You lease a new Laser over 2 years, keep it in good nick etc, then you can either buy it off Laser/the lease company or hand it back and get a new one at the same weekly rate. The weekly rate for leasing being roughly the same as the finance payments on the same boat, the difference is you never own the boat, so the payments never end, whereas after Y years the finance would be paid off.
So the options are either:
Pay X a month forever but always have a great new bike.
Pay X a month for Y years, not get a new great new bike every Y years, but they payments stop and you get to keep the (now battered and outdated) bike.I'd be tempted and give it serious consideration, but then I won't ever buy a bike that costs £5k untill inflation makes that the mid range siometime in 2013 at theis rate!
Posted 7 months ago # -
The transition Covert with an OK spec can be bought for £3364 new.
The total lease costs would be £2543-odd over two years.
Saving of £800-odd. I reckon a 2 year old covert in reasonable nick would sell for £1200-odd at least. So around £400 out of pocket (very) roughly.
This may be great for some and it's nice to have the option.
For transparency; I think that the site should show you the RRP of all of the bikes and total lease costs. They could never be accused of hiding anything if they did.
Where they will miss out is the end of season stuff. Many buy bikes about to be superseded for big discounts. This (even with 0% finance) is the way to buy IMHO.Posted 7 months ago # -
I think it's a good idea and would work for certain people.
I agree an example quote would be useful.
I might be interested in a Santa Cruz Tallboy or Yeti SB-66 29er.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Example here;
http://bikeleasingcompany.com/all-about-leasing/Posted 7 months ago # -
wrecker - Member
Example here;
http://bikeleasingcompany.com/all-about-leasing/Interesting, that. Where it falls down is RRP - no way I'd pay RRP for a bike, there'd have to be some discount.
The trade price replacement parts thing is interesting. I could see myself abusing that.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Whatever happened to working extra hard and saving up?
Easy access to credit (to buy stuff people can't actually afford..) is half the problem of our countrys financial mess!
Each to their own though..... the only 'debt' I'd take on would be a mortgage...
Posted 7 months ago #
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