Anyone heard of them,had dealings with them?

Cheers John.

Dirt has a short piece about it this month. I wouldnt.

That’s where i saw it,looks a little dodgy?

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…

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.

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.

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

Well, this image on their website seems to suggest they won’t really be that bothered how you abuse it !

The Terms & Conditions look rather harsh.

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.

the T&Cs allow hiring.

is it aimed at hire fleets?

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

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.

As my Mum used to say, if you can’t pay for it, don’t buy it.

Good answer tho

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…

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.

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?

can someone post a link please?

+1 to the fair play to Paul.

Nice to see from a business owner

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 🙂

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).

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…

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

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?

Very interesting…..

(goes to have a quick look)

So, do you collect payment weekly?

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?

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!

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.

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.

Example here;
http://bikeleasingcompany.com/all-about-leasing/

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.

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…

Hello,

Once again thank you for the excellent feedback and for highlighting aspects that need further clarification. It can be a little difficult to communicate all the intricacies of the service via a website (lots of copy for you to work through:). It’s much easier to do it over the phone.
If you’re interested in a bike, just drop us a line via the website and I’ll call you to discuss and answer any queries that you may have.

I shall try to answer each of the questions raised here on this forum:

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?

Upgrades are fine with us. Again that can all be done at trade prices. Just keep the original parts and put them back on at the end or sell them and send the bike back with the upgraded parts at the end of the lease. All we ask is that you keep us informed.

Any news on other manufacturers coming on board e.g. Orange for example?

No news on Orange yet. We have had lots of new brands come on board and frankly we are finding it difficult to keep up with the number of bikes we can offer:) So, when you visit the website, you may find some bikes not yet detailed on the site. If you know what you want, though, just drop us a line and we’ll try to get it sorted for you.

Best regards

Paul

The way is was explained to me was..

pay deposit based upon % RRP
pay monthly amount based upon lease period and trade price (+vat at a guess)

option to change bike and continue payments at end of lease period (2 years) or
option to pay balance to make up payments to original RRP.

so, after 2 years you end up with a bike that you’ve still paid full price for, but you may (depending upon your finance) pay less out per month for over the 2 year period. Outwith that of course you’ll be paying lump sums for the deposit and for the final payment.

Not a bad business really as the risk involved is minimal. If for example there’s between 25-35% markup on bikes, this amount either gets directly paid, or it’s reasonable to suggest that 2 years down the line the bike will sell for at least 25% of it’s original RRP?

Hello Again,

Here’s the answer to the question:

So, do you collect payment weekly?

This is entirely up to you. You can either pay the lease monthly or weekly. We are focused on making it as easy as possible for you to ride your dream bike – and that is both getting onto the saddle and keeping the bike running throughout the lease.

We have now split the initial part of the lease into 3 to make it easier again. You can order your bike and reserve it with your first payment and then wait up to 6 months from now to take delivery of it. So, for example for a £3k bike, you would be able to reserve your bike for £250 and know it’s going to be available for you when you want it.

This lets you get “in on the act” for 2012 bikes before they are all snapped up. This is particularly relevant for niche brands which bring in smaller stock levels.

Regards

Paul

Regards

Paul

Here’s the next one:

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?

Intense Tracer 2 with a retail build price of £4200 would be:
3 x £350 followed by 24 payments of £19.27 a week or £83.51 a month.

That means that £1,145.76 is effectively kept in your pocket throughout the lease.

Our 2 year leasing offering is more focused upon offering a sensible alternative to other options for getting your bike rather than on savings. Nevertheless, savings are possible:)

If you bought this bike you’d be hard pressed to get a discount full stop. If you got a discount it would probably be on peripherals such as clothing etc. If you bought it on interest free credit then discounts are not usually available as it eats into the retailer’s margin too much.

So before now, you would have had to choose to buy it outright and have £4,200 tied up in your bike, or buy it on interest free and pay it off with a 10% downpayment of £420 and then 23 payments of £164.35. Credit cards are another option but charges mean that you’d always end up paying more.

To free up your cash from your bike you’d need to sell it. It’s very difficult to put a value on a second hand bike but would you get much more than £1,145.76? Remember, either way, £4,200 would be tied up in the bike until you sold it.

Leasing this bike lets you take advantage of low monthly payments, a much lower total outlay, and avoid the hassle of trying to sell your bike second hand. Your personal cashflow is much healthier as a result as your outlay is much lower throughout.

If you did a like for like comparison, you’d have more money in your household for longer. It’s not so much a saving as being more prudent with how you spend your money. It’s important to note that it would likely NOT cost you more to lease than to buy.

Of course, if you think that you’d get less than £1,145.76 when you came to sell your bike then you would have made a saving. Second hand values are very arbitrary and seasonal and it can be difficult to find the right buyer who is willing to pay over £1000 for something they’d have no comeback on. Remember, this person with £1000 would now be able to lease one of these bikes new affordably:)

The other thing to consider is running costs. How much do you spend on replacement parts, consumables and upgrades each year? Leasing lets you keep these down.

At the end of the day, it’s another option to consider and simply makes high-end bikes affordable as well as letting you get more for your money if you’re on a budget.

Also, remember that you have 4 options at the end including the option to buy. This option works out like taking a low rate interest loan. We really are doing our best to make this leasing lark an equitable option for all concerned. If you prefer to change your bike regularly, leasing gives you a good alterative way to achieve that cost effectively as well.

As an aside, we offer 1 year leases to people who do races and want to upgrade their bike annually.

Best regards

Paul

Hello again,

Wrecker commented above:

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.

I thought I would just correct the numbers used. You can see on the website at Covert at BikeLeasingCompany that this bike (that retails for £3364 new) would actually have a total lease cost of £2453.96 and not the £2543 as quoted in the thread.
Therefore, the amount that is not paid out during the lease is £910.04.
With regards to its second hand value, again this is very arbitrary, seasonal and subjective. It all depends on the condition of the bike as well. I believe that someone would be very fortunate to get over £1200 on a Covert after 2 years of proper use. I may be wrong, but at least with leasing you don’t have to take the chance that you may be wrong. You’d know with certainty that over £900 was freed out from the bike throughout the lease:)

By the way,we fully expect the bike to be used properly and we make no deductions for wear and tear. All we ask is that the bike is brought back in one piece and in a saleable condition.

Even if it gets broken, there is no drama, as you can simply replace anything broken at trade prices. YOu would not be able to do that if you bought it. The chances are that it would be covered by the manufacturers warranty anyway:)

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.

You make a good point. However, anyone wanting to lease a bike will probably want to talk about it with us. When we give a quote we give the total lease costs. The total costs are easy to work out from the figures on the website as well (unless someone wants a custom build and then it is on an individual by individual basis). We think that this is transparent but again you make a good point.

Our concern is that if there were numbers scattered about all over the website then it would all become very confusing:) We are trying to show the most important information.

We’ll keep your view in mind though and would welcome others points of view on how best to convey the following information:
The initial rental
The weekly lease price
The duration of the lease
The retail price
The total lease price
The difference between these last 2.

It’s important that we don’t position the difference between the RRP and the total lease price as a saving as the second hand value of a bike is so variable.

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.

We get the bikes at the end of the season at significant discounts direct from the manufacturer or distributor as well.

We pass on these discounts to you and offer leases at even lower rates. You can see some of these on our Special Offers page.

The other thing to bear in mind with this is that Special Offers are usually cash only as there is not sufficient margin for the retailer to offer 0% finance. Your cash is still tied up in the bike then:(

The other thing is that there is a very limited supply of end of season stock and several quality manufacturers encourage retailers not to discount their bikes heavily, even at the end of the season.

Best regards

Paul