And it is a question – not an advert…or astroturfing…etc:)

If you find a frameset you love, and you know you’re going to keep it for years and upgrade as needed, do you find a way to spread the costs on the frame so you can spend more on components and upgrades over time?

Or not 🙂

persistent aren’t we

Is today the day your timetable says “Alternative Marketing” ? you seem only to post up here at very regular intervals…

Or not.

I think you may find that this is still somewhat contentious from the astroturfing pov.

from the previous thread 5 years was too long seemed to be consensus?

5,4,3,2,1….

surroundedbyhills Is today the day your timetable says “Alternative Marketing” ? you seem only to post up here at very regular intervals…

I’m very flattered that you watch out for my posts 🙂

Nope – not a regular thing – wish I had more time to post on here – but too busy looking after cyclists 🙂

I either save up or I don’t buy it.

Pik n Mix – Member

I either save up or I don’t buy it.

Worth remembering that most people using finance can afford to buy outright, they just prefer to hold onto their money.

Equally, it’s great to not have to think about making monthly payments as well.

I’m very flattered that you watch out for my posts

Easy tiger! Especially since I’m still not sure if buying a bike from you is not some kind of voodoo thing, where you take over my soul for eternity in return for a piece of kit I could never to do justice too 😉

Finance is one thing, id do that to keep money in my bank.

wouldnt rent something like a bike though…..but then i tend to keep things for a long time , i know what i want before i buy them i dont buy on a whim or the latest fashion….can see why those folk rent….

wouldnt rent something like a bike though…..but then i tend to keep things for a long time

Where did renting come into it?

No, a bike is cheap enough, if I want it, I just buy it. I wouldn’t have wanted to spread the cost, seems silly for something that’s basically a discretionary toy with (potentially) limited lifespan, even though in practice I’ve held on to them for many years (last one bought around 2002, I think).

thecaptain – Member

No, a bike is cheap enough

Some are….some are not….many are definitely not 🙂

How does spreading the cost allow you to spend more “over time”? Surely the only thing that costs more are the interest and admin fees?

warpcow – Member

How does spreading the cost allow you to spend more “over time”?

Remember you’d be spending that money anyway in all liklihood. Have you ever bought a bike and then spent no more money on bike kit and upgrades etc for years?

That’s exactly his point. I want to save my “bike” money to spend on bike stuff, not on interest fees and admin charges.

warpcow – Member

Surely the only thing that costs more are the interest and admin fees?

That’s quite a leap – who said anything about fees and interest? 🙂

P.S. I didn’t start this post with a point of view that everyone should use finance for any period of time. I just figured it might be another way to look at it.

Most people don’t think about cycling in terms of a monthly budget for a hobby. They often do for gym memberships etc though. I wonder if riders think about the money they spend over time on bike stuff in any detail.

Some are….some are not….many are definitely not

OK, I’m rich enough, if I want it, I just buy it 🙂

How the hell are a finance company going to repossess a frameset from out of the rest of a bike if you stop paying them?

This is the most thinly veiled astroturfing thread ever, even less so than the other one! You clearly have strong opinions, based on your own business model, which has been lambasted on here a few times.

njee20 – Member

This is the most thinly veiled astroturfing thread ever, even less so than the other one! You clearly have strong opinions, based on your own business model, which has been lambasted on here a few times.

Thank you for your contribution. So what is your answer to the question? 🙂

I find spreading the cost over a number of years allows me to spend more on turf for my garden and a telescope for astronomy.

Putting the phrase another way

One Do! 😀

It doesn’t really sound like you’re genuinely interested in anyone else’s pov, though. Every time somebody disagrees with your model, you jump in with, “remember…”

You obviously have a business model and it looks like that’s working for you, more power to you. But your threads here smack of astroturfing, whether they are or not.

This site has a lot of users in the high earner bracket, this probably isn’t really your demographic and as such you’re going to get a lot of disagreement with your pov.

P.S. I have no useful contribution to make!

0% finance mr swanky great you offer what appears to be competitive consumer credit for relatively pricey purchases, but don’t your finance and lease deals also include insurance, I seem to remember being a bit shocked at that on a previous thread concerning your business…

Oh and the insurer applies 25% apr apparently…. get any commission for selling unnecessary policies to people who already have home contents insurance? No wonder you’re keen on flogging five years of “finance”…

What’s astro turfing? seriously I thought this was what you did to a five a side pitch
I must be getting old is this some new fangled inter Web thing

cookeaa – Member

0% finance mr swanky great you offer what appears to be competitive consumer credit for relatively pricey purchases, but don’t your finance and lease deals also include insurance, I seem to remember being a bit shocked at that on a previous thread concerning your business…

Hi cookeaa,

Thanks for the compliment. To answer your specific question, leases include insurance, and it’s an option on 0% finance.

It’s always an education when people jump to negative conclusions when in actual fact something is there to help.

Take your observation below as an example:

Oh and the insurer applies 25% apr apparently…. get any commission for selling unnecessary policies to people who already have home contents insurance? No wonder you’re keen on flogging five years of “finance”…

Where did that come from? ❓ We’ve stripped all the commission out of the insurance plus we’ve made it so that leasing customers only pay for insurance on the trade price of the bikes rather than the full retail price as that is all that is needed to enable us to replace the bike for them if it goes missing or is damaged beyond repair.

We make no money whatsoever from insurance. To do otherwise would not be in the best interests of members.

You may have been shocked by the prices previously if you hadn’t taken into account the fact that the leases have 2 years of insurance built into them, and not 1.

As for commission on the finance – again I can only presume you’ve not read through our FAQs and About us pages.

We pay the interest for our members. That’s how it works throughout the industry. If we were to offer 5 years 0% finance, we’d have a bigger interest bill to pay for our members, it’s as straight forward as that.

As for home insurance, usually it is capped at £1000 on most policies so people with expensive bikes usually have to take out a separate policy which often works out at around 9% of the RRP a year.

If you want to take out one of these insurance policies and pay it off over 12 months, then the insurers usually use a company called Premium Credit. They charge anything from 18% to 43% APR – and yes the insurer takes sizeable commission from this as well from Premium Credit.

The point we’re making on the site is that we think that is wrong, so we’re doing it differently and passing on the savings to our members….not to you obviously….. as you’re convinced we must be doing something underhand 🙂

You’re absolutely right that there is a hell of a lot going on in the cycling industry that is making it an unecessarily expensive sport for many. We’re simply trying to reverse this trend as best we can.

Why is this person still allowed to post?

Monthly gym/club/whatever membership is only for the benefit of the gyms.
It’s the business model that works – same for mobile phone contracts.
Both rely on people not using the product as much as they think they will.

In nearly all cases, it would be cheaper for people to avoid this route. But they get sucked in by marketing messages and ‘offers’. It’s for people who never really examine the actual value of what they are buying.

as you’re convinced we must be doing something underhand

You certainly do on this forum, so it’s not difficult to make the leap.

Why is this person still allowed to post?

I think the term is “self policing.”

Why is this person still allowed to post?

Monthly gym/club/whatever membership is only for the benefit of the gyms.
It’s the business model that works – same for mobile phone contracts.
Both rely on people not using the product as much as they think they will.

In nearly all cases, it would be cheaper for people to avoid this route. But they get sucked in by marketing messages and ‘offers’. It’s for people who never really examine the actual value of what they are buying.

Alex, the statement above was correcting an observation made incorrectly.

Do you really think what I am saying has anything whatsoever to do with gym membership or mobile phone models? It doesn’t. Sorry.

AlexSimon – Member

as you’re convinced we must be doing something underhand

You certainly do on this forum, so it’s not difficult to make the leap.

Alex, I’m not sure how much more transparent I could be other than using the name I do and posting things as I do.

I’m not pretending to be anything other than what I am. I am entitled to my own opinions and you are perfectly entitled to your own.

However, if you state something as fact about what I am saying that is fundamentally incorrect and frankly mud slingling, then you’ll be answered with the correct facts as they are in reality.

Worth remembering that I would rather give up riding than buy anything from you 🙂

Tell me more about Astroturfing

Astroturfing

Something to do with lawns on the moon.

Something to do with lawns on the moon.

[bad joke]
Except that if it worked you’d be harvesting loads of cheddar.

[/appologies]