Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • Test riding new bikes
  • bros
    Free Member

    I’m looking to buy a new Cyclocross or Adventure bike for £1k or less.

    My difficulty is this, I’ve only test ridden the Norco Search and Cannondale CAADX as nowhere seems to hold much stock of ridable bikes in my size (I’m 6’1″).

    Everywhere else want £50 deposits to order in bikes for me to ride. Particularly Evans, they don’t appear to have anything on their site in actual stock in Bristol. Charge Plug 4, Pinnacle Arkose 3 (2016), Jamis Renegade, Fuji Tread 1.3 etc.

    When you guys buy a new bike, roughly how many do you take out for test rides? Between riding the Cannondale and the Norco, the Cannondale blew the Norco out of the water so I can definitely see the value of testing them out.

    Do you just suck it up, pay the deposit and wait?

    z1ppy
    Full Member

    stop whining pay the deposit 😀 , why would you expect them to give you a brand new bike to test for nothing… whose going to pay RRP for that ‘used’ bike afterwards.

    Obviously I do appreciate not many shop have demo CX bike’s, so it will suck for you..

    I paid for one demo, went to several ‘group’ (free) mtb demo days and had a very helpful shop/distributer lend me a bike (which I didn’t buy) would have happily continued to pay to get demo, to find the bike I wanted… as the one I paid to demo, I’d assumed I’d love and order, but I didn’t and didn’t..

    Though in the end I took a risk & bought blind, as I couldn’t demo the bike 😳

    rocketman
    Free Member

    £50 seems to be the going rate unless there’s a demo day

    Even if you can’t test the bike you’re interested in you can test the competition and arrive at the same conclusion

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    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Test ride a bike?

    It’ll never catch on

    Onzadog
    Free Member

    Can’t remember the last bike or frame I actually tested. There’s so many variables I’m not sure it’s much help.

    I certainly didn’t test the one I’m currently building.

    davidtaylforth
    Free Member

    Have you considered a skills course?

    If you’ve got the right skills, you’ll be able to tell how a bike rides by looking at the geometry (and suspension graphs if appropriate)

    Test rides are a waste of time.

    thenorthwind
    Full Member

    Have you considered a skills course?

    If you’ve got the right skills, you’ll be able to tell how a bike rides by looking at the geometry (and suspension graphs if appropriate)

    Test rides are a waste of time.

    Back on form I see 😀

    andcarson
    Free Member

    You are welcome to a go on my Mango Point AR if you are near me in Bristol and that is something you are looking at? Email me if interested.

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    Ask around.

    We’ve a local lbs that charges for demos but will happily hook you up with an owner willing to let you have a spin.
    As it were.

    There’s a huge difference between a bike that lights your fire and one that’ll do.
    It’s a lot of cash and you’ll be living with it for years.

    It’s not a toaster, you need to feel the love.
    🙂

    I’ve had quite a few (free) demos recently, well worth it.
    Cost quite a bit in fuel, but prevented me from making expensive mistakes.

    Even being able to sit on a few sizes or a quick scoot around the carpark can point out obvious things that don’t appear on the spec sheets.

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    When you say ‘deposit’ – is that the type of thing where you pay £50 and then if you buy the bike the £50 gets knocked off the cost of the bike?

    The last bike I spanked a decent amount of cash on, I definitely wanted to test ride & I’m glad I did.

    Shortlist was Lapierre Zesty 314, Trek EX8 and Stumpjumper FSR. I was replacing an FSR so fancied something differet, but a demo on the Lapierre was not gonna happen. Rutland cycling said I could ride their bike around the car park and the only other one I could find was in Edinburgh.
    LBS had an FSR in the right size & Leisure Lakes had an demo EX8 for £50. I really wanted to like the EX8, but it was horrible. Couldn’t get it set-up to feel right on an all day outing with both bikes, whereas the FSR felt great straight away with no fiddling about needed. It gave me tons more confidence & I knew it was the right choice.

    The thing is, the EX8 was getting rave reviews in all of the magazines at the time and I was tempted to just buy one without testing anything else. It would have been an expensive mistake if I had got it.
    Obviously you can’t test many bikes or it starts to get expensive but I think it’s worth doing once you have a shortlist of 2 or 3.

    ChrisL
    Full Member

    In the MTB world at least there seems to be more demo events and the like than there used to be. There also seems to be an improvement in the number of non-medium sized bikes these events have available, too. On the other hand the amount of publicity about these events can be pretty poor.

    For instance there was an Orange demo event at Glentress last weekend. I probably only found out about that because I was looking around Orange’s web site. When I got to Alpine Bikes on Saturday I discovered that it’s part of a series and there are more demo events scheduled in the next few weeks. It sounds like the sort of thing that should be getting publicised on places such as STW, but that’s not been happening as far as I’ve noticed. Search STW’s news section for information on demo events and the most recent article is from last July. When Googling for information about demo events often the first page of results includes several from 2 to 4 years ago…

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

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