Me and my girlfriend are looking to spend around £1400 on two hardtails, i rang the shop and asked them could we come down and try a gt avalanche a mongoose tyax and a giant xtc for size and feel of the bikes. I was told that we could sit on the bikes in the shop but were not allowed to take them outside for a spin in the car park even on a dry day as it would be too much hassle and that the tyres would get dirty. In todays economic climate i am totally staggered that this shop has turned away £1400 of my money. One can only assume that they do not need my business. Is this general shop practice if you want to buy a bike. I will take my custom elsewhere as i think their attitude is a complete and utter disgrace.

My LBS will let you out in the car park and on the road. As a result we’ve spent thousands with them through the company cycle scheme.

Lots of shops will let you try out bikes, lots won’t – for various reasons.

I actually think this ride round the car park thing that people demand is a load of rubbish. I doubt even the most experienced bike tester can tell much about the ride of a bike in only a spin around a car park, let alone the average bike buyer (I’m not saying you are either of these).

To test a bike you need to be able to take it out for a few hours at least. Try a bike shop that lets you take a bike out for part of the day and actually keeps a stock of demo bikes.

a pedal in the car park is worth a hell of a lot more than sitting on one in the shop

Location – Liverpool. Enough said.

I wanted to test ride a Boardman bike, no halfords i tried would let me, sent an email to customer services, and they said no as well, so i just said no to a new bike from them,
I also went to a Giant stockist, they said they wouldnt build one up for me, unless i bought it, as they may not be able to sell it, i was going to point out it was a bike shop and they sold bikes, again i didnt buy a bike off them.

There are just some idiots out there who own bike shops, and a lot of us customers whom want to spend money on buying a bike, you dont buy a car without a test drive do you.

a pedal in the car park is worth a hell of a lot more than sitting on one in the shop

+1

It’s clearly not a conclusive test ride, but in the absence of a proper multi-hour ride it’ll tell you more than sitting on it stationary. When I’ve been in between sizes I (and 10 years working in a shop tells me that most people) can choose between them within 5 minutes in the car park.

Had exactly this in the past – Halfords wouldn’t allow a test spin in the car park, so schlepped off to LBS, test rode two bikes and paid cash 🙂 Just had to leave my wallet in the shop whilst testing.

what is wrong with liverpool shandy it is gods country lol.

Shandy – Member
Location – Liverpool. Enough said.

your a helmet, enough said

it does vary a lot from shop to shop. I decided to do a test ride inside the shop once, as they wouldn’t let me take it outside. Not great but better than nothing.
I’ve also ruled out shops and bikes based purely on the lack of test rides available.

A test ride???? You should try being 6’4″ and needing XL size bikes. Most shops won’t even get one in for you to sit on let alone ride it.

Foxyboy, Ive used most Bike shops on merseyside at somepoint, there are a couple i use on aregular basis, depends where abouts your based, mail in profile if you want to discuss.

your a helmet

You’re

enough said.

Cycle Surgery don’t let you ride either unless you hand over your credit card details first. Can understand why, wouldn’t want any local scoats doing a runner with a bike if I owned a shop.

you dont buy a car without a test drive do you

Yes, but …

People buy beds by lying on them pencil-straight & fully clothed. I’ve never known anyone borrow one to test for a nights sleep & sex with the wife.

People buy fridges by opening & closing them in the electricals showroom. They don’t choose it on it’s ability to actually keep things cold.

Nobody demands a taste sample of all the items in my Tesco shopping.

😉

You’re

enough said.

go away ya bore

Its a significant cost to run test bikes – especially if yo want them in a range of sizes. It could be thousands of pounds in costs and tens of thousands of pounds worth of cash sitting doing nothing

I know some shops charge for a proper test ride and then refund the cost if you buy the bike but that was disliked on here.

You could of course pay more for your bike and have test rides avaialble for free>

People buy beds by lying on them pencil-straight & fully clothed. I’ve never known anyone borrow one to test for a nights sleep & sex with the wife.

We bought our last one after 4 nights in a hotel on it, we liked it so much we went out and bought one just the same

A test ride???? You should try being 6’4″ and needing XL size bikes. Most shops won’t even get one in for you to sit on let alone ride it.

My colleague is having that issue. Hargroves and Pedalon have beent eh most accommodating so far.

People buy beds by lying on them pencil-straight & fully clothed. I’ve never known anyone borrow one to test for a nights sleep & sex with the wife.

If I didn’t have a comfy night sleep then I could take it back up to 6 months later. A lot of mattress shops have that policy and some even advertise it!

My old LBS would only let me take a bike out around the industrial park. One (sunny/dry) day I thought “**** that, especially if I’m gonna spend £1500+” and headed off down the old railway line to some woods. Had a good 20 min spin and then returned. Decided I didn’t like the suspension and wouldn’t be buying it. They had a rant about me getting dust/dry mud on the tyres to which I said “If I’d bought the bike off the back of a 5 min tarmac spin then I’d have a rant about how it didn’t feel right off-road, i.e where I’m gonna use it.”

Never went back after that.

go away ya bore

“Go away you bore.”

Surely? Possibly even with a comma after ‘away’ if you fancied one.

After foolishly blowing £15k on bikes in the last twelve months I’ve spent a lot of time in bike shops, mainly Twelve50 cycles in Frodsham. I’ve seen many a tyre kicker come in, use about an hour of manpower dithering about which bike they want, narrow it down to one and then say “well I’ll have a chat to the wife” and then disappear never to be seen.

If they allowed said tyre kicker to disappear into the local woods they not only allow a total stranger the option to destroy the bike, but they probably won’t be insured for the stock to be given out on demonstration this way, they would then still get the same weak “need the wife’s permission” at the end of the ride and then spend another hour cleaning the bike to make it look presentable enough to be desirable for the next person.

After a few months a bike they could have got full RRP for is now worth a lot less. Multiply that by the whole range and they’ve given away a lot of profit.

It weeds out the serious buyers from the moaners, tyre kickers and thieves.

your a helmet, enough said

The famous scouse sense of humour that vanishes the moment anyone says owt bad about the place?

It weeds out the serious buyers from the moaners, tyre kickers and thieves.

But the point being argued is that, if you don’t let anyone test ride a bike, you’re weeding out the serious buyers too, isn’t it?

I’ve always had good experiences of test riding bikes

Borrowed a top of the range scott spark £3.5k for a weekend in the peaks (trail junkies)

Lapierre zesty (for the weekend) and specialized enduro (for the week) from Worcester cycle centre

A stanton slackline for a day from stanton themselves in Bristol

Try and get involved in a forum/group/club ride near you. Most folk are usually ok about ya having a wee spin on their bike – or if you are near a trail centre get a demo bikefor a wee while.

It’s a catch 22 situation. What does the shop do with a ‘test soiled’ bike? Would you buy one at full price? I’m sure most people on here would be amazed at how difficult it is to deal with the big suppliers. I had my fingers burned on more than one occasion with customers deciding at the last minute that they didn’t want the bike I’d ordered in especially for them. Needless to say the owner of the shop was not best pleased, as you don’t get stock on a ‘sale or return’ basis. Not every shop has access to demo bikes either. That said, a lot of LBS don’t do themselves any favours when dealing with customers.

JonR – Member
The famous scouse sense of humour that vanishes the moment anyone says owt bad about the place?

Duno, i think helmet is a funny insult…

Duno, i think helmet is a funny insult…

I don’t know, I think helmet is a funny insult.

*sighs*

People buy beds by lying on them pencil-straight & fully clothed. I’ve never known anyone borrow one to test for a nights sleep & sex with the wife.

You don’t buy many beds then – my one had a 90 day return/exchange policy (although not the loan of anyone’s wife).

The famous scouse sense of humour that vanishes the moment anyone says owt bad about the place?

Is that the same as in the STW community?

i.e. some members are all friendly and agreeable … until you have the nerve to disagree with an opinion they’ve posted

😈

Please stick to the original post and for gods sake stop having a petty bitch at each other. thank you.

They weren’t turning down £1400 of OP’s money as he wasn’t offering it, he was asking gor a free go on their bikes.

They obviously decided margin and probability of the sale wasn’t sufficient to justify overheads of dealing with ‘customer’, cleaning bikes after and so on. So it goes, that’s their call.

OP had a pretty good idea what he wanted to test, maybe they concluded he wanted a try out before buying online. Who knows.

Business is business, all they are doing is trying to make a living just as OP has right to spend where he wishes. No one has any right to feel hard done by.

Please stick to the original post please and for gods sake stop having a petty bitch at each other. thank you.

Follow the owner home and show ’em who’s boss?

TandemJeremy – Member
Its a significant cost to run test bikes – especially if yo want them in a range of sizes. It could be thousands of pounds in costs and tens of thousands of pounds worth of cash sitting doing nothing

I was told that we could sit on the bikes in the shop but were not allowed to take them outside for a spin in the car park even on a dry day

They have the bike in stock, taking it around the car park would cost nothing.

But the point being argued is that, if you don’t let anyone test ride a bike, you’re weeding out the serious buyers too, isn’t it?

Nah, the serious buyers just buy.

The reason i chose this shop was because it was local and i wanted the after sales service after i had bought the bikes.