[mitch93]

Ran the college Cycling Club at NDSU, so we worked with the Local Bike shop, The Great Northern Bike shop, to get the best price for the group to get 7 bikes at one time. The bike shop understood more people getting on bikes, more future customers. And they gave us a good deal way beyond anything we’d get as a regular customer. I never used these bikes they were for members of the club who couldn’t afford bikes in college to race, So I was negotiating as well as I could on behalf of future riders. So this was also a big factor as the owners and I are on the same page as more people riding bikes the better. On this deal I know we came up only a few hundred dollars over cost on 7 bikes.

Now Before this I had gotten to know the owners and bike shop guys well. Smallish town with not many serious riders (Fargo, ND) GNBC So they knew everyone who was, and if you were a serious rider you’d be riding with them during the week for fun. We had also purchased 3 bikes brand new from them before this. Never felt like we had to have serious negotiations they always gave us a good price and in one instance we asked for them to let us know when the inventory of specialized was going on clearance for a mtn bike I wanted. We ended up under budget and with better components. They could have had me pay $300-$400 more but chose not too; as this was not at all an advertised price and was a bike that had to be ordered in.

But really I think it has to do with your relation to the shop in the end. If you’ll come in for the little stuff here and there and the know you’re promoting them they will give you a solid price. At the end of they day they still need to make money as a business so it’s not like the bikes ever come in at cost or they loose money. And if you’re serious they know you’re not wasting their time asking about bikes because you probably already know what you want before you come into the shop. Our transactions/decisions took us all of 10-15mins of shop time for each bike. If you help them do business by promoting them they’ll help you keep riding bikes.

[mitch93]

I’d only reccomend it if you have the cash already set aside. I mean at 0% interest, granted you’ll only make a few cents in interest, holding on to you’re own money longer and using someone else’s for free is always a good idea to me. Again as long as you already have the money set aside otherwise forget it. Then if an emergency were to happen you would have some extra money beyond your emergency fund if you have one.

Noting on Jeff’s insurance comments, we wanted to schedule our bikes because we race and have expensive bikes, both my wife and I so we have like 10 higher (not top of line) bicycles. We found with our regular homeowners policy it would cost us an extra $1600/yr to schedule about 10% of value. And I know pretty well if someone is going to break in and steal a bike they aren’t just taking one and my regular deductible is $2500 so every 1.5years I could buy a new bike for the cost of scheduling vs paying the deductible. And if bikes are stolen more than that then we’re just really unlucky. We keep them inside the vehicle locked when were not on them and in the basement so typically out of site out of mind. I would consider scheduling if I lived somewhere sketchy.

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