# "newly assembled" vs been on the floor



## arsdc (May 18, 2005)

I have been shopping my many local LBS's for about a month, trying to make an informed choice for my first road bike (after too many miles running), riding what is available that seems in my goals, fit etc. Focused on the Sarthe or the Croix de Fer (which is hard to find). Here is the question. Should a bike that has been on the floor (and test-ridden) be priced the same as a newly assembled bike? Any rule of thumb, or is it just if the only one is the one that has been on the floor you still have to pay as if it were new? thx
Alan


----------



## khill (Mar 4, 2004)

*Same price, I would think*

Unless you're talking about a more heavily used demo bike, the fact that a bike is assembled and sitting on the floor of your LBS shouldn't effect the price. If there were some cosmetic issues, you might try to account for that in the final price but just because a bike is already together and may have been test ridden once or twice doesn't reduce its value.

If that bike has sat on the LBS sales floor for a whole season or more, you'll be able to get a good deal on it, though.

- khill


----------



## wim (Feb 28, 2005)

> _...just because a bike is already together and may have been test ridden once or twice doesn't reduce its value._


Agree with that completely. To add to that just a bit: as a rule, demo rides damage bikes less than idle customers dry-shifting floor bikes, knocking whole rows of bikes down, and so on. Months and months on the floor can really take the "new" out of a bike. So, as khill pointed out further, going for a long-residency floor bike gives you power to bargain.


----------



## Indyfan (Mar 30, 2004)

*A little extra.*

There may be a couple of stiuations that make the price differ. Special sale bikes. A shop can get "deals" on bikes near or at the end of the season to clear out the MFR's warehouse. If the bike didn't change much for the next model year, and someone asked for the sale price on the "newer" bike, they probably couldn't get it. But that's not really different than above.

Another situation is with bare frame/kit bikes. Say you're looking at a Litespeed Tuscany on the flor of your LBS. It's built with an Ultegra 10 kit, but you want a Centaur kit. Even if the basic kit price is the same and you don't want a custom frame, the LBS might have gotten special pricing to order X number of Tuscany's with Ultegra 10, so the price would be lower on the Ultegra 10 bike. Some shops would work out the difference, some wouldn't. 

In the case of 2 "off the shelf" bikes from the same model year, there shouldn't be a difference in price though.

Bob


----------



## Anti-gravity (Jul 16, 2004)

*Heh, not so sure about that*



wim said:


> Agree with that completely. To add to that just a bit: as a rule, demo rides damage bikes less than idle customers dry-shifting floor bikes, knocking whole rows of bikes down, and so on. Months and months on the floor can really take the "new" out of a bike. So, as khill pointed out further, going for a long-residency floor bike gives you power to bargain.


Demo bikes seeing less wear and tear than floor bikes? Don't know what shops you're talking about, I think I'll call BS on that. The ones I've worked for never had problems with customers constantly knocking bikes over. 

Replying to the OP, I wouldn't go into a shop expecting a discount on a bike that's been on the showroom for less than a couple of months. I'm not saying don't inquire about getting some sort of deal or bargain, but I can say one shop I worked for would probably not discount the bike unless next year's models were coming in or the bike had visible cosmetic damage. With the kind of margin we get on most bikes, discounting is difficult to do. Your usually better of going after discounts on accessories or parts. It will vary from shop to shop, but these "rules" the other posters are stating are pretty bogus. 

-R


----------

