Best time to buy

rich164h

Unfortunately, due to the ridiculously slow HR department where I work I've still not got my R2W voucher sorted out and now most of the christmas sale bargains have gone (including two bikes that I really wanted ) Does anyone know if there is an overall trend of how sales come out each year? I'm assuming that most brands will launch their new bikes at roughly the same time of year and as such the previous year's models are reduced. When would that be? September/October perhaps?

I don't mind waiting for a bit but I don't really want to wait that long and end up missing the whole summer.

As we are tied to Evans (at hte moment - I'm trying to change this, which is part of the reason for the delay), at the moment the short list is looking like:

Cannondale CAAD9 tiagra 2010 (£1000)
Bianchi Via Nirone 7 105 2010 (£1030 - and I'll pay the extra £30)
Colnago Prima Tiagra 2010 (£1000)
Raleigh Avanti U6 PRO 105 2009 (reduced to £900)
Specialized Allez Elite tiagra 2010 (£800)

But I can't help thinking that a lot more could be had if I were to wait. Maybe a full carbon bike reduced from ~£1400-1500?

Thoughts?

Radioactiveman

A lot of places wont do R2W/C2W on sale bikes. The scheme charge the shop 10% of the value so they make little profit on the bikes sold. Straight from the LBS

They may ask you to pay £100 to cover the costs on a sale bike, the sale cost coupled with the tax savings and interest free still make this a good deal.

Felt Z85 is a good suggestion,won a test in one of the roadie mags recently.

rich164h

As said above, I'm currently tied in to Evans and they will do sale bikes within the R2W scheme. Or at least they did when I bought a mountain bike on this scheme a couple of years ago. There's also no £100 admin fee, unlike other shops.

If only they sold Boardman, Orbea, Planet-X, Focus.....

Thanks for the Z85 suggestion, I'll take a look.

Evil Laugh

They have carbon felt z35s left at sale price of £1299 and they were that price back last summer when I was buying so there may be room for further negotiation.

Saw one in the shop today and it's a nice looking bike, much much nicer than in the pics, all satin carbon. Test rode it last summer, it was not my fave but still very nice.

Aside from that I bought in August I think and everything seemed to be on sale.

Percy Vera

rich164h wrote:

As said above, I'm currently tied in to Evans and they will do sale bikes....

You also said:

rich164h wrote:

As we are tied to Evans (at the moment - I'm trying to change this, which is part of the reason for the delay)....

So Radioactiveman was letting you know about other shops in case you get it changed and if you do personally I'd get a PX or Ribble

rich164h

Yeah I know, and I apreciate the advice. Unfortunately I'm not that confident that anything will change. I have a funny feeling that they'll tow me along for months befiore finally saying that nothing will change after they've looked into as it's all too difficult, when in actual fact they've done nothing but want to make it look as if they have.

Thanks also for the heads up on the Z35. I hadn't looked that high up in the price range but they have stock in my size (unlike most other sale bikes) so I'll take a good look. Are Evans open to a bit of haggling?

Evil Laugh

Dunno mate I always give it a go and am surprised how much you can get off quite often.

They had what looked like a 56ish at Waterloo when I popped in today after hospital.

Like I say that bikes been on sale for at least 8 months so maybe they'll be glad to see it go.