From: svoboda@rtsg.mot.com (David Svoboda)
Subject: Re: Testriding
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 22:36:56 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.025023.15132@umbc3.umbc.edu> alex@engr3.umbc.edu (alex) writes:
|In article <1992Sep2.194530.20073@rtsg.mot.com> svoboda@rtsg.mot.com (David Svoboda) writes:
|
|
|>I don't know where YOU live, Ed, but most places in the
|>country won't allow someone unknown to walk in
|>with a license and helmet and ride a bike out, without
|>a significant outlay of cash.  Most places do not even keep
|>the floor bikes wet (ready to run).
|
|	HD of Baltimore will let you test ride something, assuming that
|they actually have something to test ride (most of their bikes are sold
|before they arrive). I was under the impression that this was pretty 
|common among HD dealers. A drivers licence and a signed waiver will usually
|do it.

I think maybe you are, as (I assume) a customer, being treated differently
than "someone unknown" who walks in.  I suggest you ask a motorcycling friend
who is not a Harley rider (well, assuming...never mind :-) to walk in
and ask for a ride.  He won't get one.

I very much enjoy test riding motorcycles, and my testrides have established
a list of motorcycles that I want, and have allowed me to steer friends into
buying certain motorcycles.  Testride programs work, for me.  Yet, the only 
dealership of late who has let me ride, even though I ask at each and every 
new shop I visit, was a BMW dealership in Naperville, Illinois.  I have been 
in the local HD shop many times, and asked for a ride (on a Sporty they had 
on the floor) the first two times, and was declined.

This story has played out at four other Harley dealerships I have visited
in Illinois, Iowa, and Utah.

|	It isn't common among other dealers, though, especially the jap
|bike dealers. I don't think its so mucha measure of quality as a sales
|attitude. With entry level big twins starting at about $8K, your probably
|pretty serious if your even talking about a test ride. 

No.  Test riding is my only method of evaluating motorcycle rideability.  It
is the *first* step in a possible sale, but a necessary step (of the several
Harley riders I know, only one has ever let me ride his bike, so dealer
testrides are it).  If I don't get a testride, my chances of buying the
shiny motorcycle on the floor are slim indeed.  And slim as well are my
chances of being a "serious" buyer, just walking in the door.

|Jap bikes, on the 
|other hand, are often viewed as summer toys (at least the smaller ones)

Not to everyone.

|and draw a different audiance, and different sales pitch. 

That I will give you.  Most motorcycle salesmen have been pretty 
unperceptive of my needs.  HD dealers, having never given me a test ride,
are compeletely so.

|The Jap bikes
|are also generally a lot faster and hence more dangerous in the hands of
|an idiot. 

Well, I think that may be true for the general case, but I can think of
a few exceptions.  (Ever see Diana Boyd ride her Sportster?  And riding a
small Japanese standard does not exactly encourage craziness.)

Face it, motorcycles are very dangerous in the wrong hands.  That's probably
why there is not many shops which allow test rides.  My point, though, is
that (at least in my admittedly limited) experience, HD shops are not
exceptional in their cooperation.