Buying without trying?

I bought a Kona Jake the
I bought a Kona Jake the Snake from Wiggle earlier this year. My first drop bar bike in 20 years. I love it. It seems to fit fine, as far I can tell. Haven’t done more than about 45 miles on it so far in a single ride but it’s very comfortable with 28mm Schwalbe Ones.
I did try some local bike shops and saw some lovely bikes but I wanted a 61cm frame and they’re never available for test rides. So yes, it was a punt – but I’d have returned it in a flash if I hadn’t liked it. Wiggle have a good return policy but frankly 14 days under the Distance Selling laws is surely enough for you to work out whether you like a bike?

I bought a Mekk a year ago,
I bought a Mekk a year ago, online, no test ride. Seems fine.

I think the idea of the one
I think the idea of the one perfect bike and the one perfect bike fit is at odds with my experience.
I’ve had lots of different bikes and they are all slightly different and it made no difference at all. You can adapt to fit a bike and that’s what everyone does when they first start cycling, then your fit on the bike changes over time as well.

I think too many people agonise over the perfect fit instead of just getting on with it.

I’ve ridden since I was a
I’ve ridden since I was a kid, but didn’t test my first online bike – a PX carbon pro – and it was too big after following their guidance.

After that I found the CompetitiveCyclist.com fit calculator which worked a treat. I’ve bought 3 bikes in the years since then that fitted like a glove. I’ve made an Excel spreadsheet to put in geometry of any prospective purchase that compares it with my existing bike to see if it’s in the zone.

I’ve also got a Canyon and that fits best of all. If you’ve ridden for some years and have a known set of fit measurements that work, you can buy with reasonable confidence. IMO Stack and Reach are the two most important measurements, sometimes hard to find in geometry tables.

Bought a bike from Ribble
Bought a bike from Ribble without a test ride as obviously they don’t allow them.

I do live locally to the showroom so I did go & have a look at it beforehand though & asked them loads of questions as well.

I would’ve preferred a test ride in all honesty as it’s my first “proper” bike & was a bit nervous but being a novice not sure if it would’ve made that much difference anyway.

Been pretty happy with it so far though touch wood.

Not only have I never had a
Not only have I never had a test ride, I have rarely had to make any adjustments to the way the retailers , ranging from Halfords to LBS, have set up the bikes.

I guess I must be a bog standard average size.

I’m really not convinced of
I’m really not convinced of the validity of a road test, in my experience all it highlights is how different something is to what you already have, at best it may feel unfamiliar, at worst you could be put off when you really need time to adapt.

I once spent a lot of money on a motorcycle without a test ride. I hated it for the first 500 miles, convinced that I had made a horribly bad decision, then it sort of came together and 15 years later you would need a fairly hefty crowbar to prise it from underneath me. Same with my current bicycle, LBS helped me order the right frame size and got it fitted correctly when it arrived, but I would not have bought it on the strength of the first 100 miles riding. Even then, I changed the wheels, which transformed the package into exactly what I was looking for and now I am very, very happy with my choice. A test ride would not have helped at all.

There’s a lot of psychology around having too much choice, it makes us confused. Different people have different criteria of course and mine pretty much comes down to ‘does it look nice’. Pretty facile I know.