CheGiantForLife

Disclaimer: I do not lease, I pay cash, but is there a biz oppty here?

Some bikes cost as a car.
Why can't we lease bicycles ?
What prevents this from being a thing ?

njkayaker

The majority of the bicycle market, most likely, are bikes that cost < $2000. The bikes that "cost as much as a car" ($20k) is, very likely, a tiny fraction of the market for bicycles.

The bikes that cost as much as a car are being purchased by wealthy people (generally). They don't need a lease.

Part of car leases is the residual value at the end of the lease. Used bicycles don't seem to have that much value after 3 years. There's also a very well-established market for used cars.

People selling car leases have lots of experience doing that and leases are an important part of making money selling cars. Bicycle sellers have no experience selling leases. And selling leases for < $2000 might not be worth the trouble.

There's a big market for car leases. The market for bicycle leases is, very likely, much smaller.

m.c. 

Some companies now offer financing on them but I don't see them offering leasing. The company doesn't want the old used bike back at the end of the lease term. Then then need to pay people to deal with collecting them, rehab them, etc. Hard to get back if they don't pay. A good portion of the value is in parts that are easily separated from the frame.

Rolla

Already a thing.

https://www.wheelease.com/

Iride01

Probably not enough people wanting to ride bikes in a price range that requires them to finance them. Additionally for those that do finance them, they probably think their bike will be the one and only bike they'll ever need.

The only thing that prevents it from being a thing is no one sees any money to be made in it that can't be more easily made elsewhere. If you can do so, then maybe you should do it.

I don't lease cars, nor do I finance them. So I doubt I'd be your customer.

Badger6

No. Lack of a resale market makes this a loser for the bike companies.

njkayaker

Not a big thing. And only, at the moment, in Southern California.

$200 + 12*80 = $1160. $200 + 24*50 = $1200. The end-of-lease purchase price is likely significantly more than $800.

livedarklions

I doubt the companies that finance bikes actually repo them upon default for mostly the same reasons. For one thing, repoing a car is much easier because cars are relatively easy to track down. Good luck tracing the bike when the borrower stops paying.
People don't realize that when you use a store credit card to purchase items in the store that's on the card, the store often has a PMSI on the goods, meaning they can repo them if you don't pay the credit card. The reason they don't realize it is that Best Buy and the like don't really follow through on this very often.

indyfabz

DonkeyShow

How many miles do you get? New bikes are soo great...

zandoval 

Pretty close to our new trend of the Disposable Society...

You got the money? Hey, I'll lease ya a bike... Ba-Duh-Bump...

DonkeyShow

I got anything you want if you got the money.

m.c. 

I couldn't see them spending the money to repo a bicycle, maybe if its a high dollar one and the condition and location are known. Usually a defaulted loan or credit card ends up in a civil suit if its a large enough debt and negative things on their credit report. I knew someone in college that kept defaulting on things, the amazing part was that there was always a company giving her more money.

Mojo31

That and -

No titling of bikes and therefore no way to prevent them rolling off
The return on investment would be too small and demand a very high volume of business
Bikes are toys and cars are necessities in most places

There is more money in financing a $2,000 or $3,000 bike at 15% than there is in leasing a $2,000 or $3,000 bike at 5%.

skidder

IF you just want to try out a bicycle see if you can rent it for a weekend. Its not too common, but I've seen it in a few branded stores (Trek, Specialized, etc). Pretty popular with hi-end sports cars. I rented a Porsche 911 for a weekend to see what it was like, and ended up not buying one. While it appealed to my 'machismo', my practical side couldn't see buying a +100 mph car when there's nowhere to (legally) drive it that fast here in Southern California, it only has two seats (usable seats), and maintenance costs were astoundingly high.

Rolla

I didn't say it was big, although it's also a thing in Europe and Australia. Often, companies lease a fleet for their employees.


https://www.lease-a-bike.nl/en
https://www.republicdutch.com/lease-a-bike/
https://www.lekkerbikes.com/company-ebike-lease/
https://www.o2o.be/en/

wolfchild

.
Leasing involves monthly payments. Monthly payments for a bicycle is just a bad financial decision and it doesn't make any sense I would never pay monthly fees just to ride a bicycle...Pay cash and buy something that you can afford .

Racing Dan

In Europe bike leasing is available and somewhat popular. Swapfiets is one such company, available in several countries.

https://swapfiets.co.uk/?_ga=2.10557...056.1657148933

dedhed

In a large portion of this country biking is not a year round thing

tkamd73 

You never lease something, that you can just easily pay cash for.
Tim

phughes

Can you lease a bike with a golf club carrier?

Herzlos

One of mine is a lease, sorta. There's a tax free scheme in the UK where you rent the bike for 12 months and then can buy it at the end for some puny sum. It means you can get a bike for about 30% off retail, with 12 months interest free.

I've also seen a lot of ads for a kids bike leasing scheme, where for a monthly payment you get a bike that you can change whenever they grow.

There's also plenty of short-ish term hire, for up to about a month.

But really, I don't think there's that much demand, the vast vast majority of bikes being sold are under maybe $1000 (possibly $500), through retailers that already offer various credit payment schemes.
Most bikes just aren't worth enough to bother with the overhead cost of leasing them, having to potentially take them back and so on.

Sy Reene

Sorta on the topic of rentals, surprised it's not commonly available to rent power meter pedals.

WhyFi

Finding the bike would be harder, vs an auto, and taking possession of it would be harderer. Most (nice) bikes are kept inside unless they're being ridden; repo men can't B&E and they're not going to intentionally confront someone, either.

Koyote

Why can’t we lease toothbrushes?