Twice a year, I volunteer my time to work the demo ride portion of the open house at my dealer, Morton's BMW. I and three other intrepid experienced riders, lead a group of 8-12 riders on a 25 mile, 45 minute loop as they demo ride the entire line of BMW motorcycles. F650's, F800's, GS's S1000RR's, GT's, K-Bikes; are all available for rides.
BMW is the only marque that I'm aware of that makes the complete line of machines available for rides to anyone with an M Endorsement on their license at anytime. Other marques offer some of their machines for rides during open house events, but unlike BMW, you can't simply walk into a dealer, point to a bike and take it for a ride.
I've walked into the other local dealers, Extreme Power Sports and Fredericksburg Motor Sports and asked to demo a bike. The folks at Extreme told me they "weren't sure" the SV650 I wanted to ride, would make it through a 30 minute demo. They were more than willing however to let me sit on any/all of the bikes though, in order that I could get a "good" feel for it. Really? How generous of them. FMS flat out said the only bikes they make available for demo's are a couple of the cruisers. No sport bikes, no dual sports, just the cruisers. I asked the salesman if he's ever bought a car without first test driving it? The vapid look on his face told me he hadn't missed the meaning of my question.
To a certain degree, I can understand why the UJM dealers don't do demo rides. Liability. The vast majority of bikes they produce are geared towards to 20 something squids (squirrley kids); who don't have the slightest idea how to do anything but ride in a straight line, and they can barely do that. To offer up these 150+ hp bikes to this demographic for demo purposes would be nothing short of insane. However, I'm not a 20 something squid. I'm recently into my 50's, an MSF Instructor/Rider Coach, and IronButt Rider, have more than 750,000 miles under my belt and am looking for a fun little machine.
I pushed the issue of a demo ride a bit harder, throwing out my creds and even offering up my GS as collateral. Nothing doing. Too bad, as I was really looking to add another ride to my stable and everything I've heard/read about the SV650 is that it's a great little platform.
I wandered around for a bit longer, closely inspecting the SV and sitting on a couple of dual sport machines. The dealership was primarily geared towards squids, so I decided I'd seen enough. As I was leaving, the salesman stopped and asked if I was going to buy a motorcycle. I said I was and his eyes lit up. I told him I'd be back in a couple of days and he gave me his card.
I did return; four days later. I was on a BMW 650 X-Challenge that I'd just picked up from Morton's, not a mile down the road. I wandered in, the salesman recognized me, walked up and started chatting. I told him I'd decided on a dual sport machine and he started walking towards the Suzuki's, chatting away. I stopped him and said, "Come with me for a sec." We walked to the front door. I pointed and said "I just wanted to show you my new dual sport. Bought it from Morton's, just up the way. It had 2 miles on it when they gave it to me to demo ride after I left here the other day. It now has 165 miles on it. They simply said to put her through her paces. I took and tested her out; returned and bought it. A really, high fun-factor bike." The expression on this poor bastard's face was priceless. He was slack jawed and I swear, looked like he'd been hit with a rock. "You boys really should offer demo rides. You mite actually sell some motorcycles. Thanks for your time." I opened the door, walked out, climbed on and rode off.
