Originally Posted by
Mitsu3000gt
I find with rental bikes you get 2 kinds of people - the ones that are overly gentle but crash/drop a lot, just trying out DH for the first time or whatever and then you get the ones that think they are invincible on those 8ft drops haha - or they don't want to do that on their own bike, so they rent one to try the bigger/bolder stuff. They get crashed/dropped a lot too, which even if it's gentle, if something like the stanchions land on a rock they are gouged for good. When my friends and I used to rent DH bikes, the worry of damaging our expensive bikes was gone, and we did things we would have never done on our own bikes.
Buying a rental bike can be OK, but I would just recommend anyone doing so make sure they are getting a steal of a deal and you have it inspected by a shop that isn't selling it to you, unless you know what to look for yourself. Frames with hairline cracks are probably the easiest thing to miss and the most costly to deal with.
I'll also echo the above comment that rental bikes are not maintained well - every one I have ever rented (both DH and XC) was nowhere near up to spec, bad shifts, brakes and frame squealing the whole time, etc. Years ago a friend of ours was working at the bike rental shop at Panorama - they just make them rideable and send them out again because they are just going to get trashed over and over anyway.