What’s a fair deal when lending your bike?
 

I’d really appreciate your thoughts on the following….

I have a travel ready XT660z in South Africa that I use only occasionally as I live in the UK. I’ve had a couple of aborted attempts to sell it, which have not worked out. I don’t need to sell and I have a bit of an emotional attachment to the bike (we have good history together).

Buying a bike in South Africa as a foreigner is a time consuming challenge and rental is unrealistically expensive for longer trips so I am thinking making the bike available for long term loan might be a good option. But what’s a fair deal?

I rented an XT660R in 2018 for 2 weeks and it cost me around £1,000 all in. That was the best deal I could find so I am assuming that is the going rate for rental.

I don’t want to formally rent it out, given liability and tax issues. So I am thinking sale and buyback is the best option. That way I am covered if the bike is not returned or trashed.

Next issue is wear and tear and more fundamental issues. I am happy to get the bike serviced, change tyres, pads etc, but if there are bigger issues that’s not a risk i want to underwrite. So maybe the best option is to do a full service before selling and ask the purchaser to do the same before I buy back?

Which brings me to price. My thinking is to say £1,000 per season (max 6 months), but i really don’t know. (If you only want a bike for 2 weeks traditional rental is probably the way to go).

What do think (all insights/suggestions, positive and negative welcome - I want an approach that feels fair)?