[svenrico]

Originally Posted by Adam Ef

You might not be able to tell if a bike is going to be perfect for you on a half hour test, but you can definitely tell pretty quickly if it's not right for you. Exactly
I knew fairly quickly that I didn't like the Tiger 800 I rode. I knew immediatley the the KTM 690 Enduro was too similar a ride to my DRZ400 to justify the expense. I knew in half an hour that the BMW 800 GT (although a decent bike) wasn't what I was looking for. similar here,with some test rides
Some places still allow them, on demonstrators and some even on second hand bikes in my experience. I've test ridden a lot of bikes in the past couple of years. I have only had one dealer who wanted me to pretty much say I was going to buy the bike before allowing a test ride -but buying depends on the test ride so I didn't bother ,I have had several test rides on bikes from my usual dealer where I didn't buy after testing ,but I have bought a lot of bikes from them over the years
I've also had a couple of places who want you to pay for a service on any second hand bike first before you can ride it. What!!?

Having said all that I bought a few bikes after test rides that turned out a bad decision