The YT Mill in Surrey sees YT Industries opens its first UK demo centre and showroom, meaning you can now test ride any of the brand’s bikes.

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Fancy swinging a leg over the new YT Jeffsy trali bike or the YT Capra enduro bike? No problem, the new UK-based YT Mill in the Surrey Hills can help.

Want to ride the new YT Jeffsy? Head to the YT Mill for a demo

Why does an online-only brand want a bricks and mortar shop? Simple, you can’t sit on a website, ride the bikes listed, or worse, you can’t just drop it back to the shop if something goes wrong.

YT Industries may well have just brushed all these problems aside, with the opening of its first ever UK premises, offering demo rides and warranty… and surprisingly good coffee.

Coffee and bikes… enough said

Called the YT Mill and smack-bang in the heart of the Surrey Hills, you can now book in a demo ride on any size and any bike in the range, or drop in a bike for service and warranty problems.

It’s much more than a demo centre though, explains James Lawrence from YT. “It’s like walking into the website,” he says. “Go to the Izzo page online and there’s smoke drifting up – we’ve got the same thing at the Mill.”

The YT Mill is designed as a real-world representation of the website, hence the Izzo’s smoke

We reckon this makes it the first physical website then. There’s a serious point to the fun, smoke and mirrors, it means people can experience the range physically without just relying on the internet. It’s also a place for e-bike warranty, something bricks and mortar stores have been so important for as the new technologies get tested (sometimes to destruction).

“It takes at least two weeks turnaround for something to go back to Germany,” James says. “Now all of it can be done in the UK; we’ll have 
a solution.”

MT Mill’s cafe is somewhere to hang out as your bike is being warrantied

This is a huge step for YT, it gains exposure and improves its entire customer experience, while also increasing its costs too. The biggest benefit is to us riders though, we’ve now got the best of both worlds – the direct sales discount coupled with the convenience of physical shopping.

Head to the YT Mill’s website for details.

Canyon demo rides

Canyon hasn’t been idle this year either, it’s just announced partnerships with both Revolution Bike Park in Wales and Just Pedal in Surrey to provide demo bikes and hire. At Revs you can now demo the brand’s gravity line-up – the SenderAL downhill bike and TorqueAL enduro bike for £75 a day, although you can recoup that cost off a new bike purchase. Down South you’ll find the Just Pedal bike hire and demo centre for everything else, it’s based in the Denbies Wine Estate by Box Hill in Surrey.