I’m doing some consulting work for The Linguist … mostly blogging at the Linguist blog, and I’ve been thinking about money-back or risk-free trial offers that make sense.

Here’s one at Bigha. (I recently blogged about their Starseeker chair.)

It’s for a revolutionary bike - a very expensive bike. And there’s a money-back guarantee. But you’ve got to have given the product a real test - 240 miles of riding in 60 days. And there’s a speedo on the bike, so they can tell.

See how they justify how they’ve set it up - it makes sense, it’s defensible:

We ask only that you commit to giving the bike a real try. Averaging four miles per day is not hard to do. By trying the bike over a two month period, you can really get to know the bike and see how well it fits into your life. Then you can make an informed decision.

Since at the Linguist we know what people are doing on the site, we could do a similar thing.

I think it’d be worth trying.