My place of work handed out something like 30,000 pounds of vouchers. Number of new bikes in the bike sheds = 1

On the other hand, at our place several people who got bikes on b2w now sometimes ride in and many now cycle at weekends for fun which I reckon is a big improvement and in addition because several people now do it, commuting to work on a bike is no longer seen as a strange thing to do.

At my place of work the B2W has seen a significant increase in cyclists so i think it’s been used for exactly what it’s meant for. STW is not a representative cross section of those who have taken up the scheme 🙂

Three bikes in the bike shed here at work this morning (not bad for a damp Sunday in mid November), two are b2w and I chose to ride my road bike this morning rather than my b2w CX bike.

At my place of work the B2W has seen a significant increase in cyclists so i think it’s been used for exactly what it’s meant for. STW is not a representative cross section of those who have taken up the scheme

+1!

Everyone i know at work (who isn’t a “cyclist”) has bought proper commuter bikes on the scheme.

i don’t think the limit is too high once you’ve added on lights/locks etc. either.

In the summer out bike shed was full up!

I agree the b2w scheme can be pants. Our work employ thousands on our site, but the scheme is poorly managed. You can only sign up in early spring, rather than in the summer or when the sales are on, and only through some ‘flex benefits’ system thats been farmed out to a third party scheme that takes forever to go through. As a result you have to pay full price for every bike, rather than e.g. negotiating a discount with LBS, and the administrator or work keep the VAT rather than passing it back.

The bike I bought (a ribble) went up by £100 while I was waiting, and Ribble charged £65 for taking the voucher (this was disclosed up front, Planet-X charge £100). Work also want as much as they can get away with in three years time.

In truth, I think the middle men have made more out of this than I’ve saved, and it’s been quite a frustrating process.

We have lots of bike space and a good few people on c2w scheme, but most space is empty as not everyone rides in every day, so I would think HMRC are just doing some background stats rather than basing an investigation on the assumption that everyone on c2w scheme must have space to leave their bike at work.

I hope they end this bike to work lunacy. I just don’t understand why people should get their weekend hobby bikes funded by the taxman.

Very few of the bikes seem to be used for commuting (whether they are commuting bikes or not…people still take the train/drive 95% of the time). Its an absolute waste of treasury money, especially seeing as the highest take up seems to be in London where Boris bikes are a better commuter tool.

Joe – Member
I hope they end this bike to work lunacy. I just don’t understand why people should get their weekend hobby bikes funded by the taxman.

Very few of the bikes seem to be used for commuting (whether they are commuting bikes or not…people still take the train/drive 95% of the time).

Any evidence to support that statement?

Its an absolute waste of treasury money, especially seeing as the highest take up seems to be in London

or that one?

I can’t believe so many people on this forum have got a problem with people getting bikes tax free, Its a forum for cyclists so how can you be so pissed about people using C2W. We all pay to much tax and soon will be paying even more, and im happy if anyone can save a bit on a new bike, so what if its used for riding round the woods more than work.
The comments about bikes costing £1000 being more than you should be allowed for a commuter WTF. All sounds like jealousy.

Joe – Member
especially seeing as the highest take up seems to be in London where Boris bikes are a better commuter tool.

Well, 9+ Million people in London….

The NHS Trust that I work for has a short time window in the spring when the B2W scheme is open, this has been done to avoid amultitude of applications in November & december that inevitably will go towards teenage off springs christmas present.

druidh – Member
But as SpokesCycles says above, the majority are bought by well-intentioned casual- and non-cyclists who want to get a bit fitter and make their commute a bit less costly.

Any stats on this?

71 employees @ work, 6 on C2W
1. Me, SC Chameleon ridden to work 20 or so times this year
2. Lad in the tool room, rides every day it’s not raining, he’d not owned an MTB before & is getting into it now.
3. Boss bought a bike as an Xmas pressy for he son 🙄
4. Lad in the office – he’s never ridden it to work.
5. Company accountant bought a folding bike, he drives to work but does ride it around town in his lunch hour in the summer.
6. Girl in the office rides a bit in the summer but admits she has to stop for a fag half way on her 3 mile journey.

From the cyclists I speak to when visiting their bosses as potential customers, the biggest gripe is that employers don’t follow through with the back up for cyclists.

Nowhere provided to change/shower, no proper secure bike stores etc etc. Most staff have taken the opportunity to buy decent bikes and end up with them on top of filing cabinets, with all their bike gear scattered around the office. We supply an enclosed bike store that’s secure and holds all your kit but do struggle to get the message across about it being more than just about cheap bikes.
http://www.bike-vault.co.uk
Most employers put up with the clutter and are just quite pleased to be saving a load of Employers NIC and pension costs.
Shame..

HMRC counting bike spaces will just be some sort of statistics gathering. remember, you only have to use it for part of the journey, so who’s to say the people that aren’t actually on bikes when they arrive at work haven’t cycled to a train station or suchlike.

Our companies C2W scheme coincided with me moving about 10 miles away from work, so I went for it, bought a SS genesis CX bike and have cycled in on it almost every day. I wouldn’t want to use my MTB as its too draggy on tarmac, and my road bike isn’t flexible enough if I fancy taking a bridleway home, so personally speaking its been great for me!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/9184363.stm
“Cycle to Work Scheme

If you are buying a bike using your employers cycle to work scheme, you may be under the impression that you will pay around half the usual price.

But advice given to employers by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in August means that many people will end up paying £200 more than expected.

We hear from Moneybox listener Jason who is faced with unexpected bill and John Whiting, Tax Policy Director, at the Chartered Institute of Taxation. “

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim21667a.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00vv0fk/Money_Box_13_11_2010
19 minutes 15 seconds in.

most recent upset seems to revolve around “promised low final payment”..
all along its been clear that the scheme would flout financial regulations if the hirer was given a “promised / confirmed” final payment. If you ever recieved an official final payment confirmation (ie in writing) at the start of the scheme then by UK law you took out a loan and your employer / scheme provider (as appropriate) must meet financial regualtions of a financial institution (ie reserves must be held to outweigh the loans offered, think recent banking collapse triggerd in USA). Given the prohibitive cost of meeting this regulation the scheme has never promised final payment levels up front. Some misselling has gone one with sales pitches along the lines of “you may expect to pay around xx% of the full price”, but clean as day you never got an offical guarantee of final payment prior to the end of your period. Ironic really that someone would justify a £1k commuter as it only costs them an expected £500 and yet when they find it may cost them £850 its suddenly a stupid purchase / someone else fault. Scheme has been raped from day 1. No one needs a $1k bike to commute on so why should we as tax payers subsidise people to buy bikes to play on (even if we are all cyclists)..

No one needs a $1k bike to commute on

You speak for yourself, if I’m spending a fraction under 2 hours a day riding a bike I want the best, most comfortable available.

No one needs a $1k bike to commute on so why should we as tax payers subsidise people to buy bikes to play on

No-one ‘needs’ to spend more than £150 to get a push-bike from Argos but we do. I think this sort of argument is wholly irrelevant personally – in our (London) office I think there’s been about a 10 to 15% take-up of the scheme since it’s started and in the summer especially the number of cyclists riding into work went from 2 to 15 at it’s busiest. Some people spent up to the max on road bikes, others hybrids and some, folding bikes. A couple of people hadn’t been on bikes at all for 20+ years but after 18 months decided to ride the TDF route, Tourmalet (sp?) included. This has got to be a good thing in my book.

If some people decide that they want to spend the ££ on some weekend bling then so be it as far as I’m concerned. It might be following the scheme to the letter but the fault lies with the scheme itself – I just don’t think it’s possible given the nature of the C2W to prevent people from doing it without doing something weirdly prescriptive like publishing an official list of approved commuting bikes etc.

For what it’s worth I’ve done nearly 10,000 miles on my C2W funded folding bike. As said ^^ – I’ve spent hundreds of hours sat on it and getting the bike most fit for purpose (which means spending $££) is important, otherwise I’d spend a disproportionate amount of time fixing, fettling and mending in order to keep myself on the road…