My employer uses a ride to work scheme. I decided to buy a new bike on it and try it out for the first time this year. I called up Evans today and asked them to order the bike I want to buy. They replied that “they do not do special orders for complete bikes”. That is amazing nearly all the bikes I have bought have been special orders. They said they only do special orders for components. On ride to work schemes you have to buy a complete bike so they cannot sell me a frame. Not helpful at all . Either you take something from Evans stock it seems,or go walk. That applies generally they said not just to ride to work scheme purchases.

Sounds reasonable to me as afterall you are not buying the bike

Special order as in they didn’t have it in stock or special order as in they don’t stock that anywhere but they can contact the supplier for it? Not sure what the complaint is tho. They won’t sell you a bike they don’t have?

They don’t have it in stock, but it is readily available from one of their suppliers. Their stock is all shown on their website.

Yep it’s their business model, special orders for bikes will probably turn into a right pain, incompatible bits (based on a customer reading on the internet that some bloke from doncaster made it work), more assembly time, having to them do something with other bits. Why are you trying to buy a frame on CTW? Or is a bespoke build?

When I have wanted a bike in the past I just go to LBS . Then say can you order me xx in size yy and pay then and they get it for me.

Seems fair. If they don’t have it in stock, it will cost them to get it in for you to test it.

Can you try it for size with another retailer?

On ride to work schemes you have to buy a complete bike so they cannot sell me a frame

Correct, they sell you a bike to ride to work on, sounds reasonable to me.

Its a Santa Cruz and they offer 3 build options . Very simple so not lots of bits. Not a proper bespoke build at all.

It will be a complete bike

You can get a Santa Cruz for under a grand!?! Where?

Even if I want another complete bike they don’t have it would be same story

Doesn’t sound much like a bike that you’d ride to work though, and not for standard CTW money either.

Thanks Dez it’s obviously over that

So is the issue is you want a 3-4 grand bike on the 1 grand cycle to work scheme?

If it’s like Oz then it will arrive in a box with all the bits separate and need a bunch of assembly. CTW vouchers generally end up being a discount purchase as the scheme takes a cut of the voucher. Most bikes come out the box needing wheels fitting and some tuning. A very different prospect.

So, is it a complete bike you want? And they currently don’t have that particular bike in stock in the size you want? And they aren’t willing to order that size in for you, even though it’s available at their supplier?

If this ^^^ is all correct and I’m on the right track that does sound a little lame that they can’t order one in for you.

I’m not sure why you have commented about not selling you just a frame on ‘cycle to work’. Do you want a frame or a bike?

EDIT – bit slow. So you don’t want a complete bike, but a part built-up frame? I suppose that’s not really the sort of thing that cycle to work is meant for.

RTW part is 1k and you can personally top that up. I think I’m going to ditch the RTW and use trusty LBS instead

I wouldn’t be locking up a 4k SantaCruz outside my work !

RTW part is 1k and you can personally top that up.

Not sure you can…

I wouldn’t be locking up a 4k SantaCruz outside my work !

I did on Tuesday. Though mine wasn’t 4k.

I am trying to buy a complete bike. I just mentioned the frame bit as a matter of fact . I want a complete bike but they don’t have my size . Yes it’s above 1k and RTW scheme allows this . I just pay myself.

I’m not sure under the scheme you are officially allowed to top it up over £1k. Evans suggested it to me once till I mentioned that my employer is HMRC, and quickly backtracked.

Are Evans’ a Santa Cruz dealer? Not seen any in their stores.

And yes, the scheme is for complete bikes to ride to work. Getting upset about not being able to get something more is a bit odd, as we don’t normally condone tax avoidance on this site iirc?

Leaving the morality/legality issues aside, why would you even attempt to do this?

Assuming you are a higher rate tax payer then you’ll save 40% of the £1,000 the RTW scheme covers, minus any pay-back required at the end of the year/term. That will be a saving of less than £400 in total. Go into your local SC dealer and ask them what sort of price they’ll do your £4k bike for. You’ll likely save more than you would be trying to get it from Evans.

I did on Tuesday.

Audi in for service or repairs? 8)

Ignoring the ride to work bit, you expected Evans to order you in a brand they don’t stock from a distributer they probably don’t have a relationship with? >:-0

When the scheme first started a decade ago the get round I was offered to the £1000 limit was to buy some surprisingly expensive accessories. I ended up going for a cheaper bike in the end.

Forget the cycle to work but and just ask Evans for 10% off the whole price – the savings work out the same. Most LBS dealers will happily do this as well.

Agreed Yes I think that will save me much more cash. The RTW seems way complicated and I would save very little overall as it would be full price anyway.

given that under C2W the bike is the property of your employer, how does the top up system work if you add to it ? Are you essentially giving money to your employer for a bike that you can purchase from them for a residual value after 3 or 4 yrs once the final taxable sum has gone down ?

We have C2W at work and there is no way of exceeding the £1k loan

given that under C2W the bike is the property of your employer, how does the top up system work if you add to it ?

THIS.

Ignoring the ride to work bit, you expected Evans to order you in a brand they don’t stock from a distributer they probably don’t have a relationship with?

http://www.evanscycles.com/categories/bikes/mountain-bikes/f/santa-cruz#!

The cyclescheme I used didn’t allow top ups. But there are different ones.

I topped up my £1000 Cyclescheme voucher, they (Cyclescheme) make an allowance for differences between the final value of the bike and the original invoice value, allowing that any additional cost be topped up by the employee and put down as ‘accessories’ on the invoice, or words to that effect. For instance I ordered a Cannondale 5 105 and somehow ended up with a Cannondale Carbon 5 105, woe is me 🙄

Granted, for the reasons Scotroutes mentioned it’s maybe not worth the small amount of hassle, but it’s not necessarily wrong or dodgy to top up your voucher, especially if you’ve persuaded your S/O that ‘work is buying it for me’ so you can hide (part of) an extra bike on your credit card 8)

If Evans deal with the SC distributor then the above seems a bit lame, if they don’t deal with the distributor then it seems entirely normal to me!

Edit: Didn’t see the recent posts, if they do stock SC then that’s just lame, obviously Evans are doing so well they can turn away customers!

Edit edit: I think the risk of topping up is that yes, it still belongs to the employer, and since the invoice will always show a value of bike less than or equal to £1000, the employer could keep your bike at the end of the year and you would have no come back for the remaining value. I haven’t tested this theory obviously but my bike is way less nice than my boss’s so I have no need to worry.

I think radioman has just stumbled upon the difference between your local, independent, eager to please bike shop and your massive ‘stack em high sell em cheap’ chain stores. Luckily we have a choice!

Granted, for the reasons Scotroutes mentioned it’s maybe not worth the small amount of hassle, but it’s not necessarily wrong or dodgy to top up your voucher

yeah, dropping £3k of your money onto a bike owned by your employer but hiding it under “accessories” doesn’t sound dodgy at all

13thfloormonk has it. I topped up my C2W by a small amount on the understanding that if I lose my job and have to give the bike back that extra amount is lost to the void.

yeah, dropping £3k of your money onto a bike owned by your employer but hiding it under “accessories” doesn’t sound dodgy at all

The only person you’re screwing is yourself, the ‘top up’ isn’t tax free.

Regardless of the C2W bit, which I have no problem with, it does seem odd that they won’t order a bike that they are able to stock.

I can’t imagine going into a local Trek dealer, asking for a £600 4000 series bike and being told they can’t get it in my size because they don’t do special orders. The shops I’ve worked in would just add it to the next order with the company, or if there was a minimum order get something else they were likely to sell as well, and get it in for you. Better than sitting on all the stock you’re ever likely to sell yourself. I can imagine they would want a refundable deposit for it (which is what happened when I got my C2W bike) but to refuse a sale is bizarre.

If you can take the hit of not buying it on C2W then I would buy it somewhere else.

Which bike is it? I’m still a bit unclear whether it’s a model they stock but don’t have any left or a model they don’t stock which is available from the supplier.

Didn’t realise evans did Santa Cruz. Looking at the models they do have, they only list one or two sizes in some of them rather than the entire range. There is a few that are listed as available in 10 days which tends to distrbuter stock. All a bit odd.

As mentioned, Evans do deal with Jungle and sell SC, unfortunately it is something that almost never gets asked and it sounds like the sales assistant did not realise it would be possible, they should have found out for you though! You can get a special order Brompton no problem so I don’t see why not, though you would have to pay in full (no deposit/test ride) unlike warehouse stock bikes.

Send me your contact details if you would like me to look into it and I’d be happy to help!