Great bike give-away

[adaeze]

Our local branch of Sustrans, on whose name be many, many blessings, run a scheme to lend reconditioned old bikes to people who couldn't otherwise afford even that much mobility.  And they offered us a few to lend to impecunious students.

Several months' worth of hassles followed, mostly due to lack of anywhere at all to store said bikes until the students all arrived and we were ready to start searching for Worthy Recipients.

But we ended up with
6 mens' bikes
4 womens' bikes
6 men applying for a bike and
4 women applying.

Neat or what?

Then today we've been issuing them, and I've been feeling rather as though it's Christmas.  The looks on their little faces as they come to pick them up!

Comments

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

My employers have a Wizzard Wheeze which means that I can buy a bicycle, and all associated gear, and pay them back for it over a year (as if I was paying back over a number of years), but at the end of year one, I get to pay just the current value of the bike (5% of purchase price, I think) and the debt is cleared.

On the one hand, this seems to be a good deal: buy bike (£300) and kit (£50), pay back ?£100, and after a year pay £15. On the other hand, if the value of a bike after a year is only £15, I might as well pick up a second-hand bike now. Indeed, wouldn't it be more cost-effective for my employer to pick up second-hand bikes at £30 (inflated prices due to sudden interest in bikes by local authorities) and sell them to me at £50?

Of course, the slight problem remains that I am not legally able to ride a bike. I think. I have been told I can't have a driving licence, but not that I shouldn't ride a bike. Or a horse. One of my Gypsy colleagues told me to keep on driving (because I would get away with a caution, if I was ever stopped), and if I was stopped and cautioned, to shift to real horse-power.

Mind you, my employer seems not to have grasped the essentials of programmes designed to reduce car transport. So three months ago they offered a particularly attractive pedometer scheme. They asked as part of the application 'how do you get to work'. Feeling sure that I was shooting myself in the foot, I answered 'I walk'. I got the pedometer.

Around the same time, I got a bus pass. I am wondering about getting a folding bike for ExMemSec via the scheme (or simply buying a second-hand one).

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Much as I hesitate to say anything in defence of your employers - most travel plans also aim to stop people who don't currently use a car from taking to driving. So anything that will re-inforce an existing healthy habit, such as walking to work, is worth doing.

Although the approach of one university's Vice-Chancellor (not mine!), who, on being ordered by his doctor to start walking to work, arranged for the university car to come out and collect his papers each morning, is not encouraged.

As to the bikes - do check out the tax position first before you get anything for ExMemSec. If it's the tax-free-bike scheme that I suspect it is, you need to commit to using it yourself regularly for part of your journey to work.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the headsup on the rules and regs of buying a bike under the scheme... although with second-hand bikes going for the pittance that the scheme suggests, I do think that we would be better off with freecycle or ebay.

It is so easy to stop people from driving! Simply poke sharp sticks into their eyes!

I am deeply sympathetic to the V-C who didn't want to carry his papers. There is a lot of difference between 15 mins brisk walk with and without a heavy breif-case.