Which £500 bike shall I get from crappy Halfords?

kev.brennan

I have been commuting on my GT Transeo 4.0 hybrid for about 8 months now and now have it fully laden down with rack, mudguards, panniers...basically it weighs a hell of a lot now. I just found out that my company does a cycle to work scheme and I thought great, I'll get myself a fair weather/ recreational bike.
Unfortunately the scheme is only at Halfords and the limit is £500, I am not allowed to add any more to it myself to get a dearer bike. I was think of going down the full race bike route and thought that the Carrera Vanquish 08 looked ok, but I'm also tempted by the cBoardman Urban Comp 09 Hybrid. Has anyone got any experience of either bike or any other suggestions? Cheers

Slow Downcp

The Boardman bikes are very good VFM - the only drawback is that the mechanics at Halfords are a bit hit and miss so it's worth checking over yourself when you get the bike. If you want a drop bar bike though not in your price range :-(

Halfords can also order in the vast majority of makes if the normal range doesn't take your fancy.

That said, you can also use Halfords vouchers bought through the scheme at a number of other cycle shops (Ribble included).

sonnyb

I have a Boradman Urban Pro and have done 1500 miles of commuting on it over past year and found it to be a fantastic bike. Would not change for anything else.

kev.brennan

Thanks ever so much for the posts, I was leaning towards the cBoardman anyway. Didn't have a clue that Halfords could order other bikes in or that other shops would take Halfords scheme vouchers. Anyone suggest another bike for £500?(god I wish it was more).

I only joined today and must say that this is a great site, I've spent the last hour reading and laughing over the FCN game, it's brilliant!!

coffeecup

If you speak to halfords bike to work team they'll order you bikes off catalogue. I got a Bianchi and a Dahon, neither of which Halfords actually stock.

Also, I paid the excess for the Bianchi over and above my company limit and there was no problem. We have a £1,000 limit and the Bianchi was a bit more, but obviously you only make the tax saving on the first £1,000. I'd imagine you could do the same, paying anything over £500 when you pick up the bike. (Over £1,000 your company needs to apply for a licence or something because they're effectively acting as a finance company, so this tends to be a common limit)

Talk to the Halfords bike to work team on 08700-660 511 (I think there's only a couple of them because I sometimes couldn't get through to that team, but it's worth persisting...)

hope this helps...

kev.brennan

Thanks coffeecup I was thinking about paying over my limit the only problem is that I am effectively only being lent the bike, after 18 months I may be given the opportunity to buy it for£35 or they can ask for the same amount of money to take it away and scrap it(sounds stupid I know).
I was thinking of going for the cBoardman Comp 09 racer, £649.99( heard its a good bike) but if they ask for the bike to be scrapped then I've thrown away £150 thus losing any tax break I got to begin with. When I phoned my company about this I was told that I was not allowed to add any money at all, don't know what to do.......

Cheers

coffeecup

You get the bike at the end of the lease for a notional fee, 5 - 10%. Nobody in their right mind gives the bike back at the end of the lease (having almost paid for it) and the company is not compelled to make you give it back

It's effectively a hire purchase agreement, but they're not allowed to call it that or it would have different tax implications... hence all the talk about scrapping, which never happens....

kev.brennan

Cheers again coffeecup, sod it I think I'm going for the cBoardman racer at £649.99 then. If they can't make me give it back then I won't!!

biondino

I really don't understand your company's problem with going over £500 - maybe they want to limit potential liabilities if you get fired etc. before the end of the repayment? Perhaps if you offered the company a deposit of £150 you could go for a £650 bike? It'd be interesting to know their logic in any case.

(I spent £1500 on my C2W bike with no problems at all - I covered the amount over £1000 and it was all cool)

the_hundredth_idiot

biondino wrote:

I really don't understand your company's problem with going over £500 - maybe they want to limit potential liabilities if you get fired etc. before the end of the repayment? Perhaps if you offered the company a deposit of £150 you could go for a £650 bike? It'd be interesting to know their logic in any case.

(I spent £1500 on my C2W bike with no problems at all - I covered the amount over £1000 and it was all cool)

Isn't it to do with issues over ownership? That is, when you buy a bike on a C2W scheme, your company actually owns it during the period of the agreement - ownership is only passed to you once the agreement ends. If you top up the payment then it could get difficult in an ownership dispute (for example, if you left the employer before the agreement had ended).

activentures

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... ZWzsr5upua

the 2008 Boardman road comp is on sale....don't know if you can buy sale bikes in the cycle scheme?

samivel

I think you can and have tried to get a boardman 08. There is none of them anywhere.

I am looking at a similar amount to kev.brennan. One question I have is which bikes around this level take mudguards and a rack at the back?

prawny

If you've got to get it from halfords and dont mind a carrera there's the valour? I think thats what it's called similar spec to the boardman but less tan £500 for the 08 and it has rack mounts.

I think there's still a few of them about.

EDIT: It's the vanquish not valour

fury21

coffeecup wrote:

Also, I paid the excess for the Bianchi over and above my company limit and there was no problem.

Hmmm.. my Halford's voucher explicitly stated that no extra money could be added to the voucher value to cover the cost of the bike.

May be worth checking that out before ordering something over the 500 limit.

prawny

Yeah mine did too it also said I couldn't reserve and collect instore (oops) and I couldn't have a 10% web discount (double oops!)

samivel

Cheers Prawny

You don't have to get the bike from Halfords. I called cycle to work yesterday. They source from Pearson, Leisure lakes bikes and berkshire cycles so you should be able to get anything these guys sell.

Do you or anyone else know which bikes around this price mark have rack & guard mounts?

samivel

Anyone help with the rack and guard question?

lost_in_thought

You can put a rack and guards on pretty much any bike, although braze-ons (built in eyelets for screws) help, they are not vital.

samivel

cheers

sorry just a bit lost about which bike to get. I thought that having braxe-ons would help reduce the selection a little.