Cycle Schemes

Samrooster

I would like to get a boardman bike - however my employer is only signed up for "cyclescheme"

I was wondering whether i can get a boardman on that scheme, because i can't sign up for the Halfords scheme!

HELP!!!!! 8)

orangepip

unfortunately no.

The only way to do it is to persuade your employer to sign up to the Halfords cycle to work scheme as well.

There are a number of differnet versions (a lot of the large retailers have their own) and you have to keep an eye out because they're all different.

doyler78

Forget getting your employer to sign up for the Halfords scheme and instead get your misinformed employers to run their own scheme. They are the easiest thing in the world to set up and most of the administration has to be done by them anyway ie all the tax deductions and admin around starting and ending the payments.

What do cyclescheme actually do. They give you employee hire agreements. That's a one off job for the organisation and there are plenty of templates out there. They deal with the purchase. Again all we did was put the onus on the bike shop to provide a written quotation therefore the only new form required by your employer is a collection form ie they supply you with a form confirming that you are entitled to collect the bike. You give that to the bike shop and you sign and they sign it and they return it to the employer. Again a one off letter template that takes minutes to write and I can give you a template for that. They do a bit of marketing. This involves them providing your employer with some leaflets about the benefits. Again there are many public bodies which seek to encourage people to use cycle to work schemes. Use their leaflets. They will often send somebody round to your organisation to explain the scheme. Don't be fooled these people are usually from your local bike shop who are partner shops of the scheme. Contact them directly to come and speak to the employees. They want the business. They will be delighted.

So again what does CycleScheme actually provide you apart from limited choice on both shops and bikes and those bikes often at inflated prices as the bike shop will negotiate on price and often will not sell sale bikes at sale prices but full cost because they have to pay a commission to CycleScheme which they obviously would not have to pay to your employer. Indeed if you employer is savy they will negotiate a discount based on the fact that they will be putting a lot of business their way (especially if they are large employer).

orangepip

yup can't help but agree.

It tends to depend on the size of your organisation and how interested the more senior people are in cycling as to wheter or not you can get things like this changed.

More often than not you'll usually get the "that sounds like more work for me that I don't want" kind of response when you suggest this - I know I do

Tom_d100

I had exactly the sam problem - wanted a Boardman, but employer were only signed up to cyclescheme.

I asked my HR department to sign up with Holford's scheme, but was told this wasn't possible.

In the end I had to get a Ribble to get anywhere the same spec / price value I would have got with a Boardman.

licko

My employer is on the CycleScheme too - rubbish! They don't even claim the VAT back so I worked out that it was better to pick up a bike in the January sales. Waiting for my shiny new Planet-X to arrive bought with my own hard earned, with no ties and no final payment etc...

Samrooster

not happy - fair enough about the boardman, but then found a company that did Bianchi - so i was looking at via nirone 7 xenon, rang them up and they said they didn't deal with them anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :evil:

All the other bikes with tiagra groupsets have triple chainsets, which i can't be doing with.

Any ideas - can a company that deal with scott buy in a bike from an online company, like a 2009 scott speedster s40