How good is your workplace for bikes?

anonymousblackfg

Secure underground parking for about 20 cars, all allocated to tenants, about 15 bike spaces for the entire building apart from where tenants have put a bike rack in their car spaces. We have 3 parking spaces, one is given over to the CEO's son's car while we have a waiting list for the communal spaces.

I work in commercial property and now it's a major tenants request, if an office doesn't have the facilities, occupiers management often have trouble selling it to their staff.

What I find amasing is basement space in offices is rarely occupied and Landlords will do deals just to get an occupyer using it just to get rid of their business rates on it yet alone want rent! I'm suprised we don't see more bike hub type ventures to fill the space.

turnstyle

okgo wrote:

I'd want it to be luxury if I was made to work in that area!

Not sure if that was directed at me, but i admit i'd feel the same as most people do about Sky and Murdoch if i didn't work here. From a bottom feeder on the inside's perspective, it's an ok place to work.

willy b

Some of these large offices & companies sound great! Free towels and a drying room!

Having said that I can't complain one bit! Small office (10 people) on top floor of office building in centre. Bike store is on the office balcony, so very secure and covered. When I started I told them of be biking in, so they got a shower put in for me wet clothes get put around the office on radiators!

secretsam

- Under ground bike storage, secure but hard to get to (you have to carry your bike up/down rather steep steps)
- Changing rooms (male and female) and lockers, not enough of either but hey, they're there
- Showers x 3 (600 ppl in building)

So not bad at all. HOWEVER, the culture of the organisation is very macho, so it's totally acceptable for a male member of staff to wander from the shower to the changing room (20 metres or so) wearing only a towel round his waist, in a "hey, look at me" kind of way. Notwithstanding that female members of staff also use the corridors, so that must be nice for them, being confronted with half naked colleagues all the time, in no way embarrassing.

PS: yes, I'm in a really sh177y mood today.

Mr Sworld

Council building with about 30 permanent staff (can go over a hundred when PT staff arrive).

Wheel benders in an underground carpark with a roller shutter on the entrance, so very secure. I just straddle the wheel bender frame and lock the bike frame to it.

Two main mens showers and two more elsewhere in the building. Lots of lockers but they had the locks removed years ago. I converted one for my own use...

I've got access to the boiler room so wet stuff is dried over the boilers.

CTW scheme but the council will also give you a intrest free loan for bus / train tickets. I managed to persuade them to give me one for my last bike!

Only PITA is that when we hold political conferences the building is surrounded by a ring of steel for a week and nothing is allowed into the car park. You can't lock up the bike nearby either because of the 'bomb threat'. They always promise us that they will provide secure parking elsewhere but it's miles away...

Canny Jock

Currently work for a fairly small firm in Shoreditch, we have bike racks downstairs which are not that secure but at least indoors. The entrance is shared with a shop and a hairdressers, so pretty much anyone can walk in and a few bikes have gone (normally when using cheap locks). No showers so I go to the local gym, but we do have a great boiler cupboard for drying stuff. Works fine to be honest.

We are being taken over and moving to a huge, central City office which has a number of companies in, apparently there are secure bike spaces and showers, however there are not enough and you have to enter an auction/lowest bid wins thing every 3 months to get a space. I think this means that some people bid for them and then don't use them much, which will piss me off as I cycle 95% of the time including through winter. I don't view cycling to work as a luxury (although it is), it's the way I get to work. So if I don't get a space I will be locking the bike at random places in the street, which puts paid to upgrading my winter/commuting bike :-( Guess it opens up the N+1 option though - beater for commuting, nicer winter bike for crap weather, spangly carbon thing for Sunday best.

Not sure how it works with showers if you don't win a space, looks like I might end up joining the nearest gym again.

On the upside - the new place includes massages, pilates classes, free breakfast before 7.45am and other nice stuff which should make up for it a bit!

essex-commuter

Office holds 2000, current manned capacity is circa 1600.

I rusty 'bus shelter' containing something just a bit better than wheel benders for 7 bikes.

1 x shower but it has 8 shower heads...it's a big shower! 6 shoes size lockers that nobody knows who owns.
We have a gym.
There is a ladies changing room, I don't know how many showers in there (honest!).

Terrible really but I don't think my employer likes to promote cycling to work. Bit like working for Samsung and asking them why they don't provide mains chargers at work for my iPod.

cyclingprop

coriordan wrote:

I'm like okgo #3 except more lockers, and currently only the compound requires pass to access as our garage is now left open (not sure why) but usually needs a pass.

We have an office of 5-8K people and although we have c500 lockers, it just is not enough, worse still, barely anyone even uses theirs. I reckon probably 12 showers.

In all honesty, covered secure parking and a guaranteed hot power shower, I can hardly complain. It's just the job I want to change!

Ah, I've not commuted to our office yet. Only to my clients.

memsley89

The Environment Agency... need I say more.
Facilities are superb.

okgo

Yes it helps when your employer is known globally for being green. That's probably why our joint is decent.

First.Aspect

Nothing. Unsecured bike racks outside (covered at least). No changing facilities (100L of spare cooler water stored where the shower would be in the disabled loo) no clothing storage (corner of my office).

Modern building too - just no foresight.

Pathetic really, but I can manage with the disabled toilet/sink in the mornings. I'm sure I'll figure out some imaginative places to stash smelly clothes on wet days in odd parts of the basement which are only visited when the a/c malfunctions. For the bike itself I use 2 large motorcycle padlock chains, which I can leave in situ and lights, pump, pack are quickly removable.

If anyone whinges I will stop cleaning up at all and sit there sweaty with helmet hair all day. In fact, I'll just put the suit on over my cycling shorts and base layer. Come to think of it, why don't I do that now?

esd

pfi building contract

1800 people plus

sheltered bike areas - many

locker room plus 3 showers plus drying cages

best i have ever had.....

ZoomZoom

Just started working for a new client this week, large 8 storey building, with secure (via key card) bike storage. Problem is they are over subscribed and awaiting additional capacity, so am on a shortlist and will get access in a month or two. Will need to buy a rusty commuter to tie me over or keep using the Brompton which I keep next to my desk. Will be leaving the Bianchi as Sunday best until then.
Have heard the showers are very bad, but yet to see them myself, am thinking of joining a local gym, is it worth the around £70/month they are likely to charge?

Last place people would bring their bikes into office and put them in the corner and no one said a thing, there was also storage was just outside the office windows, the security guards gave me suspicious looks as I was eyeing up some of the bikes. Showers were awful and I never used them, as a result I saved the longer rides when homebound.

optimisticbiker

On the subject of crappy showers....

A previous place I used to work, back in 2001, was in the offices at Paddington station (just past the big clock over platform 1 for those who know Paddington). The only bike park was the general one by Platform 11/12 from which I had my then commuter, a Claude Butler Rock mtb with slicks, stolen. The showers were large communal things, Victorian designed with industrial plumbing, intended in days long gone for train drivers/engineers to communally shower off the smoke and coal dust. Now long forgotten and rarely used except by me and at least one other guy I never met but knew he'd been there. They were on the top floor at the end of a long draughty corridor inhabited by pigeons that got in through the broken skylights. It was very cold in winter and draughty in the summer and the water temperature was borderline tepid most of the time. Often felt it was like being in a gothic horror film when I used them....

medoramas

Outdoor mini "wedge your wheel" rack for 8 bikes, no cover at all. No security.
No changing room. No shower. No room to dry clothes. No Cycle2Work scheme.

It's a division of a big company. Recently all the staff received a letter saying that any negative comments about the company left even on private social networks (if found) will be penalized.

Unfortunately I'm not in a comfortable financial situation at the moment - otherwise I'd not struggle there any more...

davegore2005

Very large well known multinational company.......have to chain my bike to the fence outside the premises as it's not allowed on site......no showers....nowhere to dry my shoes or clothes if they get wet.. no changing facilities......locker the size of a matchbox to keep my valuables and backpack in.....can anyone beat this??

Dave

shouldbeinbed

I have fought a long battle against petty bureaucrats to 1) be allowed to park my bike under the stairs at the back door rather than in the exposed bike shed prone to theft and vandalism 2) be able to use the 6 foot square shower room that is utterly unused otherwise. I have a Frankenstein scrap locker built into a working one by me from bits of several others salvaged from a skip and it is barely tolerated in the non too fragrant vestibule of the gents toilets. My organisation runs a c2w scheme and claims it is a green & cycle friendly employer. new builds do well for facilities but on my own site I'm barely living the dream.

mtb-idle

pretty good really,

circa 8 to 10,000 people in the building but comparitively few cyclists

underground, passcard controlled, CCTV monitored, 24 hour security guard manned car park with bike racks for circa 250 bikes and a locker. Racks are ok although I locked my bike on the first day four years ago but never bother now.

Smallish shower room with 7 showers just for cyclists gets a bit busy at times but it's free although the freshly laundered towels cost 50p a day to use.

Subsidised gym (£20 pm) with more showers, piped music and free towels if i want (I haven't found it necessary yet).

jomoj

Not bad, showers and drying facilities and the office (software dev) is on the coast to coast route so cycle access is ok. We were originally promised an outside bike shelter but this never materialised so bikes just get left in the kitchen, under stairs etc and no one minds.

Lazarus42

No parking, just a lock up. No showers (I wish!) No other cyclists, no clothes drying etc. But I'm a gardener for this place http://www.spokeseastkent.org.uk/blog/2 ... ary-canal/ Go figure!

Laz

bornagainroadie

Small company, 80 people. 1 very secure brick built bike shed that we thought was an electricity substation for the first 6 months after we moved in. 1 well ventilated shower in a recently converted kitchen. Has a radiator in it and a free standing drying rack. Serves the needs of the 6 of us who cycle in most days. Big spread of arrival times so rarely a queue to get into the shower room.
Not quite big enough to install lockers for kit though. Company has C2W scheme.
No compaints.
Quite like the idea of on site gym's, power showers and fluffy towels though.

mudcow007

mine are fantastic

i have a cupboard attached to my office, in there i store 3 bikes

my commuter

my mtb

an my vintage Royal Enfield

aswell as spare wheels, tools etc
there is one shower on site, but im the only person that rides so its like my own personal shower

Blacktemplar

OK, but needs improving.

About 500 people on site, 4 or 5 cycle reasonably regularly, though mostly just 3-4 miles max (I'm 12 each way). Whisky company so on-site storage VERY secure (to keep all the local bams out), but no covered area and only 12 bike spaces, even though they've just opened up C2W this year. One shower for the plebs (me) though there are two lovely ones in the Exec suite that no-one gets to use. One or two runners, but rarely any congestion in the shower room. Nowhere to dry kit other than under the desk, which can get a tad whiffy, so I just dry out shorts or bring a change of kit in my panniers.

Trying to get things improved with more showers, lockers and a drying room, but not holding my breath. After all, we only made about a squillion quid profit last year, so times are hard.

il_principe

Poor. Serviced offices in Central London, lots of small firms. Outdoor Sheffield stands which are over subscribed and not secure - although in a quiet alleyway and covered by CCTV. 2 men's showers, no lockers and nowhere to dry kit. I did try leaving it in the changing room for the morning, but the site management kept removing it and shoving it either on the floor in their office, or in a bag with all the other wet/sweaty kit they'd removed, which could be deeply unpleasant.

Bike can come into the office when the boss isn't about.

DonDaddyD

OK, they have covered bicycle racks. However, they're the ones that you slot your wheels into - the kind that can buckle your wheel or knock it out of true. So I lock my bike elsewhere near the motorbikes.

I used to bring it into the office with me but they didn't like that. Karen gets locked indoors however.

There are showers but they are for staff and inpatients. I've never used a shower at any job. Whores bath, always.

veronese68

mudcow007 wrote:

mine are fantastic

i have a cupboard attached to my office, in there i store 3 bikes

my commuter

my mtb

an my vintage Royal Enfield

aswell as spare wheels, tools etc
there is one shower on site, but im the only person that rides so its like my own personal shower

Do you work from home?

mudcow007

Veronese68 wrote:

mudcow007 wrote:

mine are fantastic

i have a cupboard attached to my office, in there i store 3 bikes

my commuter

my mtb

an my vintage Royal Enfield

aswell as spare wheels, tools etc
there is one shower on site, but im the only person that rides so its like my own personal shower

Do you work from home?

ha!

the reason why all my bikes are in work is because "'er in doors" wont let me keep anything at home....granted my commuter lives in the living room as the shed is full of motorbike parts at the moment

Fireblade96

Well, my opinion of our office facilities for cyclists is changing :?

They're going to tidy / clean up the shower room (yayy!), but as they're having the carpets cleaned they've decided that bikes will have to live outside. Now, I've explained that my bike's not going to make the carpet any dirtier than people's feet, but I'm not winning that argument.

At least they've asked me to recommend a bike rack. I'm going to recommend 6 x good old Sheffield stand (there's normally only 2 of us who cycle), to be placed right outside the reception area so they're at least partially under cover and under the eagle eye of the receptionist. Any better ideas ?

veronese68

Will your local authority pay towards a bike rack? We got a dozen free Sheffield stands and TfL gave us matched funding for the bike shelter. So effectively half price. Might be worth a go.