Bike Rescue Insurance ?????

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Looking for a service like the AA offer for cars where if you breakdown they tow you to a destination of your choice. Does anyone have this or used this service ? If so who comes out to rescue you and do you have to have a payment excess on you ? If such a thing exists how does it all work ????
 

Turbo Rider

Just can't reMember
Yeah, I have it on my insurance. They send a big taxi to come and pick you up and drop you at the nearest LBS. I would have used it last week but I washed my phone a while back and forgot to add the number to my phone. Luckily, other half played their part for them, else I'd have had to walk 6 miles in either direction. There's no excess on it and you phone the insurer. Like I said, didn't get to use it but I believe they would phone a taxi firm to come and pick you up. Has to be for some sort of mechanical failure or accident, as far as I know - not for a puncture...but I suppose you could lie and get away with it.
 

vickster

Legendary Member
Yep, I just joined ETA. Not used it yet and hope not to, but when you are as crap as me at fixing bikes, £18 a year is a bally bargain. The terms are clear on the website. You have to pay for any parts used, for example
 

CopperBrompton

Bicycle: a means of transport between cake-stops
Location
London
I'd love a proper version of this type of service, but the only ones I have seen are rubbish: they only recover you to the nearest bike shop (useless unless it's something they can repair while you wait) or to the nearest train station (useless if you have no way to get it home from the closest station to home).
 

vickster

Legendary Member
I live in London and mostly ride around here. The nearest station is 5 minutes from home (just hope it's not a Sunday when engineering works are being done).
Frankly, £18 a year for peace of mind and potential roadside puncture repairs is a bargain for me (with my dodgy hand I can ride a bike, but I couldn't fix a puncture at the moment, nor probably reseat a wheel! :sad: ).

The mechanically competent may not require such a service :smile:
 

CopperBrompton

Bicycle: a means of transport between cake-stops
Location
London
In London, I'm usually on the Brompton, where public transport/taxi is a simple plan B. Where breakdown cover would be useful is longer rides, usually out in the countryside, where what I really want is proper car-style breakdown cover where someone comes out and fixes the bike at the roadside if possible, and recovers me home if not.
 

Turbo Rider

Just can't reMember
See what you're saying about the taxi home thing...or just to where you're going would be nice...my LBS is a 2 minute walk from work though, so that's where I'd be headed as I keep a lock at work as well. Trouble with roadside would be that most bike repairs needing that sort of service would take quite a while to fix...the one which happened to me needed a soak in degreaser, but once they'd found one problem, they found another and I needed a new wheel in the end...wasn't quick though...suppose they could incorporate parts into things, but if you don't get enough of a buy in to start with, the premiums would be sky high.
 

Dommo

Veteran
Location
Greenwich
Yep, I just joined ETA.

Having lived in Spain for a bit, this statement worries me ;)

Interesting service though, that I never realised existed. I've always tended to rely on walking to nearest train station in the event of anything catastrophic enough to make the bike unrideable. That said, the first customer testimonial on their frontpage is from someone who had a puncture and they organised for a taxi to pick her up! First off, isn't this kind of the most basic easy-to-fix issues you're ever likely to experience on a bike and secondly couldn't she have called a taxi herself if she was able to call them? Outsourcing gone mad!

Am I being overly cynical here? :smile:
 

vickster

Legendary Member
Having lived in Spain for a bit, this statement worries me ;)

Interesting service though, that I never realised existed. I've always tended to rely on walking to nearest train station in the event of anything catastrophic enough to make the bike unrideable. That said, the first customer testimonial on their frontpage is from someone who had a puncture and they organised for a taxi to pick her up! First off, isn't this kind of the most basic easy-to-fix issues you're ever likely to experience on a bike and secondly couldn't she have called a taxi herself if she was able to call them? Outsourcing gone mad!

Am I being overly cynical here? :smile:

Not in the cold, dark, wet when you have a pump that seems to have taken a holiday and you have bad hands. At the moment, there's no way I could fix a puncture, probably couldn't reseat a wheel easily either :sad: I can't even hold a pillow comfortably! And couldn't lift a bike into a car either

The calling a taxi thing does sound daft initially...but perhaps she was in an unfamiliar area with no internet access and couldn't get a taxi firm number easily. It's £18 a year, hardly going to break the bank and could come in very handy so...

I'm guessing you are a bloke who likes fixing things...I pretty much despise all things mechanical and technological when they go wrong!
 

Dommo

Veteran
Location
Greenwich
Sure, I'm not saying it might not be a valuable service and certainly not suggesting it shouldn't be possible to buy a service to fix even a puncture. I wasn't really trying to draw attention that the customer didn't fix the puncture, but more that the ETA didn't try and just ordered a taxi. I guess at the time the customer just wanted to get to wherever they needed to be quickly. I was just a bit perplexed at the testimonial when a better one to sell their product would have been something along the lines of "I had a puncture but the repair guy came quickly and fixed it for me."

It will be interesting to see how you find the service as the year progresses.

As for me "fixing" things, my partner might disagree. :smile:
 

vickster

Legendary Member
I am not sure reading their T&Cs that they do actually repair at the roadside, more transportation? It's not very clear

I'm hoping not to need it though :smile:
 

cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
Unless its 24 hours and covers out in the sticks its pretty useless to me imho, by the time a taxi has turned up assuming they can find one i could have walked home .
 
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