Letter from work, Changes to parking your bike!

[Nutty1979]

Just got a reply from my e-mail, read below

Hi Andy,

A couple of guys have already asked if they can put their bikes there. I basically said first come.

I know it's a real pain but I'm sure you understand we just don't have the space for so many bikes.

Hopefully you will be able to fit yours on the fire escape, I think theres room or 2 or 3 bikes.

Cheers


So looks like i'll be getting up at the crack of dawn to get one of the 3 spaces haha, my work pal who gets is really early who also cycles in said i could chain mine to his, if there is no room at the fire exit i'll just bring the bike in my office and see what happens.

As for buying a really cheap bike, its an option but i'm so addicted to riding my allez sport, i don't think i could down grade.

As for my old Halfords Apollo sport which i bought for £190 i managed to get £130, not bad considering it was 4 months old and had done 1440miles, i dont think it would of lasted much more over 2000 miles haha.

£1.50 per day? How much does it cost cars and motorbikes to park on-site? And there was I thinking that the Government was giving incentives to companies to "go green", especially in London ... silly me!

for a motor bike its £40 a month, for a car i know its £10 a day

I've also found out its just like a normal NCP, with no CCTV and your not covered if a car reverses into your bike or damaged in any other kind of way, i've also not seen anywhere to chain it. I think the idea of leaving it there is out of the question.

 

[redjedi]

If you have to pay £5 a week to use a carpark, then on-yer-bike at London Bridge do a secure cycle park which is also £5 a day.

http://www.onyourbike.com/stylesheet.asp?file=7_1_1_cycle_park

I think you employer should pay for this for the inconvenience.

edit: how many frees space do they supply for cars?

 

[Dan B]

Isn't this one of the pitfalls of cycle to work schemes though

As far as I know - certainly with ours - generally until you've paid it off, if it gets damaged / nicked you have to pay, not the company - ie it's your asset not the company's.

Legally the company retains ownership of the bike until the hire period finishes. What you say is probably true in practice in most companies - they treat it as if they'd given it to you - but I do wonder how they square that with the auditors. Sounds negligent.

 

[Woz!]

The MD has told you to secure the bikes to the fire escape?
Not sure that would go down well with a fire warden!

Does your office have a lift and aircon? Having worked in IT all my life and having had more access to the buildings than most, I know that there's normally rooms hidden at the top and bottom of buildings were machinery is located. These rooms often have LOADS of space in them. I know we (IT) thought we could easily fit a snooker table and break room in the loft of my last building!
Like someone said above, get pally with someone with access to these spaces (normally Facilities or Security).

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Yip, it's the company's asset not yours. You are however given use of it, and if you lose it you need to replace it. Hence getting insurance on it is your job not your employers. It's also your responsibility to look after it as you're the one using it.

You might be able to argue that as the company still owns it they should provide some facilities but I don't think you'd have too much joy.

As for only using the bike on weekends as Crankarm suggested, that strictly violates your terms as you are supposed to use the bike at least 50% of the time to get to work (not that I think anyone checks, but if you're going to get into a cycling spat with your employer it's a good idea to play by the rules. And if you have been commuting in on it daily you probably have a fair amount of time to not ride it to work before the 50% is up!).

As for Bongman's comment on the 'fair value' - yes that is what the rules *actually say* but I think in practise if you're with one of the schemes that do all the paperwork it'll be a £5 payment or 5% of original value or similar. If mine (private deal with the employer) ends up being more than that I will be most upset as I've paid for the bike - in full (i.e. covered what the company paid for it! and saved them money as well in NI reductions!) over the term. You're also supposed to keep the bike in good running order and not do anything to decrease the value of the bike as your part of the deal; so that whole side of things is shaky anyway.

 

[fossyant]

I can't see the 'fire escape' parking lasting long - so keep an eye out for other areas - any railings in the basement car park ?

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Doesn't help you much as your bike isn't one of these, but I found this great - if you all had Bromptons maybe you could get one car spot...

http://bikehacks.com/how-many-2/

(of course being one of the poor sods in the middle would suck)

 

[silverbow]

Is your office a self contained room or do you have a partition you can lean the bike against? If so maybe you could cover your bike with a sheet, it wouldn't attract too attention then.

 

[dodgy]

I used to stay in hotels a lot and sometimes my bike wasn't a welcome guest, I got around it by buying a bike bag, now it's just a big piece of luggage. Might be worth investigating.

 

[swee'pea99]

As for buying a really cheap bike, its an option but i'm so addicted to riding my allez sport, i don't think i could down grade.

Your Allez Sport is 9.1Kg; the 653-framed Dawes I bought recently off ebay for £53 ('some surface rust, busted freehub') weighs 9Kg. You could be surprised....

 

[Woz!]

As for only using the bike on weekends as Crankarm suggested, that strictly violates your terms as you are supposed to use the bike at least 50% of the time to get to work (not that I think anyone checks, but if you're going to get into a cycling spat with your employer it's a good idea to play by the rules. And if you have been commuting in on it daily you probably have a fair amount of time to not ride it to work before the 50% is up!).

I spoke to the tax office about his, and in fact it's 50% of the use of the bike has to be for commuting.

So technically, you could ride the bike once to work and once at home, and drive to work from then on and you'd be ok with the terms of the deal so long as you didn't use the bike for anything else.

This makes the scheme effectively impossible to enforce - so long as you've ridden to work once, they've no way of showing that you've used it at home for anything else.

 

[Wheeledweenie]

Have you thought about getting other employees organised into a group? I set up a network at my company and when we hit 60 members they felt forced to do something. The facilities team successfully applied for funding from TfL because they could prove demand (we register members on the company intranet) and we eventually were given new covered bike racks, track pumps in the buildings and lockers for clothes.

If you can prove the need for these things you're on much firmer ground. The cycle network now has 76 members and the MDs know who I am because they take an interest in the green credentials we give the company.

 

[ttcycle]

I would second Woz's post

He shouldn't be recommending that the bike's are put around the fire escape - they would be considered a fire hazard and it does sound like the guy is a bit clueless to suggest this.

Definetly try and get everyone banding together as I suggested before and as echoed by a few others- strength in numbers.

 

[Wheeledweenie]

I would second Woz's post

He shouldn't be recommending that the bike's are put around the fire escape - they would be considered a fire hazard and it does sound like the guy is a bit clueless to suggest this.

Definetly try and get everyone banding together as I suggested before and as echoed by a few others- strength in numbers.

Some people at my work call my group the wheeled army because we've got so much done :@)

 

[ttcycle]

HAHA weenie - I like it- some two wheeled action!

You can play on the fact that he doesn't seem to know much about the legality and safety- putting pressure on in terms of a large group will have greater impact and do it as a uniform approach rather than in dribs and drabs. Make sure you also know where you stand re health and safety (dry stuff but could help swing your arguement) if it's one or two requests he's more likely to ignore it or fob people off but if everyone that cycles or near that is behind it then there's more chance of success.