My New Bike Part 1.
Yes I know I haven't really blogged for ages but you know what's like, I barely phone my mum so don't take it personally. Anyway I'm very excited today as the bike shop phoned to say my bike is being built and will be ready this afternoon! My old bike has definitely seen better days, none of which occured this century. Anyone who knows me will probably be glad it's finally ready if for no other reason than I might stop banging on about how f**king wonderful it will be when I finally get it.
I'm able to fund my new bike purchase through the wonderful Cycles2Work scheme a government initiative to get people cycling more, the bottom line being you can buy a bike for about 50% of the full price - no VAT, pre tax & NI payments. This makes a significant difference especially when the full price is knocking on the door of 2 grand.
Anyway mine will be ready in just a few hours. For those interested it is basically a Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Comp upgraded to an Expert without the Brain Fade rear shock but with Talas RLC's on the front. Pictorially it looks a bit like...
But with the addition of this...
this...
this...
and this..
Allowing me to do much more of this...
The joy is mine!
I'm able to fund my new bike purchase through the wonderful Cycles2Work scheme a government initiative to get people cycling more, the bottom line being you can buy a bike for about 50% of the full price - no VAT, pre tax & NI payments. This makes a significant difference especially when the full price is knocking on the door of 2 grand.
Anyway mine will be ready in just a few hours. For those interested it is basically a Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Comp upgraded to an Expert without the Brain Fade rear shock but with Talas RLC's on the front. Pictorially it looks a bit like...
But with the addition of this...
this...
this...
and this..
Allowing me to do much more of this...
The joy is mine!
Labels: bicycle, mtb, stumpjumper
posted by AntToeKnee at 10:47 AM
3 Comments:
Except of course you don't own it, you lease it and at the end of 3 (?) years (in which time you must have used it for half your work trips) they will sell it to you for its market value which may or may not be significant...
They introduced this in my workplace and being a bunch of pedantic, stroppy engineers, we tore the scheme to pieces and, AFAIK, nobody bought a bike. Our scheme was hobbled by being run by a largish company whose raison d'etre was running the scheme and so they offered a crap selection at inflated prices so that when the 50% or so was removed you ended up with about the price you would have paid on the web.
Don't want to piss on your fire though ...
Yes this can be a problem. Fortunately, working for a small company run by cycle enthusiasts has many advantages including ensuring that the hand over premium is a fiver; getting them to spend £350 for a DTI leasing certificate to allow the purchase to be over £1000 and the guys from the North West Mountain Bike Centre are upgrading some bits for free as they are end of line (our finance officer went to school with the guys that own it!) In total I'm saving just under 60% of the shop cost. For that money I can live with the lease label for 12 months.
You can always do the scheme in reverse and arrange it with the shop - most bike shops will do this. Your company does have the right to refuse but apparently this is uncommon even when they offer their own scheme as there no cost and little effort on their part. The advantage to the shop is that they don't have to pay out the percentage to whoever is running the scheme.
AZ offered their own version in conjuction with Halfords with a limited selection. However, a chat with the people in Halfords revealed they would sell you any bike and would even source bikes outside of their range.
I think the best advice is to deal with the bike provider as it is in their interests to get you a bike.
Phwoar !!!
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