£50 bike repair voucher for all

[Davef]

I perhaps should not have ordered a new tyre today. I could have got my local bike shop to source and install it.


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[Jasmine]

England only 

[telstarbox]

Transport is a devolved matter so nothing to stop Scotland, Wales and NI doing the same...

[fd3]

Anything on how we can apply for these as a customer?

[CyclePath]

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk

Still only open for repairers to register. Vouchers will be available for customers “shortly”


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[fd3]

It will help them get it back on the road by providing £50 towards the cost of a service and repair for up to two cycles per household.

Hopefully that's £50 for each bike, not £50 spit between two bikes. 

[CyclePath]

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk

Still only open for repairers to register. Vouchers will be available for customers “shortly”


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From the t+cs for repairers:


“3.4. A maximum of 2 vouchers can be claimed per customer address, and only 1 voucher per cycle.”


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[orienteer]

Maybe they'll be sent out with the meal vouchers   

[Sergeant Pluck]

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk

Still only open for repairers to register. Vouchers will be available for customers “shortly”


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Well, it’s only been 6 or 7 weeks. 

[hatler]

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk

Still only open for repairers to register. Vouchers will be available for customers “shortly”


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From the t+cs for repairers:


“3.4. A maximum of 2 vouchers can be claimed per customer address, and only 1 voucher per cycle.”


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How's the 1 voucher per bike going to work ?
One bike, two vouchers, two LBSs.

Still, that's hardly a problem that's going to impact anyone here.

[CyclePath]

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk

Still only open for repairers to register. Vouchers will be available for customers “shortly”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

From the t+cs for repairers:


“3.4. A maximum of 2 vouchers can be claimed per customer address, and only 1 voucher per cycle.”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How's the 1 voucher per bike going to work ?
One bike, two vouchers, two LBSs.

Still, that's hardly a problem that's going to impact anyone here.

I did wonder that. I don’t see how the shop can be expected to police this sort of thing but imagine the wording is there to ensure they don’t get paid in the most obvious cases of people taking the piss.

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk

Still only open for repairers to register. Vouchers will be available for customers “shortly”


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Well, it’s only been 6 or 7 weeks. 

Yeah, I’m starting to think they might not actually launch this to the public at all, possibly due to the potential for fraud or because it’s logistically challenging.


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[fd3]

Two vouchers per household, so I guess two of you could give your vouchers for the same bike and say you share it.  Frankly this is a tiny amount of money compared with anything else the govt is doing and it's fucking ridiculous that they still haven't sorted this out - should have been live a month ago to capture the "want to cycle after covid" crowd.  By the time this comes online those people will be back in cars.

[hatler]

^ ^  This exactly ^  ^

[Sergeant Pluck]

The same applies to much of the funding for councils to encourage cycling and walking, with notable exceptions. My commute is as busy as it ever was, which is worrying given that as far as I know schools are not at normal activity levels. I suspect that in London there is an understandable reluctance to travel by tube and train, and perhaps more car parking space available in town.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I would think that applies everywhere, not just London and not just UK.

[TimC]

They have totally missed the bus (groan!) on the funding to encourage cycling and walking. My LA council (Babergh) has pretty much ignored the whole initiative, and Suffolk have proposed 148 'blue-sky' schemes that are simply transcribed from a suggestions box without any kind of usefulness or practicality filter - yet good, well-thought-through schemes proposed by town and village councils have been ignored. Cycling UK have posted a league table of councils' response to the scheme, and it's largely dire. They just aren't interested outside major cities. Our local market town's Facebook thread on the subject has become a rant against cyclists and a demand for more car parking.

[telstarbox]

Launches today.

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk/

[trekker12]

They have totally missed the bus (groan!) on the funding to encourage cycling and walking. My LA council (Babergh) has pretty much ignored the whole initiative, and Suffolk have proposed 148 'blue-sky' schemes that are simply transcribed from a suggestions box without any kind of usefulness or practicality filter - yet good, well-thought-through schemes proposed by town and village councils have been ignored. Cycling UK have posted a league table of councils' response to the scheme, and it's largely dire. They just aren't interested outside major cities. Our local market town's Facebook thread on the subject has become a rant against cyclists and a demand for more car parking.

Just east of you here in Ipswich Tim, they have closed off a handful of very short roads used as ratruns by the simple minded*. Listed another handful of areas but not done anything including the one I live on where the 20 mph speed limits set up ten years ago are seen as a challenge on how many multiples of 20 you can achieve.

They then put up a load of bollards on the white line which already delineated the cycle lane on the main road to the north of town - this now prevents you from leaving the cycle lane to turn right at the roundabouts along here to the point I think they expect you to dismount and use the pedestrian crossing beyond the roundabout. You can time it so you leave the coned section before they start but that just encourages angry horn blasts from the cars you are now 'holding up'.

The initiative is laudable but typically lacking in thought.


*One of them uses a single width railway bridge just near my home which is blind and has been lethal on a bike for years. I was overtaken on it once so I took to riding up the middle which was equally dangerous as cars got near airborne on the blind crest (cutting out the wait at the crossroads 100 yards down the road). Closing it to motorised traffic was the right thing to do.

Interestingly the planning note advising it's closure to vehicles went up before Covid (I read it in early February - I have a habit of stopping and reading planning notes) but of course the new signs all say they part the new Covid related schemes so rather than spend the money they had already allocated they took the grant from the new initiative and used it here rather than considering it's use elsewhere.

[quixoticgeek]

Launches today.

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk/

Is this registration only for shops? I am not seeing anything for MOPs

J

[CyclePath]

Launches today.

https://fixyourbikevoucherscheme.est.org.uk/

Is this registration only for shops? I am not seeing anything for MOPs

J

Opens for customers tonight at 23.45!


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[grams]

Note the T and Cs require any bike brought in to not be roadworthy and the only eligible repairs are the minimum requires to bring it up to roadworthiness.

I'm sure there'll be lots of rule-bending but those of us hoping to get £50 of free upgrades on our existing bikes are out of luck.

[Greenbank]

I'm sure there'll be lots of rule-bending but those of us hoping to get £50 of free upgrades on our existing bikes are out of luck.

Depends how well you know your LBS and what deal you can strike with them.

I'd discussed buying a "bike" from my old LBS through the Cycle2Work scheme that looked nothing like a bike. Turned out it wasn't worth it and I'd have probably wimped out of doing it anyway (I prefer rules).

It was just a bunch of expensive components (e.g. PowerTap hub built into custom wheel, plus some other bits for other bikes) that came to ~£800 or so. The voucher was going to be for £1000 with the LBS not seeing £100 of that as it goes to the scheme administrators. The other £100 was to cover the much lower margin on the bits I was ordering compared to what the LBS would have made if I'd ordered a £1000 bike.

Once I'd worked out I'd only get £800 of bits for a £1000 voucher the savings through tax were all but gone. The only benefit would have been spreading the payments out over the year through salary sacrifice and that can be replaced by 0% finance most places are offering.

I would have expected an LBS wanting to do a deal that would offer you £25 or £30 off components in exchange for the £50 voucher for doing no actual work on your bike. It depends on what the LBS gets back from the voucher.

Anyway, all relatively moot for me as I don't need this service as I can fix my own bikes, plus the vouchers will be in limited supply so I'd rather they went to people that really needed them rather than people who don't.

[trekker12]

I wonder what the likes of wiggle and other online only retailers are trying to do to find a way into this.

If the bike has to be un roadworthy I can always remove a brake outside the shop and cut an old tyre but as above I'm quite capable of fixing my bikes (and a few neighbours round here) so I won't be availing myself

[Jurek]

I wonder what the likes of wiggle and other online only retailers are trying to do to find a way into this.

If the bike has to be un roadworthy I can always remove a brake outside the shop and cut an old tyre but as above I'm quite capable of fixing my bikes (and a few neighbours round here) so I won't be availing myself

Indeed. As has been mentioned elsewhere, given that there are finite number of these vouchers, should any of us on here - most of whom are adept at doing their own fettling - be taking advantage of this scheme?
ETA - I can't see myself doing so.

[hatler]

Yup. I was rather looking forward to a bunch of free fettling, though there's really only one job I am stuck on now (the one set of cable disc brakes we have seem to be impossible to adjust perfectly).

In a surprising display of competence it does appear that the government department has employed someone who knows about bikes to draw up the rules.