Cycle to Work Scheme

[ExV8]

Tried to buy a bike from Halfords, a nice Boardman carbon one. Ordered, sent off for my c2w scheme and all was good.

Certificate came today so went to collect to find - they don’t accept the national scheme but only there own. No bike, go away response from the store, talk about being deflated.

Maybe a bullet dodged as a local Indy has 5 or 6 to choose from available to try tomorrow.

The Boardman looked and felt really good to me, options now look like a Ridley. Is a Ridley likely to be a better bike than a Boardman?

[untakenname]

Depends on the spec, what groupset does it have?
Boardman used to have some pretty decently specced bikes a few years back, these days they don't seem to be as keenly priced comapred what you can get online from Brands like Rose or Canyon.
What's the maximum budget of your scheme?

[ExV8]

Certificate is for £1300 but willing to put more in. Boardman was a Boardman Road Pro Carbon SLR Bike (£1500) and Ridley could be something like the FENIX SL 105 MIX (£1900).

105 is probably better than SRAM, just feel gutted not to have picked up what I had expected.

[tr7v8]

There are around 1/2 a dozen C2W schemes & not all are accepted everywhere. My company one is called Cycle Scheme & I fell in love with the Alpkit Sonder but they didn't accept our work one, so ordered an ORRO from my LBS.

[Piginapoke]

My company recently changed to Evans Cycles CTW vouchers only. Very annoying.

[idiotgap]

Only one random internet opinion, but Ridley is Belgian brand with depth of history and a top level race team supply deal. At similar specification a Ridley is much more desirable bike than a Boardman (to me)

[ExV8]

Things got a little expensive.

Ended up with a Ridley that was on sale that had full Ultegra - which meant the cost of matching pedals too.... very happy with it and apparently it is in their racing team colours.

Used it a couple of times and feels quite good.

[Zippee]

Only just seen this post which is a shame but for anyone else https://www.cyclerepublic.com/ are the only retailer I believe outside of Halfords direct that sell Boardman. They also accept all the major C2W vouchers.

[Zigster]

Cycle Republic is Halfords. It's their cycle-specific brand of high street shops.

I know Halfords can often have a bad reputation for cycling, but my experience of the Cycle Republic stores I've used (particularly the Fenchurch Street store) has always been very positive.

[ExV8]

The Halfords / republic issue is nuts. Neither company talk to each other so instead of selling a bike they sent me elsewhere (no option for Halfords to sell it and put it through republic).

Why have one part of the business do one thing and another something totally different?

The positive outcome is I have found a great local Indy that I will spend more money with and I am loving the bike too. Great result in the end.

[LosingGrip]

Bit of a bump, but rather than start a new thread.

Is the cycle to work scheme worth it? I'm tempted to get one. Work will be around 13 miles away and there will be showers there. Somewhere safe to put it and will hopefully avoid all the traffic on the way home.

I am a 20% tax payer. So if I've read it right. I buy a bile for £1,000 and its repaid over 12 months with the money taken out before tax, so I pay back £800 over the year? Am i missing something?

[lufbramatt]

I think they have lifted or are planning to lift the £1000 cap.

Bear in mind that you don't own the bike after the hire period, so there's an extra fee to pay which is calculated as a %age of the bikes original value, depending how old it is. Might be ways round that, but when I looked into it there didn't seem like it was worth the effort.

[DJFish]

I’m pondering the same question from a different angle.

Do I buy a £1k bike with warranty & pay £650.?

Or

Spend £650 on 2k’s worth of 2nd hand carbon loveliness?

[Countdown]

DJFish said:

I’m pondering the same question from a different angle.

Do I buy a £1k bike with warranty & pay £650.?

Or

Spend £650 on 2k’s worth of 2nd hand carbon loveliness?

You take out a CS loan for £1k

It’s repaid from your monthly salary before tax, so for a £1000 loan you’d only repay £800 effectively.

[Zippee]

Countdown said:

DJFish said:

I’m pondering the same question from a different angle.

Do I buy a £1k bike with warranty & pay £650.?

Or

Spend £650 on 2k’s worth of 2nd hand carbon loveliness?

You take out a CS loan for £1k

It’s repaid from your monthly salary before tax, so for a £1000 loan you’d only repay £800 effectively.

From that I'd assume he's a higher rate tax payer and factored in the final hire charge.

[Croutons]

You also save NI, so even a base rate tax payer does better than just the 20% tax saving.

The provider might also offer a discount from list, eg mine does 12%, so I can spend a curious £1136...

Final charge is basically zero on all these schemes now, so it's well worth using if you can.

ETA, calculator I can use suggests post list discount to a purchase price of £900 means salary sacrifice of £75 pcm for a year, netting down to £51 pcm in reduced take home of £612, ie £288 saving, because you're not paying either tax or NI on it.

Edited by Croutons on Saturday 22 June 01:44

[DJFish]

It’s more the new v 2nd hand issue I’m pondering.
For the same overall spend on a c2w bike, you can get a lot of 2nd hand bike....
Plus my lbs has nothing in my size as next years bikes are about to hit the shelves....

[anonymous-user]

LosingGrip said:

Bit of a bump, but rather than start a new thread.

Is the cycle to work scheme worth it? I'm tempted to get one. Work will be around 13 miles away and there will be showers there. Somewhere safe to put it and will hopefully avoid all the traffic on the way home.

I am a 20% tax payer. So if I've read it right. I buy a bile for £1,000 and its repaid over 12 months with the money taken out before tax, so I pay back £800 over the year? Am i missing something?

https://www.evanscycles.com/b2b/ride-to-work/savings-calculator
20% taxpayer ;
£680, or £56.67 a month
Extend hire period, so never pay a final fee
40% taxpayer;
£580, or £48.33

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 22 June 06:29

[jinkster]

Jimboka said:

LosingGrip said:

Bit of a bump, but rather than start a new thread.

Is the cycle to work scheme worth it? I'm tempted to get one. Work will be around 13 miles away and there will be showers there. Somewhere safe to put it and will hopefully avoid all the traffic on the way home.

I am a 20% tax payer. So if I've read it right. I buy a bile for £1,000 and its repaid over 12 months with the money taken out before tax, so I pay back £800 over the year? Am i missing something?

https://www.evanscycles.com/b2b/ride-to-work/savings-calculator
20% taxpayer ;
£680, or £56.67 a month
Extend hire period, so never pay a final fee
40% taxpayer;
£580, or £48.33

Edited by Jimboka on Saturday 22 June 06:29

And I think you pay an extra months fee to purchase the bike at the end. I'm hoping they raise the cap so I can save some money on an eBike (A £2700 Brompton Electric would be nice )

[anonymous-user]

jinkster said:

Jimboka said:

LosingGrip said:

Bit of a bump, but rather than start a new thread.

Is the cycle to work scheme worth it? I'm tempted to get one. Work will be around 13 miles away and there will be showers there. Somewhere safe to put it and will hopefully avoid all the traffic on the way home.

I am a 20% tax payer. So if I've read it right. I buy a bile for £1,000 and its repaid over 12 months with the money taken out before tax, so I pay back £800 over the year? Am i missing something?

https://www.evanscycles.com/b2b/ride-to-work/savings-calculator
20% taxpayer ;
£680, or £56.67 a month
Extend hire period, so never pay a final fee
40% taxpayer;
£580, or £48.33

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 22 June 06:29

And I think you pay an extra months fee to purchase the bike at the end. I'm hoping they raise the cap so I can save some money on an eBike (A £2700 Brompton Electric would be nice )

I’ve purchased quite a few via schemes & have never paid even 1p after the end of the ‘extended’ hire period...
I read that the rules are changing regarding the usual £1000 cap, so will allow purchases if better electric bikes. I wonder if I can get a quality kit to convert my current Brompton via scheme?