What is the Cycle to Work scheme

Save the world and Cycle to Work, use the Cycle To Work Scheme!

One of the easiest ways we can tackle climate change in the UK is to get more people riding bikes. Transport makes up around 30% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the UK and is a significant contributor to climate changes as well as to poor air quality. If we could double the number of people in the UK who cycle to work instead of driving. It would reduce CO2 emissions by 600,000 tonnes per year.

Doing a typical 4-mile commute by bike instead of car would save half a tonne of CO2 per year. This would be about 6% of your personal carbon footprint. If people in England became as likely to cycle as people in the Netherlands. There would be around two million fewer car driving commuters, all saving half a tonne of CO2 per year.

Not only cleaner but cheaper

Riding to work instead of driving will help to stop climate change but it also has loads of other benefits:

Cycling to work saves you money - The average annual cost of commuting by car is £3727 per year. Cycling to work costs £396 per year.

Riding makes you happier – Regular physical activity like cycling can improve your mental wellbeing and happiness by 32%

Cycling makes you healthier – every hour spent cycling adds an hour to your life expectancy and massively reduces your chances of developing cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

You may have heard that the cycle to work scheme has changed. The big headline is that the old £1000 limit is being lifted. So you can now use the cycle to work scheme to buy more expensive bikes. Electric and cargo bikes which are nearly always more than £1000. The government wants to encourage their use so the changes will help more people buy them.

What is the Cycle to Work Scheme?

Cycle to Work is a government scheme that lets you save between 25% and 40% on a new bike. Your employer buys the bike for you and you pay them back out of your wages. The payments come out before your tax and national insurance is calculated. So you end up paying less tax which is where the saving comes from. There are a couple of dozen different companies that run cycle to work schemes. All are based on the same basic process. The big operators are Cycle Scheme, Cycle Solutions, Bike 2 Work and Halfords. At Cycles UK we accept nearly all cycle to work scheme vouchers.