CYCLE NOW, PAY LATER!

THE CYCLE to Work scheme is an often misunderstood employee benefit, but when you partner with the right provider the scheme brings lots of rewards, for both employers and employees.

Among the reasons you should be taking advantage are the savings of between 32% and 47% on any type of bike, giving access to affordable travel options during the cost-of-living crisis. You’ll also get fitter and healthier, by adding exercise into your daily routine, and arrive at work feeling more energised and motivated, and ready to face the day. Plus you’re helping combat climate change by using sustainable transport — and helping your employers to achieve their ‘net zero’ goals.

But not all Cycle to Work scheme providers are the same and that’s

Why You Should Use One Best Suited

to your needs. Six years ago, Green Commute Initiative (GCI) changed the way people viewed the scheme — the £1,000 limit and ownership fees were discarded and retailers treated fairly. GCI revolutionised the market, won awards and opened the eyes of employers. Through GCI, you’ll make the maximum possible savings as there are no fees to reduce them. You can get an e-bike, cargobike or a regular pedal cycle, or even get a bike on a Brompton subscription.

How does it work?

To access the scheme, you must be employed and on PAYE. Your employer must agree to pay for the scheme voucher upfront; you then repay directly from your gross pay (before paying any tax). This means you save the tax and NI on the value of the bike; the amount you save depends on your tax bracket.

IF YOU CYCLE through central London regularly you might have noticed the ever-growing numbers of tourists trying out two-wheeled sightseeing. This isn’t really surprising: cycling enthusiasts have long known that the best, and most efficient, way to see a large city like London is by bike. The recent LCC-led Women’s Freedom Ride took two hours, at a slow pace catering for children, penny farthings and pets, yet it was able to cover almost all the top London landmarks.

What’s changed radically in the past decade is that wide, protected cycle lanes have been built in exactly the places that tourists want to go: Tower of London, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Kensington Palace, Regent’s Park, Hyde Park, Olympic park, and more. Longstanding readers of London Cyclist may remember that when LCC launched its Love London Go Dutch campaign back in 2012 we chose to visually illustrate those iconic routes in order to show how London could be transformed and that struck a chord with decisionmakers. Today, the wide lanes in key locations make an instant impression on tourists and push them to that other key factor behind cycle tourism growth: shared hire bikes. In central and much of inner London at least, there is an abundance of bikes that you can easily hire with a bank card, whether it’s the Santander variety or the colourful Lime, Dott, Tier and Human Forest electric hire e-bikes and e-scooters.

The numbers

It’s not just observation that shows the tourism-cycling connection. The government says that in

2020 leisure cycling in England increased by 75%. If you look more closely at the TfL data on cycle use you’ll spot that the number of weekend bike trips has soared since the pandemic by up to 210% and shows few signs of declining. We can’t tell what proportion of those extra trips are by Londoners on leisure trips or out-of-town tourists, but it’s obviously not cycle commuters (whose numbers fell during the pandemic before recovering after lockdown).

A statistic that reveals more about tourists on bikes is the use of the Santander hire bikes in central and inner London: that, according to TfL, increased by up to 220% on weekends in 2021 (approximately 40% of users are ‘casual’, ie non-members who use a credit card for hire) and 2022 was a record year for Santander bikes. Lime, an LCC strategic partner and leading dockless e-bike and e-scooter operator, says trips on its e-bikes increased by 106% in 2021 to a record 2.4 million (and in April 2023 they recorded a 170% increase in new users). The firm attributes some of that growth to new cycle lanes. It said: “Improved infrastructure contributed directly to the increased popularity of Lime’s rental e-bikes, as Camden Council experienced a significant rise in the use of Lime’s e-bikes in 2021 following the launch of several cycle improvement schemes.”

Increased book sales too indicate that cycle tourism in the capital is surging. Cycling London (written by the author of this article with help from LCC members), maps and illustrates three dozen popular tourist and leisure routes in the capital. Demand for the fourth edition grew significantly during the pandemic. The book included two new tourist-oriented rides which pass most of London’s icons and follow, almost exclusively, the new cycle infrastructure in the capital. A decade ago the popular Local Cycling Guide maps, created by LCC and expanded by TfL to 14 separate maps, showed the potential of leisure cycling. More than two million were distributed, with those that covered the tourist routes in central London proving by far the most popular.

Economic benefits

Tourism is a well-known money spinner. Visit Britain estimated that tourism was worth £33bn to London in 2019. Sustrans, which is behind the National Cycle Network (NCN), says that trips on the NCN “generate around £88 million for the UK economy through reduced road congestion and contribute £2.5 billion to local economies through leisure and tourism each year.” Tourist-oriented events like the Tour of Britain and Tour de France bring in money to the cities that host them: a TfL report estimated that the Tour de France generated £73m directly in the capital when it came to London in 2007, and a further £15m in Kent, plus £35m in publicity. The 2012 Olympics Games generated an estimated £14bn.

Guided rides

While shared hire bikes and marked routes, like those along the Embankment, make independent cycle tourism a lot easier today, guided rides are still popular. Thousands of positive Trustpilot reviews of the capital’s bicycle tour company trips indicate that their customers like the active travel format of enjoying London. The significant growth in cycle trips, especially on weekends, has not, however, yet translated into income for the cycle tour operators who are still recovering from the slowdown in all tourism during the pandemic. The leading operator, the London Bike Tour Company, established for more than 30 years at Waterloo, was pleased to have 100 riders booked on the day we spoke, but says that post-Brexit, school groups have fallen in number, as visitors now have to have passports rather than ID cards, and tour guides are harder to recruit because there’s far fewer students from Europe, who often took the jobs. The growth of online booking also eats in to operator income because of the large commissions involved.

Visit London, London’s primary tourism agency, says it “promotes cycle tourism heavily” and its website has several pages devoted to cycling, though they are not regularly updated. Both LCC and TfL promote the LCC member-inspired Freecycle/Ride London which attracts more than 50,000 riders to the annual event, bringing some 30 LCC-led rides into central London to enjoy a circular route of tourist hotspots. Nonetheless TfL says: “We haven’t done paid marketing activity that specifically targets tourists for Santander Cycles.” Which could be a missed opportunity. Serco, which runs the Santander scheme, recently told UK local authorities that “peak season tourists can make a significant contribution to funding” (of cycle hire schemes).

London Planner

The mass circulation (100k per month) ad-funded, free tourist guide called London Planner, has ample information about pretty much everything aside from cycling. It currently allocates just 15 words to cycling — a link to Santander Cycle hire — and has no map of central cycle routes. The publisher has told London Cyclist that this oversight will be rectified; we’ll look out for the June issue.

Others may not have the media reach of TfL or London Planner, but are willing to plug the gap. LCC routinely publishes enticing rides in this magazine, and on the website, and there are numerous books from Sustrans, and authors like Jack Thurston, about routes near the capital. When the Tour of Britain came to London in 2018, British Cycling promoted a joint riverboat/Santander Cycles ticket that enabled riders to see attractions from water and land, along with suggested bike routes.

LCC local groups have always run free guided rides open to all and readers will be pleased to hear that the popular ride directory on the LCC website has been resurrected (see links below) and is currently being re-populated with trip suggestions.

And finally there’s all of us — taking relatives for a cycle trip across London to see the sights can now be a pleasure not a challenge. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Useful Tourism Links

BOOKS n CyclingLondon (4th edition) by Tom Bogdanowicz n Lost Lanes (Southern England) by Jack Thurston (routes in and around London VIDEOS n @londoncycleroutes on YouTube by Jon Stone

ONLINE MAPPING n cyclescape.com (cyclist sourced) n komoot.com (cyclist sourced) n TfL Journey Planner n Routes ideas from LCC members (lcc.org.uk/routes)

FREE GUIDED RIDES n General: lcc.org.uk/events-calendar n LCC local group rides: lcc.org.uk/ groups/lcc-local-groups (follow local group links to find ride calendars)

LINK TO ‘ULTIMATE TOURIST TRAIL’ (ILLUSTRATED BELOW) n komoot.com/tour/1155678568

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