BIG INTERVIEW
ADVOCATES OF CHOICE
Adrian Warren, senior product director at Cyclescheme, talks to Rebecca Morley about the benefits of cycling to work and winning Best Retailer Services at the BikeBiz Awards 2021
W
ith reports of rising costs for many reasons recently dominating headlines, there has seemingly never been a better time to look
into cycling as an alternative method of getting into work. Bikes offer a lower cost and more environmentally- friendly form of travel, with people realising their benefits especially after two years of Covid-related restrictions. So what is the current outlook for 2021 Best Retailer
Services winner Cyclescheme? “We definitely have been seeing a rebalance in terms of the number of cyclists,” senior product director Adrian Warren told BikeBiz. “But once one crisis goes, another one sweeps in
and now we’re now seeing the financial crisis and the cost of living driving a different reason for people to look at cycling to work. It’s great that Cyclescheme and Cycle to Work can be there with a service during a pandemic, but also in a financial crisis as well, which demonstrates the applicability of this benefit as it can serve a multitude of solutions. “We’re not necessarily seeing the dizzy heights of the
number of cyclists that we saw in the pandemic, but we are still double digits up on 2019. We jumped with the pandemic, but we’ve come back down to a level that was still a lot higher than what we were seeing pre-pandemic. “It’s hopefully a case of those people that got into
cycling to work or cycling over the pandemic, a big portion of those have maintained it. Part of our focus for this last six months is, and continues to be, how we maintain
Cyclescheme’s Adrian Warren
that motivation. How do we ensure that people who are currently cycling now continue to cycle and don’t fall back into the pre-cycling habits?” Cyclescheme has existed since 1999 and grew in popularity from 2005 when it became the first cycle to work provider. The cycle to work scheme offers an end-to- end service for employers, a simple way for businesses to provide employees with savings on a bike or bike accessory purchased tax-efficiently via salary sacrifice.
Award-winning feeling Cyclescheme won the Best Retailer Services Award at last year’s BikeBiz Awards, a trophy Warren says sits beside the desk and proudly shows me during our video call. “It’s a recognition by retailers and the trade of the efforts and the contribution that Cyclescheme has made and continues to make,” said Warren. “Particularly last year, we’d received some bad press and we were able to hopefully counter some of that with revisiting our commercial model, so the bike retailers, the independent bike dealers, they are all central to Cyclescheme and what we do.
www.bikebiz.com
August 2022 | 21
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