FEATURE
IMAGE: VECTOR POINT STUDIO, SHUTTERSTOCK
imperfections, then you have to give it to the scheme, it’s still doing very well. To quantify this more, if 1.45 million bicycles were sold in the UK in 2024, according to the Bicycle Association’s count, then it’s reasonable to assume that the scheme is pitching in over 350,000 vouchers to the market on a good year, though the official figure, according to a recent paper on the subject, sits closer to 280,000. It is claimed that this volume of trade has a £72 million economic value over and above the retail sales. The key question on many people’s lips is how many of those are new cyclists, those actually cycling to work, and how many are enthusiasts buying a new bike and kit? According to a HMRC-commissioned paper by Ipsos
Research, the data collected on the more than two million sales via the scheme to date would indicate that “almost 4 in 10 (39%) of Cycle to Work Scheme users can be described as ‘newly commuting cyclists’ as they reported that they started cycling to work since using the scheme.” This, as described by the Cycle to Work Alliance, “has been
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extraordinarily successful at driving up rates of cycling and supporting more people with active commutes.” On the other side of the coin, it begs the question why the majority of sales are going to those who already had access to a bike, said to be 62% of all buyers. The Ipsos report has more to say that lifts the lid on buyer
trends. It writes “Scheme users were more likely to be men (68%) than women (31%), from a white ethnic background (86%), and were most likely to live in London (23%). Three in 10 (30%) were higher-rate taxpayers, compared to 16% of the UK population at the time of the research.” So, how about the scheme’s more recent role in converting higher ticket sales, those beyond the former limits, often by some wedge and very often pedal-assisted? Steve Edgell, whose company Cycle Solutions is one of five in the Alliance, told us that “in 2024, 22% of all bikes supplied by my company, through the Cycle to Work scheme, have been power-assisted, compared to just 9% of the total bike units sold in the UK. The market has evolved, and the scheme
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