the bike bought on cycle to work scheme belongs to the scheme provider. If your vendor leaves his present employment, you have technically bought a bike that does not belong to him.

 

Really? I need to look into that.

 

I think the seller is genuine. Bikes at reduced prices must be selling now because the colour I wanted has gone.

 

edit, Just had a quick read through the scheme. Unbelievably you can pay 25% of the bikes value at the start and the bike is yours. If you don’t you pay 25% of what it’s worth after 4 years.

 

Government just burns money.

Edited January 30, 20233 yr by Kev.k

I don't think the cycle to work scheme has had any effect on prices or very little its been other factors like the pandemic and the Ukraine war that has caused a good chunk of world inflation. Bike prices are starting to come down now as bike demand drops.

 

The Cycle to work scheme is another moronic scheme by the government often abused as per your example. The point is you can buy that bike and just let the original buyer deal with any issues with the scheme but he probably won't have any so for him it's a way of making a quick profit.

 

The scheme should have been a simple scheme to get those on low wages or benefits a refurbished bicycle from their local bike shop for free or heavily subsidised which doesn't fuel imports or cost tax payers too much but gets people cycling. Instead its an overly generous scheme where people buy additional bikes using the scheme back to back and often don't commute with their new bikes at all. Often they buy bikes not even suitable for commuting, high value performance road bikes that most owners would not like to lock up at work. It's just another way the government adds hugely to our national debt and interest payments. Utterly clueless people. However if such a bike came my way heavily subsidised I'd definitely buy it.

 

I agree 100%.

 

The bike has a heathy discount. I’m definitely interested, but it’s now light blue rather than black which is a bit of a downer.

Really? I need to look into that.

 

I think the seller is genuine. Bikes at reduced prices must be selling now because the colour I wanted has gone.

the bike is leased (usually 12 month lease) to the staff, the rent is called 'salary sacrifice' and deducted from his pay packet. At the end of the lease, the scheme provider sells the bike for a small amount called 'final payment'. The bike then belongs to the staff who can sell it anyway he sees fit. However, it's not his to sell until after the final payment.

The process is similar to a normal hire purchase contract for cars.

I'd avoid Giant. Theres been talk on the net about their warranties.

Bloke stripped his bike down to send to Giant as the frame had cracked. Giant refused to honour the guarantee because he had stripped it himself and not dont by a Giant approved dealer.

Giant were contacted(along with several other manufacturers about this issuse as home servicing or removing the forks/shock to send to service somewhere like TFT is the absolute norm.

Even with Giant agreeing home servicing is something many cyclists do, they would honour it, but their explanation was still a bit overly complicated and not as straight forward as others contacted.

Giant are saying if youre getting a fork services, one of their dealers must remove and then re-fit it.

 

All the others said taking off a fork, or swopping the wheels etc etc wouldnt affect a frame or cause the damage, so as far as they were concerned for the rider to do it themselves is fine,.

But it is something to be aware of.

Connotations are a PITA

 

 

The Bosch Gen 4 set costs about £1500

£700.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265184665948

Edited January 30, 20233 yr by AndyBike

the bike is leased (usually 12 month lease) to the staff, the rent is called 'salary sacrifice' and deducted from his pay packet. At the end of the lease, the scheme provider sells the bike for a small amount called 'final payment'. The bike then belongs to the staff who can sell it anyway he sees fit. However, it's not his to sell until after the final payment.

The process is similar to a normal hire purchase contract for cars.

 

The important bit is would they try to reclaim the bike from the new owner or just prosecute the person who obtained the bike on the scheme. I can't see anything happening to the person who bought the bike or any attempt to reclaim that property. If you buy stuff on a credit card, sell it for money and then don't pay the credit card off and end up bankrupt that property isn't reclaimed. It's not receiving stolen property in law as far as I understand it. A huge amount of people are facing bankruptcy at the moment does that mean goods sold on ebay no longer belong to the buyers?

 

It's a mute point anyway as I don't think businesses check on the use of bikes at all. They aren't interested and many schemes end with a tiny token payment or no payment at all.

If you buy stuff on a credit card, sell it for money and then don't pay the credit card off and end up bankrupt that property isn't reclaimed. It's not receiving stolen property in law as far as I understand it. A huge amount of people are facing bankruptcy at the moment does that mean goods sold on ebay no longer belong to the buyers?

the contract you have with the credit card companies is very different from the cycle to work scheme. Goods you buy with your credit card belong to you who pay the invoices, bikes you obtain on the cycle to work schemes belong to who pays the invoice, that is the scheme provider.

It’s seems like company car but with the tax discounted rather than a massive tax increase.

 

I read something about paying 25% upfront for a bike over £500 and 18% for a bike under £500 but I can’t find it now.

 

Giant not honouring that guys warranty is a joke.

 

I really liked Whyte bikes before I read their warranty terms. Imagine spending £8k on a bike and it’s worth a fraction of the price the next day because the warranty is only for the original owner.

 

Only warranty worth anything for any of the bikes I’ve looked at is Specialized.

Seeing that Bosch motors are £700 makes a used bike a much less scary proposition.

well if you buy say a bosch bike 2nd hand then the components have there own warranty motor batt display 2 years and frame 5 years.

 

so as peter at ebike motor centre is a bosch dealer if that motor goes wrong and has warranty he can sort it out tho you might have to pay postage in that case.

 

any ebike shop with a magura account can do a warranty claim they just refuse to do this unless you bought the bike from them.

 

https://www.pro-cycling-golla.de/Antriebseinheit_Active_25_km/h.html

If the e-bike is less than 2 years old, we can also take care of the warranty processing.

 

 

i broke my xd driver on my bike and just sent it back to crank brothers and got it replaced no problem.

 

just dont get any bike with a shitmano motor as he will not service any off them and also any giant bike as they make there own controllers batts and displays.

 

 

https://www.ebikemotorcentre.com/brose-motor-upgrade-service/

 

 

if i had a brand new bike id take the motor off it and send it to him to get that done and have his warranty and dongle.

I wouldn’t touch anything with a shimano motor. Bosch is my first choice.

 

I’ve been looking at bikes tonight. Some have been re listed on eBay 3 or 4 times without selling, was considering making a offer on one.

 

What would be a fair offer on a bike that is 12 months old with no warranty, if a new one with warranty is £5k?

 

I’m not a cheap skate but £4200 seems overly optimistic.

 

That Brose upgrade seems reasonable. Are the new 2.2 motors better than the older ones?

i paid 3500 for my bike with 160 miles on it as that was my limit back then.

 

brose motors are not meant to be serviced you even need custom made tools to take the fkn things apart without braking them.

160 miles is virtually brand new. That’s a good price for a bike that was £6k new.

 

It’s crazy that a motor in a £12k bike is not meant to be serviced.

 

Black bikes with gold shocks look really good.

 

I’ve seen a nice kenevo in those colours.

Giant not honouring that guys warranty is a joke.

I believe Giant resolved it by giving him a new frame, but thats only because the thread was banded about most of the big bike forums stw,pinkbike, twitter etc and it had a lot of people saying due to this warranty business they weren't going to be ever buying a Giant. More damage limitation than anything else.

------------

 

You appear to be missing the kitchen sink

If you haven't already done so, look for prices for completed (eg actually sold) listings of similar bikes.

I'd guess around £2500, maybe £3000.

 

A year or two ago there was the extra demand and reduction in supply of new bikes, mostly directly or indirectly due to Covid. At that point fairly new secondhand ones were going on eBay for as much as a new one, sometimes even above. I think that may have given some people a false impression of current secondhand values.

If you haven't already done so, look for prices for completed (eg actually sold) listings of similar bikes.

I'd guess around £2500, maybe £3000.

 

A year or two ago there was the extra demand and reduction in supply of new bikes, mostly directly or indirectly due to Covid. At that point fairly new secondhand ones were going on eBay for as much as a new one, sometimes even above. I think that may have given some people a false impression of current secondhand values.

 

I’m not going to do what I normally do. I’m going to take my time.

 

Nothing I’ve been watching has sold other than a new £11k bike with 2 year warranty that went for £5k in a auction.

 

Some of the prices are crazy. I guess it will sort itself out.

No one has bid on the new cycle to scheme work bike, or took the buy it now option at £3500.

 

Don’t know if that’s because they think it’s a bit dodgy or that it’s just a slow market at the moment?

 

Bike is £4400 new.

Contacted a local bike shop who make frames and convert bikes to ebikes with baffang motors.

Going to see what they say before I go to Evans and spend more than I wanted to.

 

I’ve been looking at new bikes and decided it’s better to spend around £6k on something I really like, than £4k on something Im not keen on.

 

Used ebikes are too expensive at the moment compared to new to warrant the risk.

All mechanical things at some point wear out or need to be repaired.

 

The purpose built bike industry has a real issue over the support it provides for the motor and battery, sometimes inside the warranty, and more often after the two year warranty has expired.

 

That said the dealer I bought my Yamaha Haibike from has been very good.

 

Also my 2015 Yamaha Haibike was designed very well and has been very tough.

 

The issue of support was highlighted for me when my battery/charger connections broke and the dealer could not help me fix them. Their hands were tied.

 

All my dealer could do was offer to sell me a new charger and battery at from memory £800.

 

The chap who owned the dealership actually suggested that I fixed them myself and that was what I did and they have worked very well ever since. The new connectors cost around a tenner of ebay.

 

The real issue was that my friend and I had to open up the battery to solder the connectors inside with no manuals or diagrams to help us.

 

We also could not at that time get hold of the correct connectors that Yamaha had used and that means that the connectors we used would not connect to a genuine Yamaha replacement battery or charger.

 

Compatible connectors or now more readily available so at some point we could do the job again with Yamaha compatible connectors.

 

But you can see from my experience, with in my opinion a very good dealer, the sort of support issue that could crop up. This is not helped by all the purpose built systems locked down with defensive anti tamper soft wear to make them in some cases impossible to fix.

 

When my motor needed an overhaul I took it to performance line bearings who did a great job.

 

All of that said I understand the temptation as off road the brilliant torque sensor crank drive Yamaha is so much fun to ride.

I nearly bought a yamaha Haibike for a great price.

 

Carbon frame put me off, but it’s still on my shortlist. Bargain at £3k.

 

The issues with big brand motors make bafang attractive.

The issues with big brand motors make bafang attractive.

the only downside of these BBS kits is their weight and they are relatively noisier than the TSDZ2.

the only downside of these BBS kits is their weight and they are relatively noisier than the TSDZ2.

 

Im shocked by the weight of emtb’s in general.

 

Ive only just started reading about the different bafang kits. I noticed on a few videos they seemed a bit noisy.

 

As [mention=12457]georgehenry[/mention] says. The support on these extortionately expensive bikes is lacking. I can’t think of another item of the same value (or at 25% of the value) that is as unreliable, or has anywhere near as bad warranty/after care.

 

Im the type of person that normally buys the best I can afford. It normally serves me well, but I’m so glad I didn’t rush into this.

With your budget you could consider what many people do, which is buy new and sell before 2 year warranty runs out, and then repeat. Most will be fine if treated reasonably.