Thursday, March 28, 2013

COMMUNITY CARGO BIKE UPDATE - GOOD NEWS!


It has been a while since we got in touch but there is a very good reason for that, you see we've been holding out for some really good news to give you!



We've got all the funding in place to officially start the scheme! So in the next few months the St. James area of Hereford is going to have a cargo bike which can be used by people to move their stuff around. It is really exciting to think that we'll be giving people access to the use of a great bit of equipment for a really low cost and that Hereford will be the trial project for something that we hope will grow much bigger.

Hereford Pedicabs and Cargo have invested a lot of time and energy into the creation of this project and we were over the moon when we were approached by 'Choose How You Move' who were keen on seeing if they could help us get the project running. Choose How You Move is an initiative which is funded by the local Council with an aim of engaging people with ways to move about the town which are both healthier and sustainable. For us it seemed a perfect fit with our project goal so we were happy to allow them on board to help us turn our idea into a reality.

We think that by summer or maybe earlier we will have the scheme running. There is a lot of work to do now that we couldn't do until we were sure the scheme was going to happen, but what it does mean is we can now answer some of your questions…...

Where is the bike going to live?
In a big secure box, it'll be big enough for you to put your bike into it if you need to when your are riding the cargo bike. We can't announce just where this will be yet but you will be the first to know! What we can say is it will live in the centre of St James in Hereford. 

How will the bike be booked?
We are creating a website for the project and it will have its own branding, it will also have a mobile app. You will be able to use the website or the mobile app to book the time you need the bike. Also if the bike is not pre booked and is in its box you should be able to use it ad hock before the next scheduled booking. 

How much will it cost?
We are still working on some of this. There will be an access fee to use the bike and a usage fee. Access fees will range from between 24 hours to 1 year, once the fee has been paid you'll pay a usage fee depending on how long you want the bike for. Your access fee will get you a certain quantity of usage for free. So for instance if you register for 24 hours access fee to the bike, you will be able to use it for 1.5 hours for free as many times as you want in that 24 hours. If you use it for longer than the 1.5 hours in one session there will be a further charge. The concept is to make it cheap to use the bike for a small amount of time and to get lots of people using it often. 

How will the bike be unlocked?
When you register with the scheme we'll give you a magic key. When you need to get the bike out of the box the magic key will know whether you have paid your access and usage fees and whether or not the bike is available for you to take on an ad hock basis. This stuff has taken us a lot of time to develop but it should make it super easy for you to use the bike. 

How much can we fit on the bike?
The bike is going to have  a big load space on it, also we think if people sign up for a years access we'll supply them with a plastic tub for free which is ideal for most jobs and fits on the bike. There are some interesting pictures of loads on bikes here - http://goo.gl/N1kJc

What can we use the bike for?
This is up to you and we have had some great suggestions. We know people that want to use the bike to take kids to school, people who want to use it to take rubbish to the tip and people who want to use it to do their shopping. It is up to you what you want to use it for. 

Those are all the updates we can give you just at the moment. There is a lot of work to do to make this a really simple scheme and we think it will be pretty easy for us to get it done quickly enough for the scheme to be a reality very soon. 

If you have questions just get in touch, as soon as we have more news we will let you know.

Kind Regards

Will Vaughan
Hereford Pedicabs and Cargo
will@herefordpedicabs.com

Friday, March 15, 2013

Wedding Fayre

There is a wedding fayre tomorrow in Hereford at the Shire Hall - 10-4, we'll have a bike down there!


Monday, March 11, 2013

Mothers Day Deliveries!

We helped out a brand new Hereford based florist yesterday (The Enchanted Florist) to get all of the flowers delivered that they needed to get to some very grateful mums!



Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Neglecting the blog!

We have been guilty of neglecting the blog recently, partly because we are so busy and partly because we keep our Facebook page up to date a bit more and then seem to forget about this one.

So I thought it would be worth pasting in a few things form that to make sure we were all up to date!

Since the last blog post we have been...

Breaking bikes... this time our 8 Freight just shattered into about a million pieces, should be back on the road soon we hope...

Letting our new riders out on their own, this is Jordan, he's doing a fine job, has settled in really well and seems to be flying. 


Running some great promotions with some brilliant local businesses.


And supporting a bunch of soliders who have ridden the length of the county to raise money for the JJMF charity.

We'll try and keep you posted a bit more often!