Mules for the masses

Stay Herefordshire Magazine

2012-01-06T09:23:00.001Z

The tourism board here have had a big rebrand which is pretty cool. What was even better was being featured in one of their handouts, nice bit of publicity for our wedding service.

FESTIVE FROLICKING

2011-12-23T12:09:00.001Z

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ALL OF THE TEAM

The end of December is upon us and once again it has been a whirlwind of a year! Business for us increased but definitely a little slower than expected, like the mighty oak we are growing slow and growing strong.

2011 saw us...... extending the fleet, taking on new riders, snapping frames, taking brides to weddings and kids to proms, having our 4th birthday, transporting thousands of people at the Hay festival, racing in France, racing in England, filming secret projects, moving offices, doing charity work and continuing to provide our services to our customers.

We transported thousands and thousands or items of freight, moved 15'000 people and saved over 1000 tonnes of Co2 entering the environment - not too shabby.

Next year is going to be the big one though, we have plans to partner with a couple of businesses, extend our network, launch our inner city freight service officially to business to business clients and continue to grow in our public sector work.

Whatever does happen we know that we couldn't do it without you guys, our customers and our followers and for your continued custom we are incredibly grateful.

I guess the last thing I have to say to you all is Happy Christmas and have a brilliant New Year, enjoy all the time off you might get as before we know it we'll be back to the grind!

Until 2012!

Kind Regards

Will Vaughan

Rider and Director

Hereford Pedicabs and Cargo

Rural Media

2011-12-05T14:48:00.001Z

Some students from Rural Media came to do a little vid about us for a project..

Meeting Hereford Pedicabs from Rural Media on Vimeo.
Made by young filmmakers from The Rural Media Company’s Big Lottery funded project, Shoot Out.

Christmas lights switch on!

2011-11-30T09:31:00.001Z

A week or so back we had the pleasure of escorting the Panto Dame in to town to switch on the local Christmas lights. It is a real pleasure to be involved with (groping aside)...

Cheeky Grope

Big Timers

The Big Switch On

Off grid winter heating.

2011-11-24T16:48:00.001Z

The depot we run most of the operations out of in Hereford is off grid and it has solar panels and a wind turbine to generate the power it needs. We used to be plugged in to a building next door, just in case we needed power but more of less we were ok, apart from the winter.

You see... it is easy enough to generate power for lights, computers, charging batteries and that sort of stuff but the real killer is heating. For example our led lighting system uses 10w of power and we can run that from our battery reserve for 265 hours. Yep, 11 days straight, but we easy generate more than enough power to run them. In contrast we could run a 3kw heater for only 1 hour from our reserves. So heating is the tricky thing and if last year is anything to go by we need to be prepared.

So we've been doing some research and we've found some heaters which are used on ships. They combust diesel (like a tiny engine) and this makes heat, they then have a little 12v fan which pulls air around the engine (which heats the air) and blows it out through a tube. We think we can run one of these on biodiesel so we bought one and installed it a few weeks ago. It draws a small current to run the thermostat, fuel pump and fan so we needed to install another battery to double our capacity.

Then cut a few holes in the floor (we routed the cables under the floor)

Then install the heater, we bought in our expert Tone to help with this

Once the heater went in we then drilled a hole through the wall and stuck the fuel tanks in

So more or less we were done, we tested the whole setup away from the site (at our rural testing facility) so we knew things would probably be ok. We stuck a thermostat on the wall on the opposite side of the heater and then plonked a seat over the setup to hide it away. So now the only thing you really know about the heater is this nozzle...

Which is attached to this tube..

Which attaches to the heater

So all in all it is a very simple setup and it has been really brilliant so far. It uses about 1w of battery power to run and if running at full power (2.8kw) it uses 200ml of fuel an hour. To keep a room at a comfortable temperature (17-21 ish) it is barely on and of course the blown heat circulates really well.

Its been pretty awesome getting it all up to speed and we're confident the workers will be super toasty over winter!

Safety never takes a day off..

2011-11-04T14:14:00.000Z

We're running some great advertising on our inner city recycling bikes at the moment. Our local council subcontracts much of its maintenance contract to a company called AMEY Wye Valley who are part of huge company AMEY

We bumped into a representative from AMEY at a local event 'h:Energy'. They got a chance to see our recycling bike and thought it would be a great idea to place some info regarding the safety of their road workers on it, where the other traffic would see it.

The adverts highlight how important it is to be aware of road workers at this time of the year, with fading light and work being done on the roads. It is a great idea to have the posters up on our bikes and hopefully together we'll be able to get the message out there.

Doubling the capacity

2011-11-03T16:24:00.001Z

So it's been a pretty gloomy few weeks and we've not been getting much sun.

Because we generate our own power this causes us a bit of a problem. When it has been sunny we've filled our reserve batteries right up but when there has been no sun or wind we've been pretty close to using those reserves up. Typically we've got three days of power to play with before we are without power. Usually that's fine but we are using more now than we have previously, lots of things to charge and run.

So after another bleak week... we decided to double our capacity of batts. A few fuses and connections and everything is in place. We just need some sun now to charge it up..

Secret filming, secret project...

2011-10-13T12:26:00.000Z

We are doing some delivery work for an exciting new project which is launching in Hereford soon...It is even going to have TV adverts, which we'll be in... for about 2 seconds...We did some secret filming a few weeks back. Sshhhhhhhhhhh

We could tell you, but we would have to kill you.

Big Boys Toys

2011-10-13T12:22:00.001Z

We got to play with a 40 tonne crane last week.There is a building being knocked down next to one of our storage depots...

So we picked them up..

Swung them around...

And plonked them down...All before breakfast.

Ahead of the curve

2011-09-28T08:36:00.000Z

Really interesting article in the Guardian today - click here All about local authority not making enough effort to collect trade waste for recycling. The lead on effects of this being that what is left that businesses sorts from their own streams is often of such a small amount it isn't valuable to third party collection companies OR it goes home with employees and goes into their household stream. In turn this is driving the price of recyclable materials down. Also the businesses are not being credited for the Co2 saving they are potentially making as their is no formal way of tracking it.The fascinating thing for us is that we have been providing a solution which is cost effective for 4 years. We are cheaper than the cost to send to landfill with the Council and we return the yearly Co2 savings to the customers so they can tell their customers. We service about 400 businesses and collect all the waste with emission free vehicles. We average a saving of about 1000 tonnes of Co2 per year collectively from all our customers.

In fact we can only really make a profit because our overheads are so low, but this makes us really competitive and means we are very busy.

Pedicab riders wanted - spread the word

2011-09-23T14:47:00.000Z

So we are a couple of riders short at the moment and they are going to be gone for a pretty long time. We're on the hunt for some more.So if you want to get fit, earn some good cash, have a good laugh and be part of fun, green, honest and rapidly growing company get in touch with us. There's loads of good benefits, at least one free curry a year and a fancy dress party..You need to be over 21 and have a car licence and nothing nasty that'll show up on a CRB check.Send a c.v or a fleshed out email to info@herefordpedicabs.com and we'll send you some more information. We look forward to hearing from you!

Breast Cancer Haven

2011-09-12T11:38:00.001Z

So young Tomo and I did a few hours charity work on the bikes this week for Hereford Haven who are a great organisation. The Haven provides, completely free of charge, a wide range of therapies which help people to deal with the physical and emotional side effects of breast cancer.

A couple of local shops - Hat Trick and Cherry Savage opened up a little later than usual and donated a percentage of their profit to the Hereford Haven . We ran shuttles between the two shops to make sure the shoppers made the most of their time!It was a great idea for an event an hopefully we'll do some more with the those guys in the future.

Holiday, weddings and races

2011-08-24T15:55:00.017Z

Been ages since I last blogged to you guys and you are about to find out why! We have been super flat out and had lots of things happening, plenty of changes and also I've been away on holiday...

So a few weeks back I departed for France with good friend of the company Mr Mad Dog, the plan was to head over to the Alps to race in the Megavalanche and on the way there we'd head to Bourg San Maurice to stay with the guys at coolbus . It was an amazing trip and me and the Mad Dog met up with loads of people. Like many trips like this it contained the main ingredients...

Cheese

Mountains.

and Racing.

We all did as well as we wanted to, qualifying to race, racing and just generally having a blast out there.

I had no worry whilst out in France as Tom and Matt had the company in good hands, they immediately gave it a rebrand and issued themselves the employee of the month award It was great to know the company was in good hands in my absence..

On a more serious note as I returned it was time for Matt to move on to greater things, he's gone to work on a farm for the hop season and should be back to work on some contracts we've got in the pipeline, but just for now... Here's to Matt and all that sail in him!

Also on my return I managed (via the twittersphere) to hear about a GLC gig in Monmouth. My bro was about so we headed over and caught it, it was epic - nice one boys.

Summer has been brilliant for us and we've done tonnes of weddings. Tom and Mike have been rocking the proms too. But most important has been the wedding of Elle Botwright who is the sister of Ben Botwright who helped us many years ago to establish a depot with local company Bulmers. They have since been bought out but Ben continues to do fine work and is a great friend of ours.

His sisters wedding was brilliant and we were proud to help out.

The bikes were dressed up nicely. But definitely not dressed as nicely as the whole Botwright clan. What a bunch of beauties!

So the summer has been busy and other than a broken bell and a snapped axle everything has been running smoothly, so smoothly that I managed to escape to another race last weekend The Brompton World Championships... last year a finely tuned team I was in got 10th position and this year I was out for blood... everyone in the team gave everything and we pulled our times up from last year massively, all of us placing well. Turns out it all counted because we ploughed in a steady 9th position! Brilliant. If you check this video out you'll see me at 2:54 making a rapid overtake on the right..

Victory was ours!

So in essence that's been the last few weeks and sorry for not being in touch, as you can see we've been super busy. More blogs to come!

Mazuma

2011-06-23T12:39:00.003Z

So for a while we've been doing our own accounts and book keeping and payroll and to be honest it turns out it is a much bigger job then we ever gave it credit for, it's the one thing everyone hates doing and is something which is really really important.

So last month we had a chat with Mazuma who provide a really great service. We stick everything in an envelope each month and they do the rest. That's it, no catch, no massive fees just a really great innovative approach to business. If we want to speak to them we can, if we want to email we can, if we want to text them.. yep you guessed it we can.

So this week we've been getting all the stuff together from last year and putting it in envelopes... and.. yesterday was the big day when we finally posted it.....and that appears to be it, no more hassle, no more worry, no big fees. It'll be less to do it like this than it will with us doing all our own stuff and approaching an accountant each year and it's so easy. Stick the stuff in the envelope and post it, each month. Bingo. They send a report back, whammy, accounts sorted.

It's ace when you find something like that.

Also, it helped that the guy I was in touch with about maybe starting with Mazuma happened to be into riding MTBs , that swung the deal for us, they must be a decent bunch!

Little Hay round up.

2011-06-23T12:22:00.008Z

So I guess it is about time if not way to late for us to give you a round up on how the Hay festival went for us.

It was a pretty amazing week for everyone involved, we managed to run both bikes from 10am-10pm for pretty much the entire festival. We transported 1000’s of customers up and down the 1/2 mile straight to Hay and back. Which as you can see took its toll on young Ben

We arrived on the morning of our first shift and were quickly ushered to our temporary digs in Fred’s store tent.

Which provided us with some grand facilities, I’m pictured here with our chill out area and luxury relaxing seating provisions…

Joking aside it was brilliant to get the chance to get out of the weather and refuel when we needed it and we are very grateful for the team at Hay for putting up with our antics and providing us with a safe place to leave our belongings.

By the end of a long shift the site of the tent bought an all over feeling of relief to the body and it was also a great time for all of us to see each other.

Ben and Joe were never short of supplies from the catering tent.

Also having a quiet area gave us plenty of time to prep bikes and share stories.

Most of the stories were about the incredible wind up and down the main straight to Hay, each day it blew a different direction and every day it was punishing. But the tales of extraordinary feats came in day after day, of Duggan’s huge non stop mileage counts, of whopping tips from Mike, or failing knees from Ben, or Australian banter from Woody, of mid shift ‘bonk’ from Joe and who’s had which celebrity and what they tipped from just about everyone.

Hay festival was very busy and a great place for people to get to meet the authors and speakers they have followed for many years. Here John Snow vanishes into the busy crowd.

Between us over the week we got to know lots of the top names. We bumped into Jason Bradbury and rushed a suitcase of books from his hotel to a signing, entertained Matt Horne, hauled Brian Moore up the hill into town, had banter and love notes from Arthur Smith, narrowly missed the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and talked about Andy Murray with Germaine Greer. So for us it was an interesting time and a pleasure to be at the festival. We even got to slip into a Cerys Matthews gig.

The unsung heroes Matt and Tom need to be credited, they worked hard in Hereford keeping everything in order and running the business, without them we wouldn’t have been able to work at Hay.

So in summary it was great and we hope to do it again, we estimate we moved the same amount of people by the end of the week that 100 of the regular shuttle buses would have and that everyone of our customers had a great time.

See you there next year!

Duggan makes the Telegraph

2011-06-10T13:09:00.004Z

One of our fine new riders stonked into the online write up of the Hay festival..
Looking strong Duggan

Cheap inner city advertising, get it while it's hot...

2011-06-08T18:10:00.001Z

Midwhay

2011-06-01T12:49:00.004Z

Last Saturday morning we bundled the bikes over to Hay on the back of a borrowed trailer in the early hours of the morning and set things up ready to go.

We're mid way into the festival now and so far it has been excellent, we'll give a full update when we're all done. We've got tales of celebrity, had plenty of adventures and we've had a tonne of laughs between us all.

We think we'll hit almost 3000 customers by the end of the week which will be the same as about 100 of the shuttle bus journeys that go into Hay. We've been surprised how well we've settled in and hope this might be the start of a great friendship with the festival.

Right now I've just had a message telling me that Maureen Lipman wants a lift into town to go shopping and did we not realise we had Arthur Smith on the bikes last night!.... All I can think about is trying to stuff enough food into me to keep me going for my 4-10pm shift...

Round the work on a bike - the interesting talk

2011-05-24T11:18:00.004Z

Recently riding a bike around the world seems to be a popular thing to do. This guy is really worth looking up and he's doing a talk in Hereford in July. Well worth the cash and a great bit of motivation if you are planning an adventure.

Load of info on his website

Cool video here:

Round the World by Bike - in 1 minute from Alastair Humphreys on Vimeo.

Hay you guys..

2011-05-16T14:13:00.006Z

We blogged recently that we had been confirmed to work running shuttles at the Hay festival

Hay Festival is in a couple of weeks and it really is something not to be missed.

Loads of people in Hereford just don't bother to go out there but we figure it is well worth the 30 mins to get there. We'll be running shuttles in and out of Hay but there are plenty better reasons to make the effort to visit.

For a start if you are from Hereford it'll be a nice chance for you to slip out of your Reebok Classic trainers and your Adidas jogging bottoms and into your Birkenstocks and white linen trousers. If the sun is shining you'll be able to slip off your hoody and plonk on a polo shirt and panama hat but if the weather is inclement it'll be fine to just pop up your umbrella and slip into your wellington boots.

It's a quintessentially British escape to go to Hay. Lots of interesting people, the chance to meet the writers of the books you read, to listen in person to the people you watch on television or listen to on the wireless (the radio, not the network your kids set up in the house so you could read the paper on your ipad) and to be surrounded by people who are equally open minded. The opportunity for open discussion over a Pimms or debate over a scone is never far in this very thought provoking of festivals.

Ok, ok, so maybe we've made it sound a little elitist but the thing is.. it kind of is, but you'll be the only one who minds so don't waste your time worrying. Go along, see the talks, buy the books, have an engaging time, but don't let it pass you by. It is too good. Although you can get online and do some booking we think the best way is to get over there and see what's on, go to things you might not plan to, embrace the experience.

Hopefully we'll see you there.

Check out the festival here and some top tips here

Grow slow grow strong. 4 years strong.

2011-04-13T20:25:00.001Z

We're four years old today. It's crazy, looking back through the blog we've done so much.

So many great things, so much fun, big achievements, awards won, records set, boundries pushed, cultures changed, environmental benchmarks set... and the best bit.. it is still as exciting as the first day.

Thank you if you use our Pedicabs, thank you if you recycle your waste with us, thank you if you send parcels with us or the companies that use us. Thank you for listening, thank you for believing. Thank you if you are our friend.

The economic climate is tough and it has been tough growing in these times, but we've done it, bit by bit, making considered developed choices, listening to what people want and believing in our hearts. We've grown slow and we've grown strong.

Here's to the future. A fun, green and honest future.

Matt takes a detour..

2011-04-06T20:40:00.001Z

'Yeah I reckon we'll get through there...'

Like teen wolf on a bike.

2011-04-05T09:54:00.001Z

Saw this knocking around the internet.. super awesome

TCB BULLITT CARGO SURFING from Storts on Vimeo.

Another one for the fleet.

2011-03-25T14:07:00.001Z

We picked up another trike today, second hand from a guy called Rickshaw Phil.

We've called it Big Roger.

Long live Roger and all who sail in him...

For forks sake..

2011-03-23T13:33:00.001Z

So the high tech, futuristic, mono blade fork on the 8 freight bit the bullet last week.

We replaced it with a good old fashioned bit of steel. It took a bit of welding and a spot of grinding but we got there in the end..

New steed...

2011-03-17T12:12:00.001Z

Saw this kicking around the internet, could do with it in Hereford.

The War on the Motorist just got a whole lot more serious. on Twitpic

Green Wedding Transport!

2011-03-01T14:17:00.011Z

Since we launched almost 4 years ago we've been lucky enough to have been involved in plenty of weddings.

It isn't something we've ever pushed out, we've never been to a wedding fayre, and we've not really done any marketing other than just being out there and it is working just fine for us. We've taken brides to the church, bridesmaids and brides mothers, grooms and even had a few pets. We've shuttled people from Church to venue at village events and been a carriage for the elderly and less firm members of the party when a short walk to the after party has been too far....

We've hidden out of shot for photos

And we've been right in the centre of the action

We've been in the papers - pedicab made for two
and we've always tried to look as smart as possible

This year we think we're going to be busier than usual, we've got bookings coming out of our ears already, plus we're booked up for carnivals and festivals. We're very reasonable on cost and come in at about £30 per hour for the bike and rider. We've got two cabs we use for weddings and you can fit 3 in each. Or one huge dress and two tiny bridesmaids..

If you're interested in booking for a wedding, prom or birthday drop an email to info@herefordpedicabs.com and we'll see if we've got space for you.

Hereford Pedicabs confirmed for Telegraph Hay Festival!

2011-02-24T13:49:00.001Z

We've been confirmed as a shuttle service (paid for by passenger donation) for this years Telegraph Hay Festival, it is an amazing event so we are glad to be part of it. We'll operate between the festival and Hay itself from the 26th May to the 6th of June 2011.

View Hay Festival Route in a larger map
It should be an amazing week and we can't wait to be part of it. If you're there why not say hello, in the mean time some early bird tickets are available here!

Free Trade Waste Recycling Trial for Inner City Businesses with Hereford Pedicargo

2011-02-17T13:27:00.002Z

Free Trade Waste Recycling Trial for Inner City Businesses with Hereford Pedicargo

Are you an inner city business that doesn't or isn't able to recycle your waste?
Why not try our inner city recycling programme free week trial.

Since the launch of our trade waste recycling scheme in 2008 we have saved thousands of tonnes of recyclable waste from going to landfill whilst saving our customers money and returning their Co2 savings to them. Now we are welcoming new inner city customers with a free trial.

We service hundreds of businesses in Hereford but there still a few who for some reason are not recycling their waste, we want them to change and we want to make it as easy as possible whilst saving them money at the same time. We run weekly collections with no upfront costs for disposal bags and are fully registered with the environment agency.

Our recycling programme covers the recycling and shredding of paper waste, cardboard, ink cartridges and recyclable plastic films. To engage new customers we are offering a free weeks trial of our scheme. Our prices are cheaper than the current Council trade waste to landfill scheme so hopefully it should be a straight forward way for businesses to start recycling.

Contact Hereford Pedicargo by email - info@herefordpedicargo and quote 'HPC free trial' to get the ball rolling. Alternatively contact our Director Will Vaughan to have a chat about we can do for you - 07718320195

Current rates are as follows:

Recycling of waste paper - £1 per 15kg bag
(bags supplied by Hereford Pedicargo)
Shredding and recycling - £1 per 15kg bag
(bags supplied by Hereford Pedicargo)
Recycling of cardboard and newspaper - £5 per cage/pro rata –
Cage is 5ft high x4ftx4ft
Recycling of plastic films - £1 per bag
(large bag supplied by Hereford Pedicargo)
Free recycling of ink cartridges if you are using our recycling schemes

Why Do People Bike Commute? - The Atlantic

2011-02-14T13:41:00.001Z

Really interesting word cloud generated by a poll, interesting to see main reasons they thought about riding to work.

365 project

2011-02-01T15:57:00.000Z

So this was a personal project but I guess work popped up a fair bit

Featured Blog -

2011-01-28T15:13:00.003Z

Local lad does good and all that, check him as he races downhill mountain bikes this season. Long time friend of Pedicabs Chris Griffiths will be documenting his season in this snappy looking blog

Recycling - Mad Dog Style

2011-01-28T14:29:00.002Z

Big thanks to the big MD who recycled an indy car wing into a couple of these for us..

They do say motor racing technology feeds into day to day stuff..

Way back when... a secret project started..

2011-01-28T14:10:00.003Z

Sooo a few months ago I might have mentioned we had a bit of a secret project running which we had been working on. It started off pretty small and then over Christmas and into the new year it turned into a monster of a job and now it’s just about settled back down.

So what was the project? Well it was a direct contract from DHL who used to have a depot in Hereford but then it got shut down and relocated to Gloucester. So in a roundabout fashion we got in touch with them about doing some work that was pretty awkward for them with the concept of running a trial before potential further opportunities presented themselves in 2011.

After a journey up to Gloucester we arrived at a big empty depot to have a chat with some folk who very shortly arranged for us to begin trying some things out.
The next day we had a tiny load of parcels delivered to us.

Loaded them into one of our bikes.

And went and delivered them

And it all went very very well. In fact it went better than well, it was great. The major impression we were left with was that our little company was the final link in a very long chain of events and a really important one because we were the link that presented goods to the customer. It took some getting our head around.

So, little by little we built on what we were doing and we were called back to DHL to see if we could assist with some of the other work over the very busy and looming Christmas period. We said yes straight away and figured we’d work the details out as we went along..

On a cold dark morning we arrived at a very busy depot and loaded our parcels into a wagon, this was the start of the big stuff for us, I noted we were the only ones wearing lycra..

We had to borrow another bike from someone because we had so much to do.
Then it got really cold.. yep.. this cold...

But it wasn't do bad because the riding warms us up, then we were so busy we had to employ a chap for the short term contract. Meet Will Version 2

Some things were naturally easier to fit in/on the bikes than others

But generally it was an amazing exercise which has seen the team working frantically over the past few months.

So what now..

Well, we’ve just come to the end of the short term cover and we’re now in the process of assessing what might happen next, how much we can handle and how we want to move it. To start with we’ve had to just like it or lump it as that’s the way it seems to go with big companies, we’ve had delayed payment and different commands from a million different people (who definitely don’t speak to each other!) but in general our feeling is that it has been a very useful project. It certainly has opened the pathway to the feasibility of last mile bike powered deliveries by major companies.

Our ability to undercut the man in van and put our own touch on the final mile has come as a surprise for DHL.

So the plan now is to form a plan for the future and to put it into place. To be honest, at this rate the future looks very very promising…

We just have to fix a few things first.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2010-12-24T15:03:00.003Z

FROM ALL OF THE GANG HERE - HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS AND AN EVEN BETTER NEW YEAR

We're planning on 2011 being a big one, this month has been our busiest ever and we can't wait to see what happens next year.

5974 cups of tea.

2010-11-24T12:00:00.004Z

Just over a year ago we started a trial to see if we could harness the power of the sun to generate enough power to run our business.

The first step was to have a really good think about how we did things, what we needed power for, where we got our power from and how we could make this all as efficient as possible.

Our business doesn't really need much power, we need lights and to run some simple things, charge bike lights and laptop batteries and occasionally power some bigger things. But even we could be a lot more efficient about how we do things, instead of strip lamps (80 plus watts each) we could run LEDs (10 watts) and there were lots of other things we could do.

After we'd looked at making ourselves as efficient as possible we applied for a grant. Once we got the grant we started our installation, we changed everything over to 12v power (with inverters for occasional mains stuff but mainly with 12v variable charge adaptors for electrical equipment).

By November we were ready and we plonked our solar panels on top of our offices, and then we sat back and watched something amazing happen. We watched as the sun made enough energy for us to power our things. For us the opportunity to come off the grid was great, it gave us freedom to think about our business model and how it could operate elsewhere and also an opportunity to forecast our costs exactly.

Over the last year we've been diligently recording our figures:

It shows us that there was only 1 week in the entire year where we couldn't generate enough power from just the sun. Fortunately it was windy that month too so we could build some reserves with our wind turbine.

So what does this all really mean?

Well it's a bit of a mixed bag, we've calculated exactly how much power we generated from the sun. All in all about 10372 a/h at 12v, which means we could have outputted 124464 watts for 1 hour and the nitty gritty is we generated 448070kj, in real terms this means we could have made enough boiled water to make 5974 cups of tea OR that we made the same amount of energy that you'd get if you detonated 100kgs of TNT.... BUT really its not that much.

It's REALLY not that much, we could have bought the same amount of power for less than £15. But what we've learnt is to be masters of efficiency and the way to look at this is to say we've managed to make our business so efficient if we needed to buy our power it would only cost £15 per year, so we're making our drain on the earth resources much less. Even better is we're so efficient we can generate out own power for free (ish..)

Mad Skills...

2010-11-16T13:25:00.000Z

Makes you want to ride your bike.

Mayor Boris - bikes skills demo.

2010-11-16T11:39:00.000Z

Bike cannon...

2010-11-08T14:51:00.001Z

Gizza Job

2010-10-28T09:27:00.001Z

Okey DokeyAPPLY HERE

Intro vid..

2010-10-26T13:13:00.000Z

Cool little intro vid for Copenhagen Bike Film Festival which features a Bullitt just like ours

Awesome!

2010-10-21T12:47:00.000Z

Actual house on fire..

2010-10-21T12:39:00.002Z

Bit of bad news in Hereford today, a fire in the town centre has blocked everything off and caused a fair bit of damage, thank fully no one hurt and almost all of our deliveries got in on time (if you didn't get your delivery it's because you were shut so you'll get it tomorrow!).

Like a house on fire.

2010-10-20T14:26:00.002Z

Matt's settled in now, although the project he is working on for us is remaining secret for a little longer (so far so good though and could lead to much bigger things).

It's great having more people around and also having staff who get on with each other so well. One of the hardest things in businesses seems to be finding good staff, so here's to the workforce!

Stronglight cranks..

2010-10-11T20:11:00.003Z

Turns out they aren't strong or light!

Mike and Matt

2010-09-02T12:19:00.008Z

So Mike finished his Pedicab training the other week and I had the pleasure of riding with him for his first night shift, here he is clicking his first customer number on to the bike:
He had an excellent night and did really well!

Also as we're talking new employees here's Matt:
Matt is currently organising a new project which we'll be revealing soon once it becomes established. He's working hard and bringing all of his expert clipboard based knowledge into the company...

Last weekend I also had the pleasure of yet another pedicab wedding so when I got the chance I snapped a photo of the bride at this point she was close to being photographed to death do I figured I'd take a cheeky snap from around the corner.

Back to the grindstone for me, the new project is keeping us super busy, we'll let you know about it soon..

Holidays, courses, saving lives, training riders and the future!

2010-08-18T12:38:00.008Z

So I've been away for a bit, I went on an amazing holiday around Wales, soaking up the best that the Welsh mountian bike trail centres had to offer and saw some amazing places. If you ride a mountain bike and haven't ridden any of these trails you should really get out there. I met the guy who is responsible for a lot of them once it was really interesting -
After my stonking week away I joined Ben on a mountain biking course so in the future we can look at the potential of taking groups off on rides, it was an awesome few days and lots of fun was had in great mountain settings After a great course I arrived back at work on Wednesday morning, after unlocking everything and settling down I was greeted by a chap who looked very tired and was brushing his teeth, after some investigation I established that the chaps name was Matt and he was cycling Lands end to John O Groats. He'd slept behind the building that night after leaving his mate who dropped out a 140 miles away the previous day. Matt's bike was in bits, so I let him check the map out and fill his water bottles and fixed it up for him before sending him on his way with some gaffer tape! Wednesday continued to be a good day and then culminated in the final bit of training for our two latest riders Mike and Leon who did a fine job of carting Ben and I around Hereford and being told what they could do and where they'd fit through!Look out for them around town soon!

So lots of stuff going on with us and we've some secret news to tell you soon which is pretty exciting. Also we are working on some new projects and the feasibility of creating a method for operations like ours to operate in lots of other areas, the best bit about this has been hooking up with an old uni mate who's going to the design for us, we cant tell you too much yet but here's a hint.. For the moment that's all, but hold on for some news soon!

More bags!

2010-07-22T11:51:00.001Z

Another huge delivery of paper sacks for our recycling for businesses programme. This little lot will be filled up with about 90 tonnes of paper!

Tour De France

2010-07-16T13:33:00.001Z

Directors Meeting.... pedicab style

2010-07-14T08:48:00.001Z

Ben and I stuck our heads together last night to have our big grown up director level accounts type meeting.

Bit serious that so we turned it into a Chide - a chat and ride... although it turned out to be more of a Rat. Still the important things got said (most about Ben's new bike...) and we got a storming xc burn on.

All meetings should be like that..

Pedicab Riders Wanted!!!

2010-07-08T13:37:00.002Z

You heard it here first! We need more riders!

Keen to earn some extra cash on the weekend and get super fit?

Over 21 and got a car licence?

Get in touch!!

Will@herefordpedicabs.com

More info here don't panic about all the grown up licensing sounding stuff, we can help you with all of it, we just need fit, happy people to ride!

Maintainence days...

2010-07-06T18:37:00.001Z

They are long...

Luke's blog

2010-07-01T11:53:00.003Z

Few of you asking after Luke's blog so I thought I'd post it up.

You can find it here and you can donate money here by all accounts they seem to be having a blast!

We are managing without him and it's been good to see things continuing without his input! Tom has stepped up to the mark and has been doing some serious hours on the bike. Good on him, we're still unsure of his actual nickname but as it currently stands it's understood that Tom is running the 'Ginger Division' or the company.

The summer continues to offer us some awesome weather to ride in, scorching sun and no wind, it also seems to put a smile on the faces of most folk so it's great to be out there riding.

Amazingly (well not for us) the company is still booming, we are, as always looking for Pedicab riders and we've also had a large influx or new customers on our recycling scheme and with paper prices at an all time high everything is dandy!

Must blog more, as you guys are getting left out of the fun!

Luke Leaving - the end of and era.

2010-06-11T11:06:00.011Z

Way back in June 2007 Ben's brother came to have some training so he could ride our Pedicabs, Luke was back from working on the cruise ships and just wanted a summer job. He was a great laugh and really good on the bike so Ben and I took Luke on.

Luke was the first person who ever came to work for us and signified a huge change in the direction of our company.

The company began to grow and soon we were able to offer Luke a position running our recycling programme and alone throughout the years he has worked for us he has collected hundreds of tonnes of waste and stopped them from being sent to landfill. He has literally moved all of that waste himself and personally been involved in saving many thousands of tonnes of Co2 from entering our environment. Despite all of this very serious work Luke always added his own flare to things.

Luke always paid great attention to his appearance making sure that everything, even his smalls, conveyed professional working practice.

Together Luke and I formed the working practices in the business and built strong foundations for future projects and programmes. We also undertook some other projects, one notable failure for Luke was Movember, where he proceeded to grow the weakest moustache known to man. Sadly during this time Luke was also applying for some other jobs and was firmly knocked back on the grounds of his offensive facial hair.

Luke became part of the woodwork at Hereford Pedicabs and created a great reputation that exemplified all that we tried to create when we started way back in April 2007. Ask Luke to do a wedding on the bike and Luke would put the extra effort in to make sure the customers had a great day.Ask Luke to control the traffic an he did it with style

Ask Luke to help with training new staff and the guy runs in wearing a tri suit and proceeds to take the new recruits on a full groin based pre interview warm up.

People ask me how I'm going to replace Luke and the answer I give them is I can't, it's impossible to replace someone like Luke because he's so different to most people. An incredible, fun, hard working, diligent, courteous guy, who cheers everyone who he comes into contact with. Ben and I always wondered if it'd be awkward employing his brother, we thought maybe it'd cause problems in the long run, we were wrong and it's been a pleasure to employ someone who is now a great friend.

So what for Luke now? Well in the long term Luke is going to Uni to train to be a Childrens Nurse and we can't support him enough, its a tough day when you see an integral part of your company move on but it's a great day you see a friend progress.

In the mean time Luke and his friend Adam are off to do something amazing, they are going to ride across America to raise money for Help for Heroes. You can donate here and find out some more here

Something great does come out of this and that is we are able to take on a new member of staff. Tom will now ride in place of Luke and so far has shown some great promise. Luke took some special time out to train Tom up in his own special way earlier this year

So for the moment that's that, a true legend of Pedicabs moves on, he never did get the bike over 40mph but he could out ride me any day.

Good luck Luke and thank you.

Will and all the team.

Cool way to start married life..

2010-06-04T09:31:00.000Z

Great Day!

Poor mans Porsche

2010-06-04T09:22:00.001Z

You have to see this

This Porsche...

Is a bike

Awesome.

May

2010-05-21T11:24:00.006Z

So May has been upon us for some time and what a month it has been!

The weather is truly on the turn, the days are longer and warmer and things are on the up. We've been really busy throughout May, not only with our contract work but with more and more adhock jobs on top of our usual workload. We've even had to do some pretty big miles on one of our first bikes..With '440' back on the road an hauling the big loads we could turn out attention to a challenge which has, and continues to, escape us.. Getting theBullitt over 40mph. So far it has seemed impossible as under braking at speed the front wheel gets a little twitchy and where we happen to do the '40 challenge' there's a gravely corner which needs to be pinned. So.... a few weeks ago I fitted a steering damper to the front wheel..
The damper stops the vibrations from the front wheel and keeps it nice and steady, it's made for a much smoother ride but has also meant we've increased our faith in what the bullitt can do..Not far to 40mph...

In other news a mate of the company and a member of the exclusive 'Team Eagle' race team which we been helping a bit with sponsorship has been doing some mountain bike racing..

When I say some, he's been doing pretty well, here he is just after his winning race run at the Welsh Nationals, we didn't want to put a picture of him up without his helmet because he's hideously ugly.... Well done Chris.Note the swanky pedicargo jacket... not even we have those..

Pedicab Riders Wanted

2010-04-20T11:44:00.001Z

We are looking for weekend riders with opportunities for week time work in the summer time!
We are looking for weekend riders with opportunities for week time work in the summer time!

Over 21?
Got a full driving licence?
Interested in a fun part time job that'll keep you fit?
Want to do your bit to save the environment?

Get in touch and let us know why you'd be great for the job.

Email: info@herefordpedicabs.com
Call - 07718320195

3 years old!

2010-04-15T09:34:00.013Z

On April the 13th 2007 Ben and I stood in front of a bunch of people on a warm spring evening and announced we were launching a Pedicab business in Hereford. There were a few reasons why we were doing it:

1) We wanted to do something positive for the environment.
2) It seemed a cool idea.
3) Ben needed a girlfriend.

There were a pile of other reasons too, we wanted to launch a true values based company in Hereford, launching something people hadn't seen before that would help them and asking them to pay what they thought it was worth to use it.

It was a great success and soon we had our 1000th customer were involved in a police chase , employed some new riders, first luke then Ad and then Daz . From there we ticked over, taking more and more customers. We did lots of weddings that year too.

Building on the success of Pedicabs we soon launched Pedicargo and began delivering freight. At the same time we took our 5000th customer on the Pedicabs. Cargo continued to get busier and busier and we hit our 10,000th item in no time.

We didn't rest on our laurels and began to look for other things we could do, we soon launched a trade waste recycling programme and had to extend our premises.

Things grew and grew, we took on Matt, and Tom and had to throw thank you parties to say well done for all the hard work our staff put in.

Then we won a pride of herefordshire award which was pretty amazing and soon after we got a grant so we could buy the stuff we needed to produce all of our own power.

From here we plugged away, taking thousands more people in our cabs, transporting thousands of items of freight and cargo and recycling hundreds of tonnes of trade waste. In the process we started to clock up quite a carbon saving. We started to total it up for out customers so they could tell their customers what they were doing for the environment. We thought it'd be nice if we gave an award for the biggest savers.

At this point something really cool happened. We won an award from the Prince's business network in recognition of the work we were doing to save carbon. It was a real pat on the back for us and spurred us on to push for bigger and better things.

And that's what we have been doing. We've been growing slowly and strongly now for three years, putting in to place the groundwork for the future. There are lots of articles about why businesses fail in the first 3 years, some mention business plans, some mention cash flow, some mention poor marketing but we think it's a bit simpler than that. You have to do something you enjoy and you have to be realistic about its potential. There is a big difference between optimism and potential and I think sometimes that's where people get confused. It hasn't been easy getting to this stage and we have asked for plenty of help to get us here, we think what we are doing is the right thing to do and what's more we've stuck true to our values.

The company is growing up now and we're taking on more riders and staff and some of our team are moving on to other things , it's been a great journey so far and we've enjoyed it.

This week we interviewed some new staff for various jobs so things are still growing and evolving. Who knows what the next three years might bring!

Pedicab History Lesson

2010-04-06T12:20:00.006Z

Found the following on a web forum, really interesting stuff......

"Not all that exciting but a potted history goes thusly:

They were started in about '98 by a Simon Lane, an entrepreneurial cambridge drop-out who'd worked on the punts on the river before buying a pedicab from San Francisco. He then moved to London and set up in an arch near southwark street. When I started, aged 21, there were 6 heavy old bikes and a rotating pool of about 10 riders. Real characters. A mate of mine has made a documentary about a couple of them and a few are still riding. I've got tons of stories stashed away somewhere from those early days. We were all self employed and rented the cabs by the night (or week) and generally worked from 7pm to 4 or 5am (then drank till dawn and cycled home though rush hour, pissed as wizards with pockets stuffed with pound coins). There were only a few of us and we were all pretty close, super competitive and really quite naughty. It was fucking hard work but quite possibely the most fun I've ever had.

I don't know who this chump is but the pic shows one of the original 6 bikes. They had three speed Sturmey Archers and weighed about a ton. They were tough as anything though...and you could ride them on two wheels.
On my first ever shift, right after my first ever fare I got stopped by the BTP in Leicester Square and was charged with a whole host of taxi licencing related things. The black cabs union had been leaning on the BTP for a test case and I was it. I got issued with a summons a week later. As a full time student I got legal aid and Simon sorted me out with an excellent lawyer who sepcialised in environmental law. Around this time the company was taken over by Chris Green who rechristened it "bugbugs" and it all got a fair bit more professional. They bought about 20 of those nasty flimsy yellow trishaws you still see around and kitted out the arch with compressors, chargers for lights, sofas, gave us ID badges, brought in rules and fines and even organised a "rider of the year" award dinner. That ended in a full on chair-throwing drunken brawl in the Firestation at Waterloo. Happy days!
I started attending court regularly as the case plodded on over the course of a year. The charges were all things like "Trading as an illegal Hackney Carriage", "Plying for hire without a license" etc. Luckily our cheeky cambridge drop-out originator had really done his research and our case was based on a clever little loophole. Basically, when you hire a black cab you hire the entire vehicle and driver. When you hire a pedicab you hire only your seat in the vehicle. That way we came under the Victorian "Stage Coach and Carriage" licensing laws and not the Hackney Carriage laws. All we had to do was charge per person, and we were gravy. All the cabs had legal notices in them stating that you were hiring your place in the vehicle, not the vehicle, quoting the relevant legistaltion and displaying evidence of our insurance details (all passengers were insured). The case plodded on for over a year and eventually after nine seperate appearances at Bow Street magistrates all charges were dropped.

Bugbugs was growing fast and getting a bit too organised and restrictive for some tastes a few of the original guys defected back to Simon who'd hooked up with the lovely Rob Brock to provide a pair of his new invention, the Brox. Sadly Rob died last year (I only just found out having not seen him for a while).

Lovely bloke.

We'd had two of these early designs of his at Bugbugs and always bickered about who got to ride them as they were so much fun:So Rob and Simon started out all over again with two new Brox cabs in a shed on Battlebridge Road behind King's Cross. The idea was that an individual or pair of riders would take "ownership" of their particular cab. We paid a monthly rent, came and went as we pleased, were responsible for the maintenance (parts were provided free issue) and worked where and when we felt like it. There were four riders initially,it was me and my friend Guigs and the other "team" were Richard and Zero. Zero was a mostly toothless bald courier from leeds with a penchant for du-rags and hoop earrings. Supersweet guy. Richard lived with him, big tall black guy with a bleached beard. Comulsive liar as it turns out. Hey ho. Lost touch with both of them sadly. We used to take the heavy bodywork off the cabs and hammer round town on just the chassis during the day. They started out like this:But by the time we'd finished with them they had skinny high pressure tyres, no body and would endo when you hit the front (disc) brakes. They were so much fun. Especially in the wet, you could drift them, ride up and down kerbs, hammer round hairpins without letting up for a second. In fact I think part of the reason I started to edge out of the scene is that I was having far more fun riding than making money. Making money meant you had to put the seats back on and the massive canopy and plod about ringing your bell and yadda yadda yadda. It was far more fun to go racing round the underground carpark under St Pancras, which is where we moved to next.

The plan with that little enterprise was that riders would save money and eventually buy their own bike and start up on their own. Most of us didn't have the sense to see this though and just carried on riding but a few really went for it and as that operation started to grow a few guys set out on their own. One of the riders, an Kiwi guy who was one of the originals and consinstantly the highest earner in any given night started up with a couple of these monstrocities: They turned out to be very reliable though and the riders liked them. The original "manager" from the the early days, "Spider", set up his own company called Chariot Bikes with those weird backward trikes. I think he abandoned them after an accident and went over the the above Cycles Maximus bikes too. He's still going strong. As is Bugbugs, Simon, and a dozen other small operations.

Around that time Simon sold the operation again and we moved into a creepy "barn full of sharp things" straight out of a horror movie in the catacombs under Bagley's Warehouse. Which is where as we got up to about seven or so bikes (and as one of half a dozen seperate operations) I bowed out after three years of service. I was sick of the nights, living hand to mouth, cash in hand. But mostly I was fed up with dealing with the customers (all drunk, mostly girls, screeching and treating you like a comedy slave). I just needed a change.

I pottered round the fringes for a bit, renting the odd bike, doing some Ad-Bike stuff and pondering my next move but I never went back. It had changed quite a lot and their were scores of riders out there fighting over the same fares. No-one knew anyone else any more and all the good spots were teeming with cabs, blocking the roads and annoying other road users.

The cabbies brought the case again a year or so later and my case was referred to. As far as i'm aware (despite an ill advised campaign featuring a massive billboard of a black cab ploughing into a pedicab full of innocent crash test dummies on the side of London Bridge) the charges were thrown out again.

And that, in a very long rambly nutshell, is it. Or my involvement with it anyway. I have a few General Lucifer-esque stories about the original crew of riders stashed away somewhere. I'll try and dig them out soon."

Copenhagen Style

2010-03-30T12:02:00.009Z

So over in Copenhagen I was inspired by the use of bikes, seeing mothers with a bunch of children in a cargo bike and seeing cargo bikes carrying loads which I guess I'd thought weren't possible. It's funny for us I think as we just don't see any other cycle couriers or anyone doing anything remotely like what we are doing. No butchers, bakers or florists delivering, no cafe's delivering coffee or sandwiches. Seems daft really, surely it'd make total sense. We certainly think there's been an increase of cycling in the last 3 years, which is a great thing and maybe as that increases other people will begin to think about what's possible with bikes. For the moment we've been taking inspiration from our friends across the fjords and pushing our bikes harder which has fitted well with a few interesting deliveries this week.
Deliveries aside now the clocks have changed and we're heading in towards April we're hitting some great weather and some not so great April shower style weather!Wet roads mean less stopping distance which means we have to be more vigilant especially on some of the junctions in our town. Every day I face this, a contraflow cycle path crossing a t-junction which is joining a one way road, todays example of horrific road terror features two vehicles crossing our right of way, one of which is turning the wrong way up a one way street. Amazing!Hoepfully we'll avoid any crazy situations!

READ THE REST OF THE BLOG HERE..

Powered by the wind..

2010-03-23T13:42:00.002Z

Most of the time we spend on the bikes cursing the wind, we know it's pointless as it wont stop it. However recently our attitude has changed, we've whacked a wind turbine on top of the shack to help generate the power we need....

This week the wind really picked up, and what's more, our turbine started turning and even better it started generating electricity. Not much but it's a start, we'll get the positioning sorted eventually.

So this here, is the very first Amp Hour of power out turbine produced, pretty cool we think.

A letter from the Prince of Wales

2010-03-12T15:17:00.010Z

So things have been really good at Hereford Pedicabs HQ recently, first of all we're busy, really busy and definitely seeing an increase in business. We've got lots of potential contracts pending and are putting into place things we've been thinking about for a long time.

One of the other amazing things that happened recently was a letter of recognition from none other that Prince Charles. He dropped us a line to say well done for all of the work we are doing to benefit the environment. Last year we won a Prince's business award for our concept and its inception, so it was great to have some further recognition.
Best of all has to be the change in the weather recently, we can definitely feel the temperature warming and the sun slipping his hat on.
I also recently had the opportunity to visit Copenhagen which was fantastic, bikes everywhere being used for everything. Piles and piles of bikes parked and being used despite the weather. It was very inspiring to soak up the atmosphere and the locationand to try a few of the local delicacies..Whilst in Copenhagen it was great to visit the chap who built one of our Cargo bikes, Hans is one half of Larry Vs Harry who make the Bulliitt bikes which we use Excellent to have the chance to speak to the guy who made the bike and talk about why he did it and his views on cargo cycles as solutions to work and infrastructure solutions, or course over there the bike is the number one form of transport so it's not strange to see huge loads balanced on bikes without a second glance from passers by.

There were plenty of other things to give us food for thought also... maybe next year!?

So all in all the last few weeks have been great, refreshing attitudes, great places and fantastic weather roll on the rest of the year!

READ THE REST OF OUR BLOG HERE!

End of the weather? And some other stuff..

2010-02-25T16:49:00.009Z

So we were pretty sure we'd seen the back of the bad weather, yeah we were expecting some more rain and a bit of wind before Spring but looks like we were wrong!More snow this week and freaky blizzards. Not to panic though as the Bullitthas dealt with everything admirably. Anyhow the snow is melting now which makes everything super slick on the fixed wheel.
Amazingly it is almost March already, so soon we'll be totting up the quantities of recycling we have done for our clients and looking at who will be our recycling champion for 2010, last year EFM won by a mile but this year we think it might be closely contested.We thought it might be interesting to think about the physical size of the amount of recycling so Luke and I did some quick sums and a few sketches to try and work it out. The tough bit is trying to make is quantifiable for the everyday person. We think it'll be something like a cube 50m wide 50m high and 2km long for the 2009 collections. It doesn't really mean much like that even though it is a gigantic size. We'll have a think and get back to you..

Also a few exciting things happening here and here so we shall see what happens!

We have a few sneaky and cheeky irons in ze fire at the moment so will keep you all posted on progress!

In the mean time I'm shooting off to Copenhagen to see what things are like there - Vi ses!

read the rest of our blog here

Good Article

2010-02-16T12:09:00.002Z

2 wheels good 4 wheels bad...
read it and try it...?

rest of the blog here

Bike delivery

2010-02-09T17:23:00.001Z

Wheelie cool..

Bike collection

2010-02-09T15:53:00.002Z

Pretty cool...

January in a nutshell..

2010-01-29T15:30:00.005Z

SNOW

RIDING

GREAT SUNRISES

LEAKING ROOFS

MORE SNOW

GREAT SUNSETS

PUNCTURES

British Explorer in Jail - Needs your help

2010-01-13T19:32:00.002Z

Andy Pag from the

BIOTRUCK EXPEDITION

is being held in an Indian prison and will be sentenced on Thursday for possession of a satellite phone.

His last Twitters are Here
Article in Indian Times Here
Free Pag Facebook Group Here

Andy has Italian parents but is a British Citizen, the Italian Embassy have visited him.

Do you know anyone who can help?

Beauty of a day

2010-01-07T13:49:00.005Z

So the first thing we have to do in the mornings is defrost the bikes which involves waggling cables and hands getting cold, then we wash them, then we prep them for the days jobs and then most days we stop for a bit and have a cup of tea. It's moments like this when you've done the work, had the suffering of the cold and then the sun pops up to join you with your cup of tea that you realise why you started your own company. If only I could remember those moments when my hands are stuck to the frame in the morning..

The rest of our blog is HERE!

Snow Day!

2010-01-06T15:06:00.004Z

Tom was in on a training day today with Luke (Luke is on holiday next week)

Glad to see the snow didn't get in the way of the intensive training programme....

Read more of our BLOG HERE

2010 here we go again!

2010-01-05T13:41:00.002Z

2010 already and what a year 2009 was for us, despite the economic climate we continued to blossom, growing each month and developing our three core services - pedal powered taxis, delivery and recycling vehicles.

We've got a few resolutions to keep to which certainly helped us last year, sticking to our values and working hard and fast to grow. At the same time we need to make sure that we grow at the right speed for the company, keeping our personality and retaining a strong base from which we can try out new things.

I think it is always nice to recap last year before setting out for the next one. It's pretty easy to forget even big things!

January - We got back to work and panicked a bit about financial climate in front of us, we hoped that our approach to saving people cash and providing a good service would mean we could retain customers. We also really hoped that our customers could weather the storm.

February - We had some great news, we had qualified to receive a grant to enable us to buy equipment so we could produce all of our own power.

March - We had the Welsh Rugby squad on our pedicabs and spread the word about making your own bread.

April - We were nominated for a Prince's Business in the Community Award, worked our we had saved 600 tonnes of C02 with our recycling programme (that year) and got a new clock for the office..

May - We won the Prince's Business in the Community Award - pretty cool! And we gave Luke a holiday.

June - We investigated some new bikes for the company.

July - We had a video made about the company, awarded our 'Recycling Champions' award, trailed a new bike AND started the container conversion using the grant we go in February. We also delivered the Councils 30,000 item!

August - Pretty quiet on the big new things front, just plugging away!

September - We returned last years Pride of Herefordshire award, I had a holiday, our new bike hit the road, I got to ride a penny farthing AND we raised money for Help the Heroes as well as taking on some new contracts.

October - Our new rider TOM THE BOMB started with us, we installed sunpipes in the office and we commissioned some fancy boxes for our bikes.

November - We plugged away at the new contracts and got used as a best practice example by BITC

December - We started to look at taking on new pedicab riders, had BIG BEN back in the office, installed solar and wind power into the office and had an awesome 12 days of Christmas fancy dress party!

So all in all last year was busy, all of the work we have been running has been growing and on top of it we've been looking to put ourselves in a position to now look at growing in the correct way. Not too fast but fast enough to capitalise on our efforts. With new staff members in place and plenty of irons in the fire 2010 looks set to be a great year for us!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2009-12-23T19:15:00.002Z

From everyone at Hereford Pedicabs and Cargo. We finished today in the softly falling snow until the 4th of January, which is probably for the best as we are all nursing hangovers from last nights '12 days of Christmas' fancy dress Christmas party!

See you all in 2010!

Will, Ben, Luke, Tom, Ad, Daz, Mat

Ben lends a hand..

2009-12-21T22:20:00.001Z

Ben lends a hand.., originally uploaded by Will Vaughan.

Once a year Ben graces us with his chopper..

The Real Value of Jobs

2009-12-15T15:46:00.003Z

Waste Recycling Workers - for every £1 we pay them they generate £12 of value for society.

The New Economics Foundation has done some interesting research using a form of job evaluation to calculate the total contribution various jobs make to society, including for the first time the impact on communities and environment.

Eilis Lawlor, spokeswoman for the New Economics Foundation, said: "Pay levels often don't reflect the true value that is being created. As a society, we need a pay structure which rewards those jobs that create most societal benefit rather than those that generate profits at the expense of society and the environment".

She said the aim of the research was not to target individuals in highly paid jobs, or suggest people in low paid jobs should earn more."The point we are making is more fundamental - that there should be a relationship between what we are paid and the value our work generates for society. We've found a way to calculate that," she said.

There are a few case studies but most interesting for us is..

Waste recycling workers

"Do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced. There is also a value in reusing goods. For every pound of value spent on wages, £12 of value is generated for society."

Which is really interesting as we've been calculating added benefits for our customers for a while - Carbon Saving, Publicity, Local Employment, Positive Association.

It'll be really interesting to see what happens with this sort of evaluation as things go on. Certainly with more companies and local councils embracing triple bottom line accountancy it seems like there is a change in appreciation of values and total benefit of work types.

Pedicab Riders Wanted

2009-12-10T14:39:00.002Z

Cheap inner city advertising £20 per week!

2009-11-26T19:41:00.003Z

We've got an early bird deal for anyone wanting to buy advertising for next year, £20 a week for any number of weeks, usually we only ever come down that low if we take bookings for a long time!

Get in touch for more info - will@herefordpedicabs.com

See the rest of our blog HERE!

Good practice example

2009-11-13T14:43:00.001Z

about us -here

Pretty cool to be used as an example of what to do right!

Loads of updates to come on solar installation and new projects.

Have a great weekend.

more of our blog here

Sunpipe!

2009-10-28T08:30:00.009Z

So we finally got round to fitting the sunpipe to the office. I have been pretty sceptical about how these might actually perform and how much of an ordeal it might have been fitting them. But it proved very simpleonce a perfectly watertight shipping container had had a gigantic hole cut in the roof it was just a case of a little fettling and then adding a prism to the super reflective tube and a diffuser inside the office liberally applying sealant and then came the big moment, turn the lights off... shut the door and see if it works... and boy did it work!.. Free sunlight in the office! No power and good enough to supplement some solar powered 12v lights we've got going in next week. Pretty exiting stuff hey!

More of our blog here

Postal Strikes and Pedicargo

2009-10-22T08:26:00.003Z

Urgent local post solution.

With the Royal Mail strike upon us it's valuable for you to know that Hereford Pedicargo are able to complete any urgent local post on your behalf.

Our delivery area can be seen here

We also have an excellent working relationship with TNT express - TNT are able to manage your postal requirements, whether it be within the UK, or Worldwide

If you have a problem and you think we can help, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Kind Regards

Will Vaughan
Rider and Director
Hereford Pedicabs and Cargo
+447718320195

See our blog here

Fun Green and Honest

2009-10-14T21:53:00.004Z

So VW have got this viral campaign going, it's about making people proactive about doing good things by making them fun to do...
Hereford Pedicabs have had the policies of being fun, green and honest since our inception, they shape everything we do, in short providing a pedal powered, zero emission taxi, freight and recycling service, keeping things simple and fun, honest and green.... good to know we're barking up the right tree, but then we never doubted that!

The rest of our blog is here you can track it right back to day 1...

Well fancy that..

2009-10-08T08:53:00.004Z

So the new bike got a new box the other day..

So we thought it was only right to give the new box a new look..

Looks pretty cool, but we were worried the riders might find it hard going so we added some motivational prompts..

Keep you eyes peeled for it!

The rest of our blog

Big wheel..

2009-09-22T08:27:00.004Z

On the weekend we were at a green transport festival, there was a fantastic clown there who had all sorts of bonkers bikesanyhow.... I just couldn't resist asking him for a go on one of his other contraptions..

Bio Truck Expedition

2009-09-09T13:46:00.002Z

We've been in touch with these guys - Bio Truck. Driving around the world powered by waste!

They turned this:

Into this !:

Andy Pag 34, the eco-adventurer who drove a chocolate powered lorry to Timbuktu and organised the Grease to Greece rally where teams had to scavenge chip-fat to power their vehicles across Europe, is setting off to drive around the world on an eco-expedition that can best be described as … Rubbish!

Pag has recycled a scrap yard school bus and turned it into a state of the art eco-home using a mix of reclaimed trash and cutting edge green technology. Not only is the 20 year old “Biotruck” made from rubbish, but it’s been modified so it can run on rubbish too, specifically used cooking oil thrown away by restaurants and caterers.

They set of on an their amazing journey this weekend!

Best of luck guys!

Updatearooney

2009-09-04T10:51:00.004Z

It’s been another great month for everyone at Hereford Pedicabs with new contracts pending and new bikes hitting the road (almost)! I’ve been a bit slack on the blog as I managed to have a little holiday.

Not content with spending everyday on a bike I headed of to the French Alps for some mountain biking. I spent a lot of time on the floor, time relaxing and time on Mont Blanc, nice to have time away to focus on new things for the business.

Our new bike is getting some use but has now gone to have a box made for it so we can use it for secure watertight transit…

A bit of sad news, it’s time to return our ‘Pride of Herefordshire’ award as it now has to be someone else’s turn to hold the trophy for a year and the mantle of environmental champion that goes with it! In honour we took a photo to put up in place of the award..

In actual sad news a local soldier was recently killed in Afghanistan so this weekend the Pedicabs are running collections for Help For Heroes and also for a trust fund for the Soliders son. If you see the bike out there get donating.

Our office conversion is coming on nicely and our solar panels will be in in time for winter…. And complemented with a wind turbine – thank to Epic Electrical for helping us with that.

We’ve just posted three record months so either we’re hiding very well from the recession or doing something right.. one of the two I’m sure! In the mean time we’ll keep on doing things the same, it seems to be working.

Remember to make a donation this weekend if you see out bikes!

Will and all the team.

Interesting things

2009-08-12T13:24:00.005Z

Pretty exciting to see some big companies making what seems to be some sensible changes in the way they are running some of their deliveries.

Big changes to come over the next few years I think

TNT electrical delivery trucks
Waitrose Electric Bike Delivery

Most interesting for us is that TNT will save 1300 tonnes of CO2 per year by introducing 100 7 tonnes electric trucks.. kind of makes us feel really good about THIS!

New Video

2009-07-22T14:11:00.001Z

For those of you who hadn't noticed there's a new vid about the company on here, a local film student dropped in and asked if he could do some work for his portfolio. Thanks a lot Tom!

mmmmm new bike....

2009-07-22T14:07:00.003Z

Just as soon as we finish the office and create some space we'll have one of these puppies delivered mmmmmmmm

Recycling Champions!

2009-07-22T13:54:00.004Z

On Monday we awarded EFM Asset Management with an awesome home made trophy to say well done for saving a whopping 5.7 tonnes of CO2 eq from going in to the environment by recycling their paper with us!
Between the top three companies - EFM , The Courtyard and Maitland Rachel they saved over 12 tonnes of CO2! Here they all are with our very own Luke Matthews and also Cynthia Palmer (town centre manager) and Alison Holmes from Reprodux.
The big question now is who's going to win it next year!

New stuff....

2009-07-10T21:35:00.007Z

So we've been up to some pretty excting stuff in the last few weeks, first off we've started to renovate the office, we've got a grant so we can make it habitable (read as grown up) and generate our own power.

So last week, we stripped it empty and with a little help from our friends (and family) we began to line the walls.. After a few more days it looked like this.. and in a few more weeks it'll be painted, have some home made shelves, a desk, some recycled furniture and some all important solar panels to help us be as green as possible.

So as things are going sooo well at the moment we've started to look at some potential new vehicles, as you'll know by now we've got a bit of a thing about these - Larry Vs Harry. So we got in touch with them and they sent the first one in the county to visit us.. and boy did we enjoy it... So to cut a long story short we've ordered one.. but right now we just have to decide on a colour, harder than you'd think!

Any how, so we're really busy and it's a very exciting time for us, right now the days are long but worth it and hey, with the new bike on the way from the factory we can only keep smiling and hoping that however busy we get, we all get a chance to ride it!

Commercial Opportunity

2009-07-07T13:24:00.002Z

'The key to tackling climate change lies in the hands of private enterprise, in particular persuading business to recognise that the transformation required represents an unprecedented commercial opportunity Sir David King - Smith School of Enterprise and Environment
Good times ahead.

Wimbledon Day..

2009-07-03T08:58:00.002Z

Squash and strawberry and cream tarts....... don't travel well...

Coolest cargo bike ever?

2009-06-19T19:06:00.002Z

Bullett by Larry vs Harry I think we might get some..

Stress Release

2009-06-03T07:56:00.002Z

08:00 - 17:00 work work work, think think think

17:10 get bike out

17:10 - 19:00 play play play, play play play

12 things

2009-05-28T13:35:00.001Z

Saw a challenge to write down 12 things your want your business to be/want from your business, in a minute, this is what I wrote….

To create a successful sustainable business which has a positive impact on the environment.

We’ll help people to be better at what they want to do.

It’ll be a great place to work, full of opportunity, fun for all involved including our customers.

It will be brimming with enthusiasm and opportunity.

We’ll be different if we need to not because we have to be different.

People will want to work for us, we’ll pay well and value our staff.

Our values will remain key to who and what we are.

Work will be hard but rewards will be earned.

We’ll support local economy

We’ll challenge where we have to and do so with respect.

We’ll lead by example and learn from our mistakes.

We’ll be proud of what we’ve done and what we’re going to do.

Here comes the sun?

2009-05-19T08:45:00.002Z

Optimistic weather predictions, I can see the point but I think I'd rather some realism, everyday I check and every day I see the sun with clouds and rain, everyday I ride and see the clouds and rain! Anyhow we should have our new rain coats back from the sponsors soon, fancy new kit designed to be worn in the rain is sure to bring us some sun!

Holiday for the right hand man

2009-05-13T12:44:00.004Z

Luke goes on holiday today, he needs it, he works hard, never complains, embraces the spirit of the company and more than that he's a great laugh to be around. However one thing I wont miss are his shorts

A word from our sponsors

2009-05-07T08:49:00.000Z

Life is Complicated. Sport is Simple from howies on Vimeo.

We WON! Best Carbon Positive Micro Business in the West Midlands!

2009-05-07T08:14:00.007Z

So last friday I made my way on the train to Birmingham to the C+ Carbon Awards ceremony. We'd been nominated in the Carbon Positive Micro Business Category, small businesses making big changes, an exciting place to be!

The event was on the eleventh floor and was attended by a lot of very smartly dressed high flying typesThey had been there all day for a number of workshops on carbon reduction, unfortunately I couldn't make it for those. So as the tension in the room mounted we were all asked to take our seats (one had been reserved for me near the front - a good sign) and things got underway.There were a few awards given out an then we were on to the Micro Business Category, after a bit of build up we were announced as the winners, we got a great round of applause and a lovely plaque for the wallI hung around for a while and we linked up with Prince Charles who said well done and that sort of thing, but more interesting was the live link with Pen Haddow an arctic explorer who was out measuring the thickness of the ice
He said that ice is about 1.5m thick at the mo and usually it's 3m so they don't think it will survive the thaw, really interesting stuff.

Anyhow, what a day, I was back in Hereford and on the bike by three o'clock whilst the other winners were swigging champagne, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

West Midlands C+ Carbon Positive Awards

2009-04-24T15:41:00.003Z

So looks like this one might be a big one!

It's hosted by business in the community who mobilise business for good. They are on of The Prince's Charities.

Soooo we're nominated for Carbon Positive Micro Business, out of the whole of the west midlands... As we mentioned the Awards are organised by Business in the Community, with the support of Advantage West Midlands, Sustainability West Midlands, Birmingham Environmental Partnership, Midlands Environmental Business Club, and Argent.

Nice way to end the week hey!