What we got up to in October..

October has been a great month, we finally finished our Summer Tour programme at the end of September and it was a great success, other than one day we were flat out for the whole summer season which was brilliant for us and for people in Hereford. But as the seasons move on things pick up in other areas for us. 

Lots of our last mile delivery work is for major companies who drop parcels to us in the morning so we can dispatch them. That volume is running at double what it would usually which is pretty bonkers so it feels like we're either flat out on the bikes or flat out in the workshop repairing stuff and taking the strain!

Over on our facebook page we featured a few things:

The CTC did an article about Pedicabs and featured us rather prominently..

The British Weather threatened to test our waterproofs..

And we took delivery of another bike...

Keep trucking!

More stuff we've been up to..

Interesting map of some of the last mile postcodes we cover..

Last few weeks of our city tours...

Poppy the dog had a barking good time..

We featured in the CTC magazine this month!

stuff we've been up too

So.. a lot of things are getting covered over on our Facebook page but we'll keep you updated on them by posting up some screenshots of the pages, just in case you can't log in to FB.

Here are a bunch of recent posts:

City Tours!

Our tour programme is up and running, this time subsidised by the Old Livestock Market Development.

Tours run from 10-4 and take just over and hour. We'll take in some sights of Historical Hereford and also head over to the Old Livestock Market to show you some of the future of Hereford. There will be viewing platforms and our guides will be able to point out some interesting things about what's going on!

You can jump on a tour at the Coffee Cart in High Town between 10 and 4 every Saturday, there are seats to wait for the next one and A-boards to clearly display the next tour time.

Tour guides need cool t-shirts hey!

Cool tourist info t-shirts for our team this year, featuring our sponsors!

City Tours Start this Saturday!

We had a great evening training up our new tour guides yesterday. So we are all set for our summer run of tours starting this Saturday.

The tours will run for 9 weeks and are fully subsidised (yes FREE!) by the Old Livestock Market. We are also working in association with Visit Herefordshire and the Coffee Cart. Visit Herefordshire are providing a pop up tourist information hub in High Town and the Coffee Cart are allowing us to run our tours from next to their Cart. 

Tours run from 10-4 and take just over and hour. We'll take in some sights of Historical Hereford and also head over to the Old Livestock Market to show you some of the future of Hereford. There will be viewing platforms and our guides will be able to point out some interesting things about what's going on!

We hope to see you on board soon!

If you want really up to date information about what we're doing, don't forget to check our Facebook page - www.facebook.com/HerefordPedicabsAndCargo we post all sorts of things on there.

Ben Matthews - gets Wed

Director of the company Ben Matthews got married a couple of weeks back. He met his beautiful wife Heather through some work we were doing with Pedicabs and a local theatre so it was excellent to be involved!

Special Occasions!

We've done loads of really great events this year, proms, weddings, stags and hens and we've had a blast doing them, we figured you might like to see a few pictures!

Summer Tours

Bit of not so secret news for you, we'll be running some historical city tours this year, every Saturday in August and September from High Town, taking in a bunch of historical sights and hopefully we'll be able to make a trip to the new development so people can have a squiz at the futre of Hereford.

Mountain Mayhem

Pedicabs are teaming up with a crack mixed squad of male and female MTB legends to form TEAM Eagle/Pedicab who are going to tackle Mountain Mayhem this weekend. Its a 24 hour mountain bike race, 5 of us will take it in turns to do a hot lap around the course completing as many laps as we can. Should be a good laugh so if you see any of us up there give us a big cheer. 

We'll be the awesome ones having and amazing time!

Community Cargo Bike update..

Exciting news! 

We are getting very close to being able to announce when the scheme is going to start in Hereford. 

We have been very busy - here is some of the stuff we have been up to…..

We have the bike.

We are doing lots of things to the bike to make it ready to be hired.

We have decided on a location for the box the bike is going to live in.

We have permission for the box to live in the location. 

We are not telling you where until the licence is in our hands! 

We have designed the bike/box release system and we are now testing the 'Magic Keys' which will be issued to people who sign up for the scheme.

We are working out the last details of the hire charges and access rates for our members. 

We have purchased a bulk load of tubs which fit the bike which some of our members will get for free depending on how long they sign up for.

We are now in the process of design, web design, booking system design and also making sure that we have the correct policies and procedures in place to protect the scheme and the members.

We are VERY EXCITED about launching the cargo bike programme and giving access to such a great bit of equipment to everybody in the community it lives in.

More information on the way when we can tell you!

New carbon saving stickers...

New window and surface stickers designed and off to print. For each of our trade waste recycling customers so they can show their customers the difference they are making choosing us to manage their waste stream. They all get filled in by hand to identify exactly how much carbon has been saved.

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

Wedding Fayre

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

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!

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!

CTC coverage of cargo bike scheme

Some great coverage in the CTC's January Newsletter of our community cargo bike scheme - http://goo.gl/87CjC

Inner city trade waste recycling service

Inner city trade waste recycling service

Hereford Pedicargo service hundreds of local businesses providing them with a regular, friendly, cheap recycling service. We’ve been doing this since early 2008 and have saved 1000’s of tonnes of waste from going to landfill and 1000’s of tonnes of CO2 from entering the environment.

If you are a business close to town we can offer the following solution: Recycling of waste paper- £1 per 16kg bag (we supply the bags for free) Shredding and recycling - £1 per 16kg bag (we supply the bags for free) Recycling of cardboard - £5 per cage/pro rata - minimum charge £1 Recycling of plastic films - £1 per bag (we supply the bags for free)

Free recycling of ink cartridges if you are using our recycling schemes

Orange Council waste bags cost £1.38 each, go to landfill and are set to rise in price, we are cheaper for your business and better for the environment.

We also tell you how much CO2 you save each year!
There is no catch, it is cheap, it is good and you will be doing a good thing.

email: info@herefordpedicargo.com call: 07718320195 

Great coverage from CTC

Great article by the CTC on the innovative cargo bike sharing scheme which we are launching and trialling in Hereford. Cargo bike use is snowballing in the rest of Europe and we think this scheme might be the way to bring bikes like this to the UK. It's another thing we are doing this year to try and get a bit of life back into Hereford.http://www.ctc.org.uk/cargo-bike-sharing-scheme-in-hereford

Ice road trikers...

Pretty cold out at the mo, not stopping us though!

Funi wear

We've had some new winter hats made by a cracking British company Funi.

The hats are knitted by actual grannies to your specific criteria - pretty cool (actually pretty hot).

Check Funi out here!

Free Festive Tea Samples

We're teaming up with Trumpers Tea a local loose leaf tea seller (http://www.trumperstea.co.uk/) to deliver some samples to some lucky folk in the HR1-2 area. We'll be dropping them off to people receiving deliveries to their homes.

Mike sampled some tea himself earlier in the week.. Orange Rooibos... very festive.. 

Panto Dames. Charity and Weather

Last week was a good one we were flat out as usual but fitted in a few extra jobs to help a few folk out 

First up Tom and Jordan has a date with the Panto Dame who was switching on the Christmas lights in Hereford, as you can she see was a honey so needed some escorting from some hunky gents.

We also sent a bike down to help out with Herefordshire Council's Charity Congathon

 

And in other news, particularly today the weather has really turned for the season, definitely not perfect cycling weather!

New Pedicab Rider Jordan McQueen!

We think he'll fit right in!

Christmas lights switch on!

This Sunday, we'll be taking the panto cast to switch the lights on!

This screen shot is from our Facebook page:

Talk at Hereford Tech College

We popped up to the college last week to give the business studies course a talk about logistics, was great to be involved.

This screen shot is from our Facebook page.

Talk at Hereford Tech College

Cargo bike on line article

Click Here! Some great comments...

Update on community cargo bike scheme.

So we've finished the consultation on the community cargo bike scheme and it is going to go ahead! This is the summary we just sent out to people who got in touch:

What is the project about?

We want to put cargo bikes in communities for people to use. They can be used to move big loads about without much effort, so you could do the weekly shop, visit the allotment or maybe even do the school run on one!

Why you?

You will have found out about the cargo bike project because we have been consulting people about it. We posted on our company Facebook. We visited 500 homes in the St James area of Hereford and dropped flyers to them. We also held an event in Hereford where people could see the bike and then held a talk about the project at the Courtyard Theatre as part of h:Energy. 

Are we going to launch the community cargo bike programme?

Yes - it is going to happen! A trial and launch of our first one will be in Hereford for the St James Area. If this is a success we will roll the scheme out to other areas in Great Britain and further away if the scheme can work there. 

What was the feedback like?

Totally crazy! - To give you an idea of just how positive it was over 17,000 people saw info we had posted or sent out and we had responses from people all over the world. 5 community groups already want us to input a scheme for them when we are up and running and people from lots of major cities in the UK and abroad welcomed the idea. 

The most important feedback we had was from the targeted area which we sent flyers to and invited to our talks. Of those we have a collection of about 20 people, who are within a radius of 150m of each other, who would regularly use a scheme like this if they had access to it. In addition to those 20 people there are a further 25 people who would like to use the scheme on an ad-hock basis. We also think that when the scheme does launch that it will naturally attract more people to it.

Some cargo bike manufacturing organisations and a representative from the European Cargo Logistics Federation wrote to us to tell us that they see this sort of scheme as a way of making these bikes really accessible to the masses and overcoming a number of things that prevent regular people from using them. 

In addition to this we also had some great practical feedback about launching the scheme. Suggestions were made about a day where people could try the bike in a safe environment and get more familiar with it, we think this is something we will definitely do.

Where are we going to launch it?

The St James area in Hereford, the exact spot is yet to be confirmed.

When will it launch?

We hope by Spring 2013 the bike will officially have somewhere to live, will have a smart online booking system and will be in regular use. However it is likely that we will have the bike a long time before that so hopefully we will have it in use sooner than Spring. We want people to be talking about the scheme and helping us to develop it. It might be that we lend it to a few people for a week or so and get their feedback.

What happens next?

First of all we have to gather all of our funding for the scheme and then we have some work to do. Simply put we need to get a bike, find somewhere for it to live and make an easy way for people to book it out. 

Once all of that is done we should be somewhere near the official launch time and have a product which we will be able deploy locally and then if successful something which we can duplicate in other places.

How can you help?

Most of the stuff is under control at the moment, very important is we find a space where the bike can live somewhere within 200m of HR1 2RB Our hope is we might be able to get the pod the bike will live in on a road instead of a parking space if not it will have to be on private land. We have some ideas, but if you have any ideas about places it could live them we would love to hear them. Other than that, sit tight and you'll get some updates about what we are doing via this email address. 

How can you get other people involved? 

Get their email address to us and we'll put them on this mailing list, or get them to email - info@herefordpedicargo and we can send them some information. 

So for now that is your update, it looks really positive and we can't wait to get things going, we'll be in touch and please feel free to contact us if you need.

Pedicabs at the Hereford food festival!

Glide to your Park and Ride with us!