Hay Festival all done!

On Sunday we wrapped up our last shift for the Telegraph Hay Festival. If you don't know about the festival you should! It gathers thousands of people to listen to hundreds of speakers who are picked to create an incredible event. Hay runs for about 10 days each summer and has had just about every big name going attending. 

For the last couple of years we have provided a pedicab service from the festival front gates into Hay and back. It is just over half a mile to walk into Hay and our service suits the occasion perfectly. There are shuttles buses too but a few thousand people use us instead.

We teamed up with Visit Herefordshire this year who had a stand at Hay and decided to sponsor some space on our cabs. 

 We freshened up with some new T's for all of the staff to keep us smelling sweet and looking good.

In general the festival was brilliant, just as it was last year, with a share of great celebs and cracking speakers the crowds were drawn despite some pretty rubbish weather.

For us the main real challenge was the wind which was relentless, we ran 4, 6 hour shifts with 2 cabs to cover the festival operating times. We were running some pretty high mileages during the day and we were feeling the deep burn by the end. Not that we minded, it was brilliant running thousands of people to and from the festival and helping everything knit together.

  

So another great Hay festival complete, thousands of customers moved, hundreds of miles pedalled, plenty of laughs, plenty of rain, speakers rushed to the site to make their talks, high speeds set, customer records broken and we also got to hear some pretty unique feedback about what was going on from our punters. All in all a great time. We're already looking forward to heading back next year, potentially with more cabs and a bigger presence at the festival, we know we can move more people and save a bit more carbon and help bring some more excitement to journey to the festival gate.

A big thank you to all of the staff at Hay who made it possible for us to be there, we loved every minute of it.

Hay festival is getting close

Lots to do.. vinyls have started arriving for the cabs

Green Office Week - Waste

So it is Green Office Week, each day there is a focus on a topic, today it is waste, we run a trade waste recycling programme.

A while back there was a really interesting article in the Guardian - 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.

Hereford Pedicabs Historical Tours 2012!

Hereford Pedicabs are teaming up with the Visit Herefordshire Centre and Herefordshire Council to deliver a number of exciting historical tours in Hereford City this summer.

Tours will run from the Visit Herefordshire Centre (opposite the Cathedral) every Saturday from 7th July – 22nd September and are available to be pre booked by phone or email.

Each of the 2 Pedicab rickshaws can seat 3 people, tours will last approximately an hour and will leave on the hour, starting at 10am with last tours leaving at 3pm.

Tours cost £15 per Pedicab (not person!) and are bookable from the Visit Herefordshire Centre (opposite the Cathedral): 

by phone – 01432 268 430 
or by email – reception@visitherefordshire.co.uk

Pedicab Riders Wanted!

So we are a couple of pedicab rickshaw riders short at the moment Summer is coming and we have lots planned. Festivals, tours, proms, weddings and of course our standard Friday and Saturday evening work.  

We're on the hunt for some more riders. 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!

We got a Facebook page for our birthday!

Who could have predicted it? Facebook Page - goo.gl/885WV

5 years and growing.

5 years old!

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 certainly doesn't seem like 5 years ago since we did that. In fact so much has happened I can't really tell you about it all without taking a very long time. But in brief we........

Launched pedicabs, had our 1000th customer, then our 5000th customer and now we've had almost 100,000 customers.

Launched Hereford Pedicargo a cycle courier company which has now transported hundreds of thousands of items for local business and authority and which has big contracts with national delivery companies. 

Launched a trade waste recycling programme which services hundreds of local businesses. 

We won a Pride of Herefordshire Award.

Then we started generating all out own power from renewable energy.

Then we won the Prince's Business Award.

Then we really started to pick up speed.

We've transported loads of brides to their weddings.

Taken grooms to the church.

Taken Prom Queens to their proms.

Stags to their parties.

We've picked up a contract to run shuttles for the amazing Hay festival.

We've worked here and away.

We've suffered at the hands of hard winters.

We've basked in glorious summers.

Some of us have lost hair..

We've had staff come and go and stay and grow, Ad, Luke, Daz, Tom, Matt, Mike, Tom, Matt,Will, Ed, Woody, Joe, Ed and plenty others helping out doing there bit.

We've had thousands of cups of tea chatting about out hope and dreams.

We've had tight times and rich times.

And generally we've been flat out growing things as best as we can.

But with all that said it has been great, great so far and I'm sure it'll be great in the future. We've stuck to our guns, we've been fun, green and honest about all our choices.

So here's to the next 5 years - we hope you stick with us. We've had a blast.

Oh and Ben did find a girlfriend.

Welcome aboard Edward Webb!

New rider Ed Webb passed his training last week and firmly cemented 'Edward' as our most popular rider name. Statistically, if you run a Pedicab company in Hereford 20% of the workforce you ever employ will be called Edward. Mind boggling stuff.

Anyhow.. welcome aboard Ed, you've earned your place on the team.

Ed pictured with full time Pedicargo warrior Tom Donaldson.

Hereford Pedicabs confirmed for Telegraph Hay Festival 2012

Great news - we've been confirmed to run shuttles for this years Telegraph Hay Festival!

 Once again we'll be running shuttles to Hay and back and generally having a great time in the sun. We'll be on site between 2-10 of June and working 10am till 10pm. Say hello if you are visiting!

We had a great time least year and transported almost 3000 people up and down the half mile straight main road from Hay to the Festival and from the Festival to Hay. We had our battles with the wind and the gradient but it was a storming success and we are very proud to be invited back. It wasn't all hard work though, I got to take this photo of the back of John Snow's head...

We'll be operating the same route as last year and you can flag down a Pedicab either outside the Festival Site or by the Swan which is just on the way out of Hay when you are on your  way to the festival.

Even better this year (after our great success last year) is we have some sponsorship from Visit Herefordshire who will be branding the bikes up to match the stall they will have at Hay.

We're all looking forward to another cracking festival.

Pedicab Riders wanted!

So we are a couple of pedicab rickshaw riders short at the moment and they are going to be gone for a pretty long time. Summer is coming and we have lots planned. 

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!

Pedicab Prom and Wedding Transport!

Since we launched almost 5 years ago we've been lucky enough to have been involved in plenty of weddings, proms and special occasions.

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. 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. The last few years we've done more and more proms which are great fun for everyone involved.

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 £50 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.

Stay Herefordshire Magazine

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

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

 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!

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.

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..

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

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...

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

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.