What does travel to & from work entail? I own a pub and I use my bike to go to the bank and to pick up little bits and pieces. Can this be included?
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 I'd say it does. If you're banking your business stuff then it's business travel.
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 If you are self employed can you write half the cost of a Carbon TCR or an XTC1 as a business expense?
(Just don't tell them my office is 5 metres from my bedroom)
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 yeah, i was wondering about getting some high-flying carbon road trickery at half-price, ride it to work once, keep it under my desk while there then revert back to the old hack bike the following day and use the giant for doing an ullrich (piling on the pies and puncturing at the bottom of a big climb)
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 I generally commute by bike 3 days a week during the lighter days of the year. So that would be alright then??
According to the article, the bike has to be used "mainly for work transport", so as long as I keep my fun kilometers less than commute kilometers then that's alright??
Sounds all very confusing. I guess I'm going to have to read up on it. It does sound ideal for getting a nice new road bike though!
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 I suspect that you can't really take advantage of this scheme if you already own 4 bikes, or indeed if you already cycle to work?
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 i suspect the goverment arent going to monitor your use of the bike in travelling to work, so it would be a safe bet just to say "i will" then walk off with a half price santa cruz!!
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 Does anyone actually know of anyone who has really taken advantage of this? Working on the old internet adage that if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is, I'm not entirely convinced that this is legit.
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 I've asked our HR wonks about this. Let's see what happens...
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if i hadn't spent the last year spending all my money on bikes then i would follow it up, if it's government policy and you work for a largeish company then you can probably jump and shout enough to get your way.
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I've also spoken to the droids in our HR department.
No response yet... lazy gits.
Jim.
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Here's my piece.
http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/daily-news/article.php?id=3866
That's on the public-access part of the site. There's a slightly different angle on the trade-only part, but only stuff like how much bike shops and suppliers have got to cough in commission to Booost.
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 Is it just halfords this scheme operated with? or any bike shop?
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Spesh Big Hit mainly for work transport u say??
Yessss, sure it is,, ah ha.. cough cough yes I like to take the long way to work... I errr yep yep hmm...
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 what if you are self employed?
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It's Halfords and independent bike shops.
They've got to sign up via the ACT trade association.
Just Giant bikes for now, but lots more bike companies within days.
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 You should check if your employer has a scheme similar to this anyway. A friend of mine works for Arup and can get an interest free loan to cover 100% of any bike he buys, no limit.
I work for HM Coastguard which is technically the Civil Service and they already have a bike loan scheme. In fact, I got my money in this months pay packet. Unfortunately, the maximum loan is only £350, but at least it has softened the blow of my recent purchase.
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 The thing is that it's very early days for this and so lots of people, including industry people, haven't heard about it yet. They will hear once everyone starts asking about it.
As far as I'm aware you won't be excluded if you already have a bike and won't have to prove that you use it mainly for commuting.
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I work for arup too and what sponge says is very true - and I am hoping that arup as a "green sustainability aware" company will be signing up for this. At present i have four bikes, and have used all of them, at one time or another, to commute to work - and i certainly (in the eyes of the inland revenue) will use the whyte 46, that i have now earmarked when this comes into being with all bikes, to commute - there are some way scarey drop offs in cardiff city centre (ahem).
I really hope this becomes common practice - it is about time cyclists got something back for not polluting our city centres!
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Trek joins Giant. All Trek's brands are included.
See http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/daily-news/article.php?id=3880
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