Steph recently used the Cycle to Work scheme to buy an e-assist ICE trike, which arrived just 6 weeks ago.
Steph talked to us about the importance of the Cycle to Work scheme for her, as well as the difficulties of using the scheme as a Disabled person:
Having a trike improves Steph’s ability to work in a whole range of ways:
Having a trike enables Steph to complete journeys before and after work, but that’s not all.
Like many Disabled people, Steph has essential journeys in work time. The trike is reducing the time she needs to take off for medical appointments, not to mention the health and wellbeing benefits of getting exercise for Steph herself:
“I’m waiting on some medical thing where you have to go in about three or four times a week. The local hospital would take me probably a round trip of three to four hours if I did it by public transport, but I can get that down to perhaps two hours if I do it cycling, including the treatment. So what we worked out was being able to cycle it reduces the amount of time I have to have off work.”
And Steph’s assistance dog needs regular walks so that she can support her to do her job:
“She needs to be walked and I have reduced mobility so I can’t walk her without a trike. The quicker I can make those trips and the less exhausted I am by those trips, the better I can work.”
The complexity of getting a trike and access barriers to cycling have made the wellbeing benefits a little mixed so far:
“They’ve kept offering me Motability, and a mobility scooter could have done all sorts. You know, I could go into the centre of town like I wouldn’t have the problems of parking in the same way as finding parking for a trike – in some ways the trike feels like a worse solution. But in other ways long term it’s a better solution – it’s active and I know that’s good for my mental health and concentration.”
Without the Cycle to Work scheme, getting this trike just wouldn’t have been possible:
It’s taken about 5 years for Steph get to the point of being able to buy this trike:
“I was using an upright bicycle as a mobility aid, but I started looking at recumbents because I knew that my health was going to go that way. Shortly after starting this job my hands started to go numb on the handlebars so I couldn’t pull the brakes –the major thing that had me looking at recumbents is to have the handlebars with no pressure on the hands.”
Steph’s eligible for the Motability scheme but the vehicles and mobility aids available aren’t ones that would work for her:
“They keep sending me Motability stuff. My disability means I’m not allowed to drive, so I can only have a mobility scooter from it, or a powered wheelchair. But then I would get no exercise. And it does frustrate me that by choosing the trike and choosing exercise, I have massively been delayed in getting it. I can’t drive – can I have the non-drive equivalent please? The one I’m legally allowed to use? A cycle is the fastest I can go legally!”
Steph bought a secondhand recumbent trike, which worked well for a while and proved to her that a recumbent trike would be a good long-term mobility option for her.
Steph’s cycle experience changed when she moved to be a carer for her mum
“I moved to support my mother, who’s not so well. My secondhand trike was actually quite good around where I previously lived. It was a 20th century garden city, so there were lovely cycle roads everywhere. It was fine. And then I come here to a small town near an historic city with terrible legacy roads and… Oh, my word. I need suspension. Just, like it was really painful. It became a kind of right. I’ve definitely got to get one. This isn’t actually going to work.”
Getting a better trike was suddenly a much higher priority.
Applying for the Cycle to Work Scheme wasn’t simple:
Steph works for a large employer who use Cyclescheme to administer their Cycle to Work applications. Her employer has set a £10,000 maximum permitted cost for cycles.
Fortunately Steph’s PAYE salary is far enough above minimum wage that she was able to apply for the maximum scheme amount, but the one-year payback requirement has been challenging for Steph financially:
“The amount I’m paying on the Cycle to Work scheme is about half what I’m paying in rent. I don’t think someone on my salary would be buying a cycle that expensive unless they really needed it.”
She started the Cycle to Work process in April 2025, but due to a range of complexities including cycle sourcing and scheme delays didn’t receive the trike until October.
A specialist trike with features such as the suspension and e-assist that Steph needs to make journeys are not cheap: Between the specifications Steph needed, Brexit restrictions on imports and scheme restrictions, the cheapest suitable option Steph was able to source cost around £11,000.
Steph was able to bring the cost just below the £10,000 limit with help from a supportive supplier, including advice about a 5% discount available if Steph joined British Cycling and by removing everything that could be considered “accessories” from the cycle invoice:
“Because it’s done on a website with Cyclescheme, I was literally not allowed to put in a number bigger. It wouldn’t submit the form if the number was any bigger and it had to be the right number because that’s the only amount they’ll put on the certificate to buy the cycle.”
While having the trike is great, the experience of using the Cycle to Work scheme has not been so good:
“I don’t think Cycle to Work is designed for specialist cycles or for Disabled people in general.
“Cyclescheme told me the average time it took for my company was 17 days, but it might take up to 30 before it’s approved and you’re not allowed to purchase till it’s approved.
“It got past the 30 days and approval hadn’t come. I chased it and got an e-mail – ‘sometimes it takes longer’. Yes, but I can’t order until you’ve approved it. And it was pretty horrible because you can’t sign the form until you know the cost, which means you’ve got to have specced the whole thing out and got a dealer and everything lined up.
“But then the amount of time they were taking, I was expecting the cost to change before I got approval. And they say, ‘oh, yeah, but you can just put in the new value’. But I was so close to the limit, a change could have stymied the whole thing. So it was the feeling that they really didn’t understand. The system really wasn’t designed for anything that had to be made to order.”
There are ongoing complications with how the scheme works:
The Cycle to Work scheme’s restriction on “upgrading” your cycle for the first four years while your employer technically owns the cycle has caused difficulty for Steph, who has changing mobility and health needs.
Essentially, the restriction on upgrading means Steph had to specify all the high-end parts she might need for the cycle in the next four years as her condition changes – even things she didn’t need when ordering. That made the trike more expensive up front than it needed to be.
“It’s only the year to pay it back. But for the next three years it’s under the employer’s ownership, unless you can pay extra. The problem is all that time you can’t modify it, and I’m thinking I could well need to modify it. You can repair it, but you can’t upgrade. That’s one of the reasons I had to go for the version I did. I was trying to think years ahead.
“The inability to modify it feels very not disabled friendly, if you think about the way conditions change. I think the automatic hub gear I got is a really good example of that – it’s probably the sort of thing you’d upgrade, and I could imagine someone thinking, oh, I won’t go for the automatic hub gear. Then their condition changes a bit. And they realise they needed the automatic gearbox. But they can’t upgrade the cycle.”
And Steph’s trike has more than proved its worth already:
“I’ve just had the settling in service on it. I’ve got about 300 miles on it, so I’ve done quite well for about five to six weeks!”
The Cycle to Work Scheme and Disabled cyclists
At Wheels for Wellbeing, we want all Disabled people to have the option to use cycles as mobility aids.
We believe the Cycle to Work scheme needs improving – not restricting – so that more Disabled people are able to access options that mean they can get the cycles that work for them.
We also want to see schemes that enable Disabled people who are not in secure long-term PAYE employment to gain cycles at reasonable cost.
Measures like these would be good moves towards achieving what the UK promised to do when we signed up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities article 20, personal mobility:
“States Parties shall take effective measures to ensure personal mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities, including by:
a) Facilitating the personal mobility of persons with disabilities in the manner and at the time of their choice, and at affordable cost;
b) Facilitating access by persons with disabilities to quality mobility aids, devices, assistive technologies and forms of live assistance and intermediaries, including by making them available at affordable cost;
c) Providing training in mobility skills to persons with disabilities and to specialist staff working with persons with disabilities;
d) Encouraging entities that produce mobility aids, devices and assistive technologies to take into account all aspects of mobility for persons with disabilities.”