The HMRC recently ‘clarified’ part of the cycle2work scheme. Which is all well and good, but the net effect has been that my employer has effectively withdrawn the scheme until further notice. Googling around, this seems to have happened elsewhere as well. This wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t of been expecting to pick up a new bike this year after we moved house. The first couple of weeks cycling I mostly seemed to have good weather with little wind, or a tailwind, and I was thinking, “It’s not actually that bad doing this on a fixed gear bike, maybe I could just keep doing it?” (although I still wanted a spare bike for those horrible occasions when I find a flat tyre in the morning so I could just hop on the spare instead of changing inner tubes and being late; I was just considering getting another fixed gear). But then the headwinds started and that was it, I was getting me some gears!

And then the HMRC go and screw everything up. And so fixed gear it has been and fixed gear it will continue to be. And in fairness I can cope with the headwinds now, I’m just slow. But I would still like a spare.