Pedalling the wares

26th August, 2009 by Anonymous | Add a comment

Is the old-fashioned delivery bike back? Almost. Waitrose has launched a fleet of electric bicycles to carry online shopping to customers in the Poole, Droitwich and Lichfield area. The bikes, which can travel 30 miles on each charge, tow a chilled trailer with space for 20 bags – although staff can turn off the electric boost button and pedal them further. The supermarket, which scrapped delivery charges to encourage online shopping, wanted to avoid increasing lorry miles, and is extending the scheme to Bath and Brighton in July.

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april (not verified), 28 August 2009 - 08:31

Waitrose' action makes so much sense that it makes you wonder - why has it taken us so long? Bike delivery is suited to so many things - which makes the Royal Mail decision to phase out 25,000 bikes (and presumably, depriving lots of employees of their automatic exercise) so short-sighted. Perhaps they'll relent. In the meantime, Winkworth is testing getting rid of cars for its estate agents and having them bike instead. Now that is really great. How about tandems for taking clients to view prospective homes?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/brits-dump-bicycle-mail-delivery...

Phill Lane (not verified), 26 August 2009 - 12:09

I wonder if this could be combined with the company employment offer - in place of free gym memberships - seems a good use of excess energy to me.

http://wp.me/pAyNb-7h

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