Oxford cycle business targets rail commuters with while-you-work servicing

An Oxford-based bicycle business has set up shop at the city’s railway station to enable commuters to have their bikes serviced or repaired while they are away at work. Bainton Bikes, operating from a gazebo at the First Great Western-operated station, is also renting bikes from the facility to visitors to the university city.

Kevin Moreland of Bainton Bikes told the Oxford Mail: “We were talking to First Great Western about putting hire bikes at the station and they said they wanted a repair service as well.”

Having visited Cambridge to see a business there called Station Cycles, Mr Moreland believed that a similar, train station-based initiative could work in Oxford. “We know people in Oxford want longer opening hours,” he explained. “The feedback we have had is that they just don’t get the chance to get to a bike shop.”

To begin with the facility is open each Monday from 6.30m to 7.30pm, although it is planned that within the coming months it will start operating on a daily basis.

“It has also allowed us to offer hire and cycle tours to visitors and we are planning to open seven days a week from March or April, depending on how things go,” said Mr Moreland, who also runs Walton Street Cycles in the city’s Jericho area.

Andy Saunders, integrated transport manager at First Great Western, said: “Oxford is one of our most popular stations for commuting cyclists and I’m delighted to partner Walton Street Cycles and Bainton Bikes to offer this innovative service.”