62. Free2Cycle

Founders: Eric Craig and Brett Dawson
Founded: 2016 (launched 2017)
Website: www.free2cycle.com

A business that gives you a free bike, provided that you ride it.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Wrong – Free2Cycle lets you use a bike and it pays for itself!

Transforming wellbeing through cycling, Free2Cycle works in partnership with organisations and its supply-chain to enable and incentivise an increase in regular exercise and to improve our environment.

For instance, instead of a company having a cycle to work scheme in place it will introduce a Free2Cycle scheme for its employees.

The company will sponsor the employee to ride the bike, only paying for measurable results (whether the employee rode the bike to work and for how long), while the employee gets the bike for free if they stick to the agreed cycling KPIs (how long they’ll ride the bike for).

Offering organisations “considerable” CSR and financial benefits, Free2Cycle is a win-win for employers and employees alike.

Co-founder Craig came up with the idea for the business after his friend – a struggling bike shop owner – asked for some advice, commenting that “there are so many chubby people out there, it would be great if we could give them bikes for free and get them to ride them”.

As a former strategist, Craig saw the potential for this idea to be made into a scalable business model that could deliver real benefits to society.

With the next 12 months holding “substantial sales and marketing growth”, Craig is passionate for Free2Cycle to make a marked difference to people’s health and wellbeing.

And, while its only early days for the business now, longer-term he plans for Free2Cycle to have launched not only across the whole of the UK but in global destinations too.