Would you swap your car for a bike?

Rob Spedding | Blog, Cycling Plus | 28/11/2012 15:03pm

It’s a question that we often ask ourselves when we’re feeling particularly guilty about polluting the planet– could we swap our car for a bike? For many the answer is probably: “Yeah, for the commute, and a bit of shopping but I still need the car to drive to next weekend’s sportive…” Anyway, we’re not sure if Jonny Heneghan is an eco-warrior but he has swapped his car for a bike. Literally…

A few weeks ago Jonny, from Godley in Manchester sent a cheeky tweet to @wigglebikeshop asking if the online bike shop giant would would swap his old MG for a bike. Wiggle called Jonny’s bluff by replying, “Sounds like a fair trade.”  And last weekend Jonny travelled down to Wiggle‘s Portsmouth HQ and traded his MG ZR for a Mekk Poggio (and a Kask helmet…which is probably what I would have given him for it…)

Great, I can just put this in the boot...

Jonny decided to approach Wiggle after reading about a man who blagged a holiday via Facebook. He’d started cycling to work – rather than driving – to save money for his wedding. After losing three stone he felt inspired enough to buy a new bike but didn’t want to use his wedding savings. “I didn’t have the money and I barely used my car any more so I thought I’d try and sort out a trade.  My Fiancé was dead happy that Wiggle agreed as she knew how much I wanted a road bike but was holding off to save up for the wedding!”

Throw in some carpets and I'll take it...

Before you get excited about the idea of swapping something you don’t need for a new bike, Wiggle is keen to point out this is strictly a one off.  “Jonny’s request struck a chord with us  –  many of us here have swapped our cars for bikes to try & cut our commuting costs & keep fit,” says Wiggle Social Media Executive, Daniel Loots. “It’ll not be a regular occurrence and we don’t intend on making a habit of swapping goods. Jonny got lucky!”

Wiggle haven’t said what they’ve done with the MG but if you’ve got a bike you’d like to swap it for maybe drop them a tweet…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2012 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Blog, Cycling Plus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.