blog - Powabyke

Winter can be a depressing time for a cyclist, and getting cold, wet and muddy does not help! There are things that you can do to improve the quality of time you have on the roads:

Clothes – Wearing the appropriate clothes can not only keep you warm and dry. The best way to do this is to layer up, so if temperatures change, then you can adapt too. Thermal layers as well as waterproof outers will keep you warm and dry. Try overshoes to keep your toes warm, also thermal gloves to protect your fingers, and thermal face and neck masks to keep the chills at bay!

Mudguards – It sounds silly, and may reduce the coolness of your ride, but mudguards will will stop you getting mud and water splattered up your backside! This in turn will keep you warm and dry! Luckily most Powabykes come fitted with mudguards as standard!

Lights – Being seen is crucial, especially when the mornings and evenings are dark, and the afternoons are often dreary, visibility is paramount. Make sure you fit a decent set of LED lights to your bike. Keep them charged regulary so you don’t lose brightness, or carry a spare set of batteries so you can change them on the move. Increasingly lights are being fitted as standard on ebikes these days, but it doesn’t hurt to have a secondary lighting system to help give oncoming drivers a perspective of where you are.

Tyres – Use tyres that give you that little bit of extra grip. Yes I’m afraid you may lose some of that top speed or range on an ebike, and it may also feel harder to ride, but ultimately anything you can do to help improve your bike’s grip is surely a good thing? You can also try reducing tyre pressure by a few lbs to improve grip. Remember wet leaves, mud and puddles could be just around the corner! You may want to think about fitting puncture resistant tyres as well, these are great for reducing the risk of punctures with the increased debris found on roads during the winter months.

Winter Cleaning – This is crucial for the longevity of parts. Dirt, salt, mud and water are a bad mix for cyclists, so by keeping your bikes clean, you will in turn increase the life of chains, derailleurs, cranks, bottom brackets, brakes etc. There are loads of websites telling you how to clean a bike, This is a video from Cycling Weekly showing you the basics.

So today the Rt Hon Philip Hammond is set to deliver the Autumn Budget for 2018. It is usually delivered on the last Wednesday of the month but the Chancellor feared the national press would use Halloween references to rip the Budget apart with headlines such as “Hammond Horror” or “A Nightmare on Downing Street”!

This is the last Budget before Brexit and it is rumoured that there will be no major shocks. There will no doubt be the usual increase in alcohol duties and tobacco duties, but it will be the online retailers that the Chancellor is under increasing pressure to introduce a digital tax. Further investment is thought to be announced to plough money in to the high street. This would go a short way to help save the High Street and our beloved local independents, whilst also ensuring the jobs for tens of thousands of people working there.

It is also understood that the Chancellor will announce a massive increase in spending on the UK roads over the next 5 years with spending thought to be close to £29.0bn, with £420m of that expected to be used directly towards tackling potholes. This is great news for the cyclist with extra cycle lanes being built and safer roads for cyclists to ride. Cycling is up over 80% in major towns and Cities and this investment will go some way to help improve the infrastructure.

All eyes will be on Philip Hammond come 15.30 today! We will update key facts as they happen…

UPDATES BELOW (source BBC):

• The state of the economy

  • Era of austerity is “finally coming to an end”
  • 2018 growth forecast upgraded from 1.3% to 1.6%
  • Growth forecast of 1.4%, 1.4%, 1.5% and 1.6% in four subsequent years
  • 3.3 million more people in work since 2010
  • Wages growth at its highest in nearly a decade

  The state of the public finances

  • Public borrowing in 2018 to be £11.6bn lower than forecast in March, representing 1.2% of gross domestic product, (GDP) the total value of goods produced and services provided
  • Borrowing forecast to fall in subsequent years to £31.8bn, £26.7bn. £23.8bn, £20.8bn and £19.8bn
  • Debt as share of GDP to fall from 85.2% in 2016-17 to 83.7% this year and to 74.1% by 2023-24

  Brexit

  • Extra £500m for preparations for leaving the EU
  • Spring Statement next March could be upgraded to full Budget if needed
  • A commemorative 50p coin to mark the UK’s departure from the EU (announced on 29 October)

  Alcohol, tobacco and fuel

  • Beer, cider and spirits duties to be frozen
  • Wine duty to rise in line with inflation
  • Tobacco duty will continue to rise by inflation plus 2%
  • Fuel duty to be frozen for ninth year in a row (announced on 3 October)

  Personal taxation and wages

  Stamp duty and housing

  • All shared equity purchases of up to £500,000 to be exempt from stamp duty
  • £500m for the Housing Infrastructure Fund, designed to enable a further 650,000 homes to be built
  • Lettings relief limited to properties where the owner is in shared occupancy with the tenant

  Welfare and pensions

  Defence and security

  • An extra £160m for counter-terrorism police
  • An extra £1bn for armed forces, for cyber-capabilities and the UK’s new nuclear submarine programme
  • £10m for mental health care for veterans, to mark the centenary of World War One Armistice
  • £1.7m in education programmes to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, in northern Germany

  Business and digital

  • New digital services tax on UK revenues of big technology companies, from April 2020
  • Profitable companies with global sales of more than £500m will be eligible
  • Private finance initiative (PFI) contracts to be abolished in future
  • New centre of excellence to manage existing deals “in the taxpayer’s interest”
  • Annual investment allowance to be increased from £200,000 to £1m for two years
  • Contribution of small companies to apprenticeship levy to be reduced from 10% to 5%
  • Business rates bill for companies with a rateable value of £51,000 or less to be cut by third over two years
  • Measure to benefit 90% of independent companies, cutting bill by £8,000
  • £900m in business rates relief for small businesses and £650m to rejuvenate High Streets
  • New mandatory business rates relief for all lavatories made available for public use, whether publicly or privately owned
  • Extending changes to the way self-employment status is taxed, from the public sector to medium and large private companies, from 2020

  Education and health (England only)

  • Confirmation of an extra £20.5bn for the NHS over the next five years
  • A minimum extra £2bn a year for mental health services
  • New mental health crisis centre, providing support in every accident and emergency unit in the country
  • An extra £700m for councils, for care for the elderly and those with disabilities
  • £10m for air ambulances
  • A one-off £400m “bonus” to help schools buy “the little extras they need”

  Transport, infrastructure and culture

  • A £30bn package for England’s roads, including repairs to motorways and potholes (announced on 27 October)
  • A 30% growth in infrastructure spending
  • Opening the use of e-passport gates at airports – currently available to people from Europe – to those from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan

  Environment and energy

  • A new tax on non-recycled plastic packaging
  • No tax on takeaway coffee cups but this will be reconsidered if the industry doesn’t make enough progress
  • £60m for planting trees in England
  • £10m to deal with abandoned waste sites