Founders Story

I used to cycle in Bristol every day, I've now fallen into a statistic which i will tell you about later...

My commute was short - only a few miles into the city, but by car it took anywhere from twenty five minutes to an hour just because of the road congestion.

When I started riding in I loved it. I had my commute down to a perfect art. Eleven minutes into town and Fifteen minutes back. I spent a decent amount of money on a Gensis Core 40 Mountain Bike with road tyres on. It was pretty heavy but a nice bike.

When my daughter was old enough I took her into nursery on the back and she loved it as well! She is now at school and can't wait to ride her own bike in and out (She isn't quite there yet but will be next year).

However, all that positive experience was undone very quickly. I had a meeting in my diary on Queen Square. "Easy" I thought, cycle down, park, and lock up, have my meeting, and back to the office afterwards. Meeting went well... but my bike was long gone when I came back. I WAS GUTTED!! They even took my daughters bike seat!

I had made sure the bike was specified on the house insurance (but loads of peoples aren't!) and so I made a claim. £250 excess... I WAS GUTTED... again!!

I loved cycling though and knew how much better things were with a bike compared to a car.

So I purchased another bike... this time I went for a hybrid, (and got massively up sold) a really cool Cannondale Bad Boy 2

I had this for 8 months and then on 21st December 2017 I commuted into town, dropped my daughter at school, went to the bank, and then parked up by the Marriott ahead of a meeting... Guess what, no bike on my return. I WAS GUTTED... For the third time!!

So that was a year ago. I didn't claim on the house insurance as the premiums had already gone up and I didn't want them to rise again...

I've not replaced that bike and don't cycle at the moment. This makes me the same as 1 in 6 people who suffer bike theft - They don't go back to cycling (told you there was a statistic coming).

In fact, only 29% of bike thefts are even reported. In 2016 there were 290,000 bikes reported stolen... meaning that in total there could well have been over one million bikes stolen in the UK... In one year!!!

That made me question, why there aren't any more convenient and safe cycle parking options available?

And that's when Hail Velo was dreamt up.

Bristol is a cycling city and will pioneer a new way to secure your bike.