Bicycle company offers Londoners free bikes on tube strike days

London commuters will have access to free bikes for a whole week

Both a Tube and an Overground strike take place between 18 to 20 August (Swapfiets)

A bike company is helping Londoners avoid commuter chaos by offering them a free bike on the UK’s tube strike days.

During the upcoming Tube and Overground strike, taking place between 18 to 20 August, Swapfiets will be lending commuters a free bike to use for seven days.

Londoners can get their hands on a bike from the Swapfiets Spitalfields store from 17 August.

The Dutch bike subscription service offers a range of bikes starting from just £16.90 a month, and include on demand maintenance and repairs, an AXA chain lock, replacements if stoken, as well as access to top of the range bikes and e-bikes.

Katarina Hlavata, UK country manager at Swapfiets, said: “We know that for Londoners who rely on public transport for their daily commute to work, there’s nothing more frustrating than a Tube strike – which is why we want to provide 100 Swapfiets bikes on a first come first served basis to try and make life that little bit easier.”

She continued: “We hope that by encouraging people to change their mode of transport for the strike, many Londoners will consider and appreciate the multiple health and environmental benefits of cycling as a longer-term alternative for their daily commute.”

Part of a series of transport worker walk outs happening this summer, London will be hit by three consecutive days of industrial action on the week of 15 August.

Friday 18 August and Sunday 20 August will see around 40,000 members of the RMT union who work for Network Rail and 14 train operators walk out for 24 hours, heavily reducing UK train services.

Meanwhile on 19 August, a Tube strike has been planned by members of the RMT union working for the London Underground which is expected to put much of the TfL network out of action for a day. In all cases there may be disruption into the following morning.

Cycling to work can lead to a 45 per cent lower risk of developing cancer, and a 46 per cent of cardiovascular disease. Switching to cycling for one for one journey per day reduces a person’s carbon footprint by approximately 0.5 tonnes obver a year.