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North Wales coast cycling barista job attracts record number of applicants

Got a spare ten grand? You could set up on your own

Fancy a job pedalling a tricycle coffee cart along the Wales Coast Path, doubling up as barista and tourist information service? A role patrolling the path between Rhyl and Old Colwyn has attracted a record number of applications.

Social enterprise Groundwork North Wales started looking for a cycling barista last month to serve lattes and local knowledge for its Coastal Coffee project.

Despite only publicising the job via word of mouth and local media, Groundwork has had 40 applicants fo the gig, a record for the organisation.

Anna Pollard, from Groundwork North Wales told the Daily Post: "We have had over 40 applicants which is quite a record for us as we don’t do any paid advertising for our jobs.

"This will ensure we are able to choose the right candidate and we are now interviewing at the end of the month and will later launch the service."

The job pays £17,300 per year and will involve riding up to five miles a day.

If you fancy setting up on your own as a pedalling barista, we know of two sources of pedal-powered mobile coffee stations in the UK.

The trike pictured above comes from OnYourTrike.com and will set you back £10,999, ready to roll out and start pulling shots.

Velopresso's coffee trike, below, is slightly more compact and designed so you can stay in the saddle while making coffees. It incorporates a pedal-powered grinder and will set you back £9,995.

The association of cycling and everyone's favourite legal stimulant is nothing new, but businesses combining coffee and cycling have been popping up like mushrooms after rain in recent months.

BikeBiz recently reported that Pinarello-stockist Bicicielo of central Birmingham has converted a till station build-out into a bar for a coffee shop.

At perhaps the other end of the spectrum between espresso bar and bike shop, Cambridge coffee shop Espresso Library recently opened with indoor bike parking.

Crossing the streams, Bicicletta Coffee con Velo in Saffrom Walden opened on April 1, combining a cafe with a bike shop focussing on clothing and high-end bikes.

It's starting to feel like there's no need to ever ride more than five miles between coffee/bike shops.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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3 comments

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Zermattjohn | 9 years ago
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If 40 is a record number of applicants, they must have some other really crappy jobs!

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bikebot | 9 years ago
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Yay, road.cc has spam!

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kie7077 | 9 years ago
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£10k!!! I'm sure someone can attach a coffee maker to a bike for less than that.

/Tea drinker.

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