The episode in detail
From company car to company bike
Arthur de Jerphanion is 32 and co-founded Tandem, a company that offers long-term bike leasing to businesses and their employees. Before that, he had a company car in his previous jobs, which he used out of habit even when it made no sense: traffic jams, stress, inefficiency.
“The day I decided to take up cycling, it was a revelation. I went faster, I was more efficient, I felt freer, I arrived fresher in the morning.”
The first feeling: freedom. The bike is downstairs, you unlock it, you get on. No dependence on metro timetables, no hunting for parking, no feeling of being shut in. This personal turning point is what led him to create Tandem, convinced that the bike could change mobility for millions of employees.
Tandem: equipping employees with bikes
Tandem’s offer is simple: the company covers all or part of the cost of a bike (often electric) for each employee who wants one. The bike comes with a full service: maintenance, repairs, insurance, and a replacement bike in the event of breakdown or theft. The team, seven people and soon to be ten, includes an advisory side that helps companies convert their employees to bike commuting.
An important point of positioning: the bike carries the Tandem logo discreetly, but remains the employee’s own. They can use it in the evening, at weekends, on holiday, and customise it with accessories, a baby seat, a basket.
“We didn’t want to make a marketing object, like the white Clio with your company’s name printed on it. We want people to make it their own.”
50% of journeys are under 5 km
Arthur stresses one figure: 50% of journeys in France are under 5 kilometres, or 20 to 25 minutes by electric bike. This is not a Paris-only phenomenon. The bike makes sense everywhere in the country, including in peri-urban and rural areas, provided cycling infrastructure exists.
The finding leaves no room for doubt: 30% of CO2 emissions in France come from transport, half of that from private cars. For Arthur, the bike is the simplest, most pragmatic and most effective lever for taking action at both individual and collective level.
“Once you’ve said that the leading source of CO2 emissions is transport, and that 50% of that comes from private cars, you have no more excuses.”
The electric bike solves the sweat problem
Employees’ two most frequent objections: rain and sweating. For rain, the answer is waterproof trousers and a K-way, the same logic as for a scooter. No one tells a friend on a scooter that they’re going to arrive soaked.
For heat, the electrically assisted bike lets you adjust your effort. Arthur arrived at the office one heatwave morning at 35 degrees, immaculate. Electric assistance turns bike commuting into a practical trip with no physical strain, while keeping the health benefits of pedalling.
“With a bit of kit and a bit of common sense, fighting climate change is easy. How do people manage in the Netherlands, where it rains twice as much as in France?”
A cultural problem more than a technical one
For Arthur, the main barrier to bike commuting in France is cultural. 40 years ago, 80% of children walked or cycled to school. Today, it’s 12%. He himself went to school by car even though it wasn’t far. The bike wasn’t part of the outlook he’d been shown.
“We need to make the bike a major part of everyone’s life again, children and families included, so that it becomes culturally embedded.”
His conviction: it’s the private sector that needs to show public authorities the way. Companies like Tandem create the movement, demonstrate that it works, and then local authorities follow with infrastructure. In the meantime, his practical advice: swap a backpack for a removable pannier bag, fit a phone mount to the handlebars, and keep the bike uncluttered to preserve the sense of freedom.
