Any cycle couriers on here?

rodgers73

I remember when I was at Uni in London I was close to getting a job as a cycle courier but ended up doing something else instead.

What's it like?? I still fantasise about that job even now...

hatbeard

if all cycle couriers are like the one I saw rifling through the bins outside a sandwich shop in farringdon one evening as i was on my way home from work who emerged with a discarded pasta salad in hand and emphatically shouted "yes" before plonking himself down on the floor to eat it ravenously with his fingers, it's not too glamorous.

although it's one way of carb-loading I guess :?

Pufftmw

Cold wet & miserable (on a day like today). You're on a bike for a long time and if its busy, there is nowhere to hide and you're at the exposure of the elements at all times.

We GPS our couriers and they do roughly 70-80 "earning" miles per day (going to enter a team next time the Cycle Challenge comes along) & the best ones earn about £400-£450 per week on a 9 hour day but they are self-employed and don't get paid for holidays/sickness. Work can also be seasonal/cyclical (ie quiet summer, busy now). It also depends who you work for as to what you have to do for your money (in terms of job numbers, miles & bonuses).

@hatbeard

Cycle couriers come in all forms and guises. I had one many years aof who disappeared for 3 hours on the way to Blackfriars Bridge from Holborn Viaduct - he was an alcoholic, got tired and just went for a sleep! Client was not impressed. The ones we have now are, on the whole, professional and reliable but there's still a place for characters and uniqueness.

hatbeard

Pufftmw wrote:

@hatbeard

Cycle couriers come in all forms and guises. I had one many years aof who disappeared for 3 hours on the way to Blackfriars Bridge from Holborn Viaduct - he was an alcoholic, got tired and just went for a sleep! Client was not impressed. The ones we have now are, on the whole, professional and reliable but there's still a place for characters and uniqueness.

Yeah, like any profession you get your good and your bad ones I don't really think all couriers are like that. it just really surprised me at the time and it makes for an interesting story.

lost_in_thought

I considered doing that for a few months when I got made redundant in July of last year. I even applied for a few courier jobs.

Nobody would take me.

ooermissus

Long long long retired - but I loved being a courier. I did it in an economic boom and before the bottom was knocked out the market by email etc. I think a lot of what I carried wasn't that urgent but people felt important announcing they'd "courier it over".

I worked for a bottom-feeding firm and, when I started, was heavily reliant on a battered A-Z. I didn't know London at all and had (still have) an appalling sense of direction.

The firm was run by a couple of guys who spent all day on the phone gambling on the horses. I always suspected they were using the company as a front to launder money.

Although I wasn't that quick, I could work out how to get a backlog of jobs cleared for them and made good money. My best week I took home £350 - which is over 500 quid in today's money. Cash. It seemed like a fortune at the time.

Pufftmw

lost_in_thought wrote:

I considered doing that for a few months when I got made redundant in July of last year. I even applied for a few courier jobs.

Nobody would take me.

If it you're in the same position again, give me a call but hopefully you won't be.


ooermissus - who did you work for? Sounds a bit like ADC but the money laundering aspect fits quite a few firms of old.

nich

I often day dream about being a cycle courier, but 60 miles a day? Geez, my legs just about cope with 150 miles a week, and that's with the weekend as a recovery period mostly!

ooermissus

Pufftmw wrote:

ooermissus - who did you work for? Sounds a bit like ADC but the money laundering aspect fits quite a few firms of old.

Wizz Bikes - and to the ex-owners - forgive me if I just libelled you, but you did seem on the dodgy side...

Pufftmw

Crikey - that is a blast from the past! Shoreditch Hi Street if I recall but now long gone/bought out/bust. Same sort of time I was working at Hornets, Professional Couriers and Metropolitan Despatch - all of which have gone or been sub-sumed.

SimonAH

I used to motorcylcle dispatch for West 1 back at the end of the eighties. So WAY not glamorous! (Money was good tho')

Gave it up after it rained continuously for about a month, and the cumulated effect of rubber trousers and 'just slightly damp all the time' meant that I started to get spots where spots are not meant to be. Eugh.

rodgers73

Ah, I remember West One - used to see them all over the place.

rjsterry

I once passed a courier riding in to work in Carshalton - so that's 13 miles in, 70-80 miles 'at work' amd 13 miles home: a ton a day! :shock: No wonder he let me past.

Pufftmw

Really nice chap I used to work with @ Hornets (1987-89) used to cycle in from Richmond every day, do 30+ dockets and cycle home. Reliable 5 days a week, any weather. At the time, he was 55 and had a 24 year old girlfriend - how he had the time/energy I really don't know!

oscarbudgie

ooermissus

Pufftmw wrote:

Crikey - that is a blast from the past! Shoreditch Hi Street if I recall but now long gone/bought out/bust. Same sort of time I was working at Hornets, Professional Couriers and Metropolitan Despatch - all of which have gone or been sub-sumed.

Close. Just round the corner in Great Eastern Street. If it wasn't raining, we used to sit outside the office just by the traffic lights and opposite the car wash.

One of our favourite games was to wait for people to throw their rubbish out of the window while they waited for the lights change. One of us would nip out into the street and throw it back into the car.

If some guy got out of his car to come and sort us out, we'd call for reinforcements - the scary looking bikers who spent most of their day lurking inside the office.

Childish, but fun.

jds_1981

I always thought being a courier was a bit like this (Shamelessly stolen from another cycling website...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0jjQ13d ... r_embedded

This is quite an awesome video though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmHRnA78 ... re=related

Nikkomahn

Hi all,

I know this is a very late post - but I want to know what the job market is like for bike couriers in the UK, London or anywhere South of London.

I want to become a bike courier for the next 6-12 months while I am in the UK on a work visa.

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Nik

Pufftmw

Hi Nik

If you really want to do it, then by all means but its not a very glamourous job and hard work to earn a reasonable crust. There is a "scene", which if you're that sort of person might be quite interesting for a while.

In terms of companies in central London, the main cycle courier ones are:

Creative Couriers (good if you're a bit alternative & one of the most cycle friendly ones - may be a waiting list)
City Sprint (biggest but not the best from a cyclist pov)
eCourier (my old company but I would avoid as they were bought by Courier Systems and treat people like muck)
CYC (good reputation)
ADL (good reputation)
Destinations (they used to be really poor in the way they treated couriers, not sure if changed)
GLH (nice company but not sure what its like being a cyclist there)
Churchills (not known)
Addison Lee (a big cab company, less interested on the courier side)
A-Z, Mach1, Pink, Reuter Brooks (all old companies owned by one company now. Should be OK)
Excel (probably ok but I wouldn't work there as a cycle courier)

A good place to look is http://www.movingtargetzine.com/forum/ which is a forum run by one of the controllers at Creative. You may or may not get an answer to a posted question but worth a go.

There's a pub in Hatton Garden called the Clerk and Well on Clerkenwell Road, which used to be frequented by cycle couriers of a Friday evening, it may still be, so possibly worth a trip over to check it out

Thing to think about is that its summer time, all the students want p/t or summer jobs and all the business are running quiet with people on holiday. That means a lot of hungry couriers (as you are all self-employed) and little work to go round. You may struggle to get a job at this time of year as some companies don't want to "flood the circuit" and risk losing core cyclists prior to when students go back to uni and work picks up in september through to Christmas.

If you do do this, then make sure you are reliable. Turn up on time, work hard, don't pull sicknesses or over do it every weekend. Controllers need reliable couriers and once you've gained their trust, then you will be their first choice when it comes to thinking about the job thats just come in. Do the cr@p jobs, be helpful. Its basic but make yourself indespensible & you will be rewarded. It might take a while but its the best way. You may also find that certain companies don't work for you. Give them a couple of weeks to make sure but don't hang about.

Outside of central London, there is not much cycle courier work as the distances involved are generally too great.

One last piece of advice is to buy an A-Z map and take the time to actually learn where you are going and don't use a SatNav. Its only a few square miles of land and once you've worked out the main routes, then everything else is off one of them. SatNav people spend a lot of time going further than they really need to go! Plus, it'll make you a better courier.

Good luck

rubertoe

ugo.santalucia

Pufftmw wrote:

Really nice chap I used to work with @ Hornets (1987-89) used to cycle in from Richmond every day, do 30+ dockets and cycle home. Reliable 5 days a week, any weather. At the time, he was 55 and had a 24 year old girlfriend - how he had the time/energy I really don't know!

Sorry to resuscitate this... but is there any evidence that a 30 years younger girlfriend requires more time/energy than one of the same age, or it's just the usual anedoctal nonsense?

rolf_f

rubertoe wrote:

Yep - I think after three years it's probably OK to start a new thread!