Motorcycle couriers ??

[Motu]

My daughter just finished 5 years of inner city courier work last week,I don't know how the hell she did it.She spent most of her time with Inter City Urgent and a guy there rode a Street Magic.They were everywhere,now you hardly ever see a motorcycle courier.

[geoffm]

A fair number of years ago I did relief driving for a courier (in a car) and knew a few bike couriers.
IMO, a good way to destroy a good bike while slowly going broke, or quickly when you get munted by a car. One of the problems that bike couriers have is they have a very limited payload. Get a big parcel - tough luck. This is one advantage the car couriers have. Look how much money you get (and you don't get pid if it takes to long), take off a living wage, tax and bike costs and see if it is still positive. When I was doing it, I couldn't see how you could make money at it, especially if things got slow.

Geoff

[TwoSeven]

I used to do bike work in london - yes you can earn a living from it if you can ride. Jobs are paid for on piece work (you get paid per package by cheque at the end of the week minus any cash jobs you picked up during the week). The rate is quite small if its in london or westminster, and goes up if its out of the city. Long jobs pay quite well - so long as its a wait n return. Generally you got 15 min pickup and delivery (so parcel has to be delivered within half hour of you receiving the job) which is ok.

Not worth doing here because its a weekly wage and because there is no traffic here - might as well use a car. No set time for delivery also means not worth using a bike and any small work or inner city work might as well go to a push bike (it saves the running costs of a motorcycle). Heck, i've even noticed the couriers are so lazy here if they dont offload the parcels before 4pm friday night the customer has to wait til monday morning (like the lazy shits never deliver saturday).

[bungbung]

Bike couriers in Welli were paid piecework a few years back. There were three rates, depending on the delivery timeframe:

1 hour = one piece
30 min = two
15 min = three

[swanman]

Yes interesting comments. I called urgent couriers yesterday. Spoke to a guy called Dave. He said that they were looking for mc couriers. That you got paid 60% of total courier fee, that bike couriers made about $5.2k a month gross. You have to get a commercial goods licence which is an open book affair and costs $103, and is easy. I'm sure that the monthly income vaires hugely on how quick you are, know the streets etc. Still worth considering.

Must say I am sure it is quite dangerous as I remember in London, mc couriers were famous for being absolute nutters!!!!! While here they seem pretty tame by comparison. We'll see.

[TonyB]

I was going to say that down here there used to be a long waiting list of guy's wanting to be MC couriers...times have changed obviously.
I used to do an afternoon run for the photolab I worked for. Whatever bike you get, it needs to be able to get off the line quickly- low down torque is highly desirable. I of course started on an RZ250, then got an FZ400R, so speaking from experience a peaky wee bike is a shit of a thing to courier on.

[TonyB]

Oh, and when my bike broke down I discovered I could do the same run just as quick and much easier in a car....

[Sutage]

A little 50 scoot if you just stick to round town, got underseat storage and can fit a box thing on still youd get sore and fuck riding aronud on a scooter all day, living life to the edge i think not

[bugjuice]

wow, I seemed to stirr up a nest with my 400 comment.. quit with the red rep!!
phrased wrong, I didn't mean the bikes are 'shit', k? I meant that because they are cheaper than most, that they're easier to keep loved and in top nick. I'm looking for a 400 myself. I wouldn't if they were 'shit' would i? nope. I just couldn't be arsed to type a long para about the reasons why, so I chose a bad word instead. please ignore it then. All bikes are good. period. I love them all, and would make love to each and every one of them.

[Sutage]

Should look into being one of those dudes who ride around picking up litter
Those jobs may be reserved for ex-cons tho i dunno:P

[Cary]

My old courier bike below, a state of the ark Kawasaki GT550..

Hi Eddieb when were you at Moves, I was there from 92-94

Del still the bike controller when you were there?

[SPORK]

Well, my brother shared a hospital room with a motorcycle courier... He'd just had a trike accident that left his friend in intensive care...

[Brian d marge]

Hi Eddieb when were you at Moves, I was there from 92-94

Del still the bike controller when you were there?

Started off at arrow, then on to Globe , then on to wheels ( before the scot took over !!) then was at moves after I cam back from greece, Knew the controller ( Del ??? he worked with me at wheels top bloke... ..big bloke short black hair , you would find me W1 in the Mc D z on baker st opp Sherlock holmes apartment )
It WAS good in the old days , but when I left in the 90 91 ish I was struggling for 3an1/2 a week and was bored sh%%&' less
The most I did was 43 W1 W1 Ec at 330 per ....but If I work a full week it was a sh%&'ing miricle ,,,Usually I banged out 100 quid and pissed off home ...or to the pub ...
It was a really cool Job ,,I liked it ...Snow and rain is when I made my money cos the circiut wasnt full...
I also did it on a pushbike ,,,as the stress got to me a bit ...and was doing 250 a week , but with no costs ,,, I liked the pushies better ,,Ec4 to Sw1 in 12 min ...( I finished me bacon sandwich first,,,)
often thought I would like to do it again,,, but it would have to be piece work .... open call ... more money

[Cary]

Thought about getting a bike and doing the self employed thing but sooo much fun thrashing someone elses bike. Yea, same Del, he came over to NZ for a look mid '95.

Had a great time doing it too, snow, IRA bombs n all!

[fredie]

what sort of money can you make