Introductions - please advise

Hello,
i'm moving from houston to chicago very soon. i'd like to take this opportunity to turn my life around. no more office job. i'd like some advice about bicycle courier services in chicago, winter cycling etc.... i've been riding as much as i can trying to get ready for the endurance, but i've never done courier services before. of course i did deliver pizzas and such, anything like that?
any and all advice is more than appreciated.
thanks

First of all, welcome (soon) to Chicago! I think we have a great midwestern town... lacking the tinsel of Hollywood and the hustle of New York. I am happy to be here, and I think you will be too.

First, check out this link about riding your bike in the winter: http://www.bikewinter.org/bikewinter0102/scheduleofevents.php?city_id=1&city_name=Chicago This should help you prepare for our winters. They can be cold, and if it's snowing, brutal too. The main thing here is just the wind. It can be terrible coming off the lake, but if you prepare for it, it's all good.

Courier jobs I don't know a lot about, but I do know some courier companies have dropped their bike couriers. There still are some left, but from what one company told me, with the new security features of a lot of offices downtown, they make couriers go through a lot, so time is wasted with logging in and logging out, getting security clearance, etc. Still, as I said, there still are some left. All you have to do is go through the yellow pages and find the courier companies, call them to see who has couriers, and then go out and interview. I think you'd have a better time in the winter, since probably there will be some seasonal couriers.

I haven't seen any pizza delivery guys with bikes, but you never know.

Sorry, I don't know much- maybe check in the fixie forum and see if they might have some info?

Again, welcome to Chicago, and welcome to the forums too!

Koffee

thanks for the info and advice.
it figures the bike courier industry would disappear as soon as i'm ready to go for it. i'll end up delivering videos, i just know it. and this winter thing already chills me to the bone, and i'm still in houston. (currently 98 degrees outside and humid)
i'll see you soon.

First of all, welcome (soon) to Chicago! I think we have a great midwestern town... lacking the tinsel of Hollywood and the hustle of New York. I haven't seen any pizza delivery guys with bikes, but you never know.

Koffee

Or you could have stated: "lacking the tinsel of Cleveland and the hustle of Minneapolis", but our newbie surely gets the point! Speaking of my fair town, Mpls has at least one place called Pizza Spokes and Peace Coffee delivers all of it's fair trade beens by bike. I stay away from downtown, for the most part, so I don't know about the couriers. If Chicago doesn't pan out, think about our hustle and bustle.

Hello,
i'm moving from houston to chicago very soon. i'd like to take this opportunity to turn my life around. no more office job. i'd like some advice about bicycle courier services in chicago, winter cycling etc.... i've been riding as much as i can trying to get ready for the endurance, but i've never done courier services before. of course i did deliver pizzas and such, anything like that?
any and all advice is more than appreciated.
thanks


Electricset,

I was surfing the web this morning and tripped over this site, hope it helps:

http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/main.asp?webtag=bikemessenger&nav=start&prettyurl=%2Fbikemessenger