marcransom

I had a Sting Ray when l started out in 1965. The butterfly handle bars were great for keeping the double bags off the front wheel. And the bike was fast too. downside was the bags swung around and caused me to dump the bike more than once. also the goose neck bearing weren't heavy duty. In six months i had worn that bike out. I traded up for a pre-ww2 Hawk. It was very heavy and great for the job!

marcransom

Mostly l slung them over the bars and used the canves ties to secure it. The big problem was the sway when flying around courners. Wednesday papers could put you in the curb!

sailorbenjamin

I had some Wednesday road rash once. Can't remember why I fell but I slid a ways at the bottom of this big hill. I was wearing shorts and my legs were just starting to get hairy. Those little hairs held that scab together for weeks.

matt0ne

Baskets? We don't need no friggin baskets! When I was a lad I carried the bag during the week and bags on weekends (one over each shoulder) I imagine I rode my Scott Mountain Bike at the time.

freakaccident

Very old post... I know. Thought I would bring it back.

I was a paper boy. Mt. View, California around 1986-87 I believe.

I delivered to apartment complexes every morning before school and every afternoon as well as Saturday and Sunday mornings. My route was about 5 miles round trip. I would pick up my route in front of my house where my supervisor would drop off the papers and a route sheet. I had to rubber band each paper and if it was raining I had to plastic bag each paper as well. I was provided carry bags that hung over your shoulders but I preferred to hang them on the handlebars.

As a 10-12 year old this was brutal work. Twice a day everyday except Sat and Sun. Saturday was bad because it was a once a day paper but Sundays were a nightmare.

On weekdays the papers were nice and light. The load wasn't bad. A nice thin paper meant I could have fun for a bit before bed time.

Saturdays were worse but doable. I could get the papers out in time and nobody cried aside from my young legs.

Sundays were hell. On Sundays the papers were delivered and then the ads were delivered. I had to put each ad package into each paper. Then I had to band them or band and bag them. I was lucky if I had the papers and ads by 6am. It took at least 30 minutes to get everything ready to deliver.

Once the papers were ready to deliver I had to pack them in my handlebar bags AND shoulder bags. I only had to use both bags on Sundays. I had to have the papers delivered before 8am.

So I was 10-12 years old on a bmx bike delivering probably 100 pounds of news that had to be delivered on a 5 mile route in 1.5 hours MINIMUM.

I received a lot of complaints about it being a few minutes late and what not.

My pay was about $8 a week. In addition to the delivery it was my job to deliver bills to customers and try to get them to pay if they were late. IF they didn't pay my pay was docked.

The reason there are no more child bike delivery boys is because it was child slave labor.

I learned a lot from that and would never take it back.

RubberLegs

Way back, about 1974-1978, delivered the LaCrosse Tribune in a small town in Wis. At First, I had a Red Schwinn Typhoon with a pair of baskets on the back. The route was evenings during the week, Sat and Sun mornings. Route was about 5 miles biking and 3 miles run/walking every day with between 60-70 customers. Later, I bought a NEW Coast-to-Coast 10 speed, steel frame, SunTour FD RD, with a rack on the back. Papers were carried flat and delivered to the door, some inside the garage, some in the mailbox hooks or tube. NONE were thrown. Had a checkbook at the age of 12, bounced my first check at 13 when the bank deposited MY MONEY in someone else's account.....DON'T TRUST BANKS, and KEEP your paperwork!!!

kehomer

My bike was a 1951 or 1952 Huffy, red, fenders and frame tank removed. Loved that bike. I put a gooseneck stem and Longhorn (may have been called Stetson bars) handlebars on that bike. The bars were very wide with a couple of small bends, kind of like the Texas Longhorn cattle. Seems like those bars helped me to pump up those hills just outside of Oklahoma City. I used a standard canvas bag that I looped around the ends of the handlebars. Then I would load the folded papers. The Sunday newspaper and some other special edition papers were too big to tri-fold. There was a nice old lady on my route that saved rubber bands for me.

The paperboys would meet early in the morning at the paper station, just a small shack that had a wood burning stove. I recall it was about 2 miles from my house. We would receive and fold our papers. With the daily editions, we folded the "tri-fold" paper into a relatively solid parallelogram that makes an aerodynamic throwing object. Man, with practice, you could throw those things with great accuracy. After folding we would ride to our routes. If my papers were too bulky to carry easily on my route, I would stash some in a convenient place.

In the summertime, two or three of my friends and I would meet at a local cafe for milk and pastry after we finished delivery. I'll never forget how good that cold milk tasted.

Bad weather made the work pretty tough but overall I really enjoyed the work. My Dad moved us to a new neighborhood in 1953 when I was 13 and I had to give up my route.

David Newton

I agree, and the newspaper industry is getting what they deserve, in my opinion.
Delivering the news was a pretty good job for boys back in the 50's & 60's. You got there after the papers got greedy.

1 Lugnut

I had a rout in the 50's in a suburb of SF for the Call Bulletin. It was easy-peasy, except for the hills. The bags straddled the handlebars on both sides of my Schwinn 3-sp, but at the time it never became too cumbersome. I could deliver my route in no time at all. Going up steep hills, I'd have to do switchbacks till I reached the top. Coming down was a bit treacherous, but by then, my load was all but gone.

like this:


I also had to do collections as well, but most of my customers were good tippers. One year a couple friends of mine & myself won trips to Disneyland by selling subscriptions when it 1st opened. They flew us down & back in 1-day (my 1st time on a plane). As kids, it was a real blast....long-gone are those days!

kehomer

Must have been in the late 50's. There was no Disneyland when I was a paperboy. I remember getting a prize once - a small paper bag of rubber bands.

Bill Kapaun

Knicker Knobs on the bar to tie the bag to-

RubberLegs

I think this is the only pic I have of my first road bike, also my paper delivery bike. Far Left. Just leaving on a day and a half Bicycling Odyssey up to Sparta, WI, and taking the trail from Sparta to Elroy....camped in a park along the trail....such adventures....guess today we'd be arrested for trying to camp in a park.

David Newton

We called them "necker knobs". You could steer with one hand while your other arm was around your girl-friend.

GREAT picture legs, adventures like that are few and far between today.

gna

There was a very similar thread to this one last summer. Ran to 4 pages: https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...t-did-you-ride

Looks like fun.

Believe or not, you can STILL camp in a park in Wilton, WI, right off the trail: https://www.villageofwiltoncampground.com/

Wil Davis

I grew up in the UK in the 1960s and had a Falcon "Black Diamond", and used to deliver papers, one bag on the rear-carrier, and one bag over the cross-bar. On Sundays the bags were about twice as heavy!

- Wil

curbtender

Couldn't ride a bike on my route, 63 papers up some steep hills, Oakland Tribune. Had John "Blue Moon" Odom and Macarthur Lane for customers. Most of the kids then had Schwinn Stingrays with bags on the handlebars. Went out to Tracy, Ca in the summer and my Uncle worked at the Press. They mostly rode the older cruisers, baskets on the back.

curbtender

Didn't get my quota but saved enough for a Disney trip with some buddies. Had a really good time, good ole' days style.

ka0use

i was an alternate. shreveport times. i had inexpensive wire baskets on the back of my sears english racer 3 igh. on rainy days we had to stuff the papers in wax bags.

i, too, had a rambler american. cross country convertible, 1965. sexy car!

Yessong

I work for a newspaper in the Community Outreach department. Back in the day we had a very robust newsboy program with a summer camp, trips and more. The paper boys went away when the newspaper switched to early morning delivery but I did build an homage to them in our lobby with a bicycle display.

This bike was donated by an old paper boy. We chose to leave it in "Barn Find " condition to show the many delivery miles it has on it. I even came up with a mid 1960's full newspaper to show rolled up in the basket...Also shown is what the same model bike looks like in prestine condition as sent to me by a reader/former delivery boy, a classic shot from the paper's past and one of our delivery boys being awarded his Newsboy bicycle for achieveing his goals along with a $100 check presented by baseball's Ron Swaboda. This paperboy grew up and still works for the paper, today.

PedalTraveler

My next project

Wanderer

Before I got a big basket for my LaSalle, I would just pass the shoulder bag strap over the top of the bars, wind each side underneath, and impale them on the ends of the bars. Worked great.

Wanderer

Before I got a big basket for my LaSalle, I would just pass the shoulder bag strap over the top of the bars, wind each side underneath, and impale them on the ends of the bars. the strap then went across to the other end. Worked great.

bmc5733946 

Mine was a 1961 Schwinn Typhoon, large Wald basket on front. I still had to carry shoulder bags most days, roughly 200 customers, fewer in summer (college Town) lots of apartments. Was a pretty good job for a kid, collecting for the paper was difficult, got stiffed often. There are some great stories to tell.

Brian

nesteel 

I had an old, no name, single speed I delivered papers on. Just used a typical canvas bag slung over my shoulder. Took two trips to do the Sunday paper though. Pretty much uphill on the way out, which made it pretty tough. Coming home was a breeze though.

Cougrrcj

56 stops, Monday through Saturday. No Sunday paper. I used my 3-speed. I had mounted some metal wire baskets on each side of the rear wheel. I had lined each the baskets with a canvas bag. I'd reach back to grab a rolled-up paper from either side.