From 11 to 14, I saved up some and bought my first lbs bike before I quit the route.

never had my own route, but I filled in for a couple of friends when they went on summer vacations.

Not a neighborhood route, but in late 1950's, my H.S. friend had news racks in SW Los Angeles (Redondo Beach & Torrance) from 5-7 AM. Paper was the Long Beach Independent. Coin boxes meant no collection deadbeats. Racks were chained to telephone poles, light poles, bus benches or other paper's racks in front of stores. I did the route while he was on vacation. Only excitement was at a rack in front of a Liquor store one morning. The alarm was going off, store glass was broken out. Sped to a nearby cop hangout, reported burglary & finished route. Guess who became suspects? Don

Wow! I haven't thought about that for a long time!
I had a paper route in 1977,78, and part of 1979.
I carried my papers in a big double bag. The kind that had big pouches in front and back for rolled newspapers.
I usually rode my BMX bike.
When the weather was really bad, my Mother drove me in her Pontiac LeMans Sport Coupe.
I remember one morning tearing the wrapping open on a bundle of newspapers to start rolling them, and there was the headline...Elvis Is Dead.

I had a friend who was a paper boy. I rode his routes with him many times and filled in when his family hauled him away for summer vacations. No lie, it was WORK.

I just ran across this thread and it brought back memories. I had a Raleigh 3 speed with a double basket on the back and a large basket on the front, I think my route was about 80 customers.

Yes, I had a route that required me to have saddlebags over the banana seat, and a handlebar bag, on Sunday mornings, though weekdays I didn't need the handlebar bag, which I hated because of how hard steering was with it on. I liked the early morning ride when hardly anyone else was up yet.

Never wondered if there was a correlation between frequent cycling due to a paper route (versus frequent cycling just for transportation) but I was always on my bike growing up .... and now, still not grown up, I still ride.

Hello from Scotland...

My paper round years were important times in developing my superb bike handling skills!

Especially on frosty Sunday mornings, negotiating hilly streets on my single speed with cowhorn handlebars while carrying a canvas single strap bag full of extra heavy papers which included all the extra Sunday supplements! Allowing a child to carry such colossal weights would get the shop proprietor prosecuted nowadays! If I look carefully I can still see the indentation from the strap on my left collar bone!

Happy memories of character-building times!! 😁