whats the best city to be a messer in
 

what do you think? best weather, best pay, cheap living.
i was one in DC and philly, and i would definitely say DC. at the place i worked in philly, tags could be as low as 2 dollars, so i could easily pull a dollar (sometimes less) per tag. DC tags are like 6 dollars or more, plus DC is smaller.

any other cities to compare?

Minneapolis - Worst weather. average pay. Burliest riders. (-30 to -60 F for two months)

You'll be buying the studded ice tires, but with them you can go out riding on the lakes...

columbus ohio, average tag about $4-$5(before cut)

1 bedroom apt in the ghetto about $300/month

typical midwest weather, we get some snow and ice but not much, just cold mostly in winter

city is flat and easy to get around

Like most cities the messengers in columbus are going thru a contraction phase, 3 years ago we had about 40 messengers, now weve got about 20 or so. The wannabe's got forced out or put out of business by the pro's and times got a little tougher due to competition with email and electronic court filings. Fuel prices may reverse this pretty soon I think.

Oh ya, one other thing, if your working thru a broker or courier company as an IC and they charge less than $3 per tag they are probably breaking the law. They can be prosecuted under the express package statute by the US postal service.

Charlotte's a cakewalk. decently cheap living if you know where to find it. There aren't many couriers so it gets into a pretty small community at times. The square area for deliveries is like maybe 3 or 4 miles.

The weather is mild at worst. Snows once or twice a year, so it rarely gets below 32 degrees, 90s in the summer. Humidity can sometimes be a problem.

well. mpls is actually the easiest place to be a messenger once you get a job.

i made killer bank there and the city is welcome.

chicago sucks balls.

i would say the best place is edmonton. huge pay and small city limits...word

What's up with you people?

Why do you want to work?

Take it easy, watch some Lebowski, light up a spliff and just chill.

just curious but are there any LA messengers here? I'd love to go to LA and work, beautiful weather almost year round, but isn't the city too spread out for bike messengers? It seems like most of the business would go to vehicle messengers.

my friend Tim from Phila moved to LA recently and is messengering there. he says it's pretty chill, nice weather, small delivery area. he gets paid by hour, which is either good or bad, i'm not sure. probably good since they do fewer runs than we do.

philly is a great place to messenger if you work at TimeCycle (which apparently isn't even close to as difficult as it used to be). otherwise it kind of sucks. TCC is the only place you can make $500+ per week, with the exception of the guys who have been at their cut-rate company for 15 years and are basically on the payroll. living in phila is fairly cheap (i live in NYC so my perspective is a bit skewed, maybe...), and the weather doesn't suck THAT much. it's no worse than DC, NYC, Boston, etc...

that said, i like new york. i make about exactly as much here as i did in phila at tcc (and admittedly i do work harder), and the cost of living in new york is out of control (approx. 40% higher than in phila i estimate). but it's new york and i made a lot of amazing friends here, so it's worth it.

Does per tag mean per delivery? What are some good places to work at in Portland? Is it possible to get a summer job messengering around here/anywhere?

Sorry for the dumb questions but I'm kind of intimidated to ask in person..

london.

by a mile.

london.

best coffee, couriers, races, organic road madness, summer, and they understand the accent. ;)

I envy all of you messengers. I think your job would be a great job but I just couldn’t do it right now. I have school to pay for, school to attend, car and motorcycle payments and insurance, and I live in Denver, not a big city for messengers I hear. Maybe one day I’d like to be a messenger for a couple of years. How hard is it to become a messenger in London?

drop the car and motorcycles and their respective insurances, go to school part time.

hahaha. no! don't do that! if you have stuff like that and you can sustain it, please do not give it up to be a messenger. the cool factor (which is totally bogus, by the way) is not nearly worth it.

another friend of mine who used to work at TimeCycle is a messenger in Denver. he says it's horrible. (low) hourly pay, not many runs, a fairly boring city... better than being a house husband though, right eighty-six?! :D

Actually the cool factor is always there, just doesnt always show itself, like any other job its what you make it, its one of those jobs that chooses the man(or woman), if you dont really wanna be out there, you wont last long. To me its the essence of freedom, im behold to nobody, I choose the prices and what customers I work for. At one time I was on the path of trading my health for money, for some people that choice isnt always the best one either. You can do quite well as a messenger if you work at it, $600-$1200/wk isnt bad coin for a young single person living cheap. But starting out, ya $200-$500/wk is pretty typical.

i don't know anyone consistently making over $700 a week. actually, yeah i do. but those guys are real monsters who work non-stop for 11 hours a day, every day. not typical. i know personally, i'm psyched to do $550-$600 per week. that doesn't go far in new york, but i've been a messenger for a long time and i was a university student before that, so living cheap is the only way i know how.

Well, I'm going to school for International Business and Marketing. I would love to do a couple of different things before I go out and get a real job but who knows if that will happen. I want to move to germany in a year or two so maybe I'll try my hand at being a messenger out there while I'm looking for a real job. It'll be a good reason to get rid of my cars and motorcycle, so maybe it'll happen.

International Business and Marketing! you are the enemy! attack their embassy!

i will probably be messengering in Berlin next summer. 'ne recht geile Stadt.

Why am I the enemy? a messenger in berlin huh? Just cause or is there another reason

berlin had some of the most hardcore commuters i had ever seen. most commuters are scared of cars but i could imagine these people skitching and through schnitzel at cars if they got cut off. it was amazing watching your average joe busting their chops on the street. and it's a great city. my friend is teaching english there right now. although the best bar got closed down.

r.i.p. white trash fast food.

i work in vancouver and do alright. apparently, vancouver is the second lowest paying city behind houston, but i don't care. i do 450 a week, weather's pretty good year round, tons of beautiful ladies to look at and it's a great city. kinda hilly, but you can't go down if you don't go up first.

Nice place to live, nice place to ride, bike aware motorists. The only problem you will have is the size - Berlin is huge and businesses and institutions are spread around.

I vote for Veloblitz in Zurich. While the cost of living is a bit high, all the benefits far outweigh this. It has been a while since I was there but this is what it was like 4 years ago. You work a 6 hour shift..either in the morn or aft. At the begining or end of your shift you can go into the office/clubhouse and have a hot home cooked (by the company chef) meal which costs you like $1. You make mad cash...anywhere from 700-1000 depending on your work load. The company is a co-op so everyone has to do a equal amount of office work but you share the profits at the end of the year. In the office you have fridges, showers, foos-ball and pool, everyone gets a locker with plenty of space to chill. And best of all they have their own bike shop so you get all your parts for cost and use the company tools and shop space to fix your bike.

sign me up!

white trash fast food is gone?

no!