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-   -   So how are the messengers doing? (https://www.bikeforums.net/singlespeed-fixed-gear/279133-so-how-messengers-doing.html)

Retem 03-20-07 05:11 PM


Originally Posted by fatbat
It'll be interesting to see if people move towards more of a semi-cargo/porteur role, rather than simply carrying around a bunch of paper, especially if high gas prices and congestion increase to cost of van/car based delivery.

in sf there are a few companies who do this and I also beleive in ny they do it as well

also alot of legal stuff her in california is done with hard copies ately fax and meails are too easy to forge or falsify

Nekura 03-20-07 11:34 PM

Ehh... I live in title town. Our Jimmy John's (the sub shop I work at) and the Domino's do the most sales in the whole country. So that has something to do with it.

I don't see why larger cities wouldn't have the same deal going on. America is only getting fatter.

doofo 03-20-07 11:38 PM


Originally Posted by Nekura
Christ - I make $400-500 a week easy delivering food by bike, and this is part-time work (15+/-).

how can this be
?

stachemaster 03-20-07 11:58 PM

Nekura is completely correct. i make $200+ during my one weekly shift at a popular burger joint in brooklyn. its a lot of work, with 40+ deliveries from 5-11:30, but worth it with my fat pockets at the end of the night. food delivery is a side job which messengers have taken for a while - same skill set, often higher pay on saner streets. just more 7story walkup apartment buildings.

Cyclist0383 03-21-07 12:18 AM

Thank god there is no messenger "scene" here in Riga. There are plenty of messengers, (I often see and chat to one who is a 45 year old woman on a mountain bike. She's very nice, and loves riding) but no one feels the need to act like they are the bees knees.

FWIW a few days ago I saw my first kid on a fixie with a messenger bag who wasn't a messenger. I'm pretty sure he was a tourist.

timmy! 03-21-07 04:53 AM

How do you deliver a pizza on a bike. Subs I can see, Chinese I can see......pizza? I would think it would be destroyed after 20 blocks

jfmckenna 03-21-07 06:57 AM


Originally Posted by Bikkhu
The day when a company employs "messengers" to ride around town just to advertise is not very far off.

What do you mean? As in local businesses will 'sponsor' messengers. I really know nothing about the scene today. I had a roommate in the 80's from Brooklyn who was a messenger but it seemed like a regular old job to him. My point is this; is it faux paux for messengers to ride around with adverts on them? The road racing team I race for is basically required to ride around advertising for our sponsors and we are greatfull to do it since we get stuff in return.

dutret 03-21-07 07:01 AM


Originally Posted by timmy!
How do you deliver a pizza on a bike. Subs I can see, Chinese I can see......pizza? I would think it would be destroyed after 20 blocks

http://www.dutchbikefactory.com/imag...ibus2004_2.jpg
but insulated

SamHouston 03-21-07 07:34 AM

That wold be nice for pizzas! I delivered pizza on Fri & Sat nights for 6 months or so, on a C-dale Caad 5.
I used those insulated bags just like the cars of course! Besides keeping the pies warm, if you tried to carry them w/out the bag the steam forced out the back of the box by your forward motion would burn you, & the pizza boxes would collapse/less stable w//out the insulated bag thing. $200 plus a night, but I had to work 7pm to 3-4am.

A C-dale Caad5 will transport up to 9 X-large pies, if you have uberbalancepatience, otherwise it should only carry 3-4 at most.. The brifters/bar combo makes a nice table, one hand on the drop with front brake one finger, the other on the side of the pile of pizza. Vision is obstructed from hell, you have to check 3 diff ways. The C-dale won't deliver that many pies at a good pace, but you can get back to the shop to pick more up very very quickly. Drinks are cans only, in the mess bag.

with just 1-2 pizzas, or a salad/pizza combo, very fast delivery.

SamHouston 03-21-07 08:09 AM


Originally Posted by Bikkhu
The day when a company employs "messengers" to ride around town just to advertise is not very far off.

...

Is the end of an industry far off? Could the new strict pollution guidelines work in messengers advantage in the future? Are we just billboards?

in reference to advertising & messengers, this is already being explored by many. Someone asked if it was faux pas for a messenger to wear an ad, the answer is Yes.

But only if there is no compensation. Taste is subjective.

Ads on messengers is a good concept, (except where all ads are evil of course!) and I've been toying with the idea (more than toying) as part of planned stop-gap against the current decline, until such time as the benefits of green delivery and other new markets are realized.

It's not my idea of course, the first I heard of it was some folk in Copenhagen, or Amsterdam many years ago. It's great from a visibility aspect. Most people when they hear about it think that since the messenger is riding around in heavy traffic all day that the people in the cars and on the sidewalks will see the ad and viola! you've reached a great many people! Not true. Drivers should be looking at the damn road IMO, and sidewalk folk could maybe pick up a very emblematic ad, or see it when the rider is stopped at an intersection, but mostly it would go by too quickly(although that too is kind of got cool appeal)

Most of your visibility is in elevators, escalators, lobbies, mailrooms, conference rooms, cube farms, hallways, bathrooms, waiting in line at the coffee joint, sitting around drinking the coffee, standing by waiting for calls on a street corner, you get it, pretty much freaking everywhere. People look at messengers, they can't help it, it's an incredibly small population, and different works in the ad world.

Some may see it as a sell out, but nobody is forcing them to wear an ad they don't like or agree with. IMO one should be paid for selling out, I'd rather have an ad I choose to have on my back that is there earning me $$ than branded crap that is there because the techwear I want is covered in doofus.

Bikkhu 03-21-07 08:51 AM


Originally Posted by jfmckenna
What do you mean? As in local businesses will 'sponsor' messengers. I really know nothing about the scene today. I had a roommate in the 80's from Brooklyn who was a messenger but it seemed like a regular old job to him. My point is this; is it faux paux for messengers to ride around with adverts on them? The road racing team I race for is basically required to ride around advertising for our sponsors and we are greatfull to do it since we get stuff in return.

No, I am not against advertising per se - just as long the individual messengers get paid for the ads that´s fine. What I meant in my original post was that a day will come soon when a company (probably Red Bull or Puma, methinks :D ) will pay messenger-lookalikes to "run empty" around town centres just to keep their logos visible and score cred points for the brand.

andre nickatina 03-21-07 09:00 AM


Originally Posted by Ziemas
Thank god there is no messenger "scene" here in Riga. There are plenty of messengers, (I often see and chat to one who is a 45 year old woman on a mountain bike. She's very nice, and loves riding) but no one feels the need to act like they are the bees knees.

FWIW a few days ago I saw my first kid on a fixie with a messenger bag who wasn't a messenger. I'm pretty sure he was a tourist.

i don't think it's a matter of acting like you're the beeskness as much as it is sharing in a community / tight knit circle / commonality in all of your lives? lol

delicious 03-21-07 09:03 AM


Originally Posted by Nekura
Christ - I make $400-500 a week easy delivering food by bike, and this is part-time work (15+/-).

What the?

/moves back to Gainesville

Nekura 03-21-07 09:38 AM

http://ffmedia.ign.com/filmforce/ima...8053125244.jpg

jfmckenna 03-21-07 09:50 AM


Originally Posted by Bikkhu
No, I am not against advertising per se - just as long the individual messengers get paid for the ads that´s fine. What I meant in my original post was that a day will come soon when a company (probably Red Bull or Puma, methinks :D ) will pay messenger-lookalikes to "run empty" around town centres just to keep their logos visible and score cred points for the brand.

Oh, that would be weird.

doofo 03-21-07 10:29 AM

that would be perfect

i look really cool but i cant ride for 8 hours

where do i apply to become one of these faux messengers
?

h_curtis 03-21-07 10:53 AM


Originally Posted by Nekura
Christ - I make $400-500 a week easy delivering food by bike, and this is part-time work (15+/-).

Pizza? How are you doing it?

doofo 03-21-07 10:55 AM

ever seen those movies where a lonely lady orders a pizza and once the pizza boy gets there one thing leads to another?

can you guess who the little pizza boy is in this story
?

thats right! nekura!

non 03-21-07 10:56 AM


Originally Posted by karmaboy
My compliments Bikkhu on a nicely crafted post...a little rare around here.
The topic on another hand is going to bring out the worst.
Here in Ottawa, there is no glamour in messengering...with the winter these guys are looking like something out of Road Warrior...not a criticism...that's just the way you get when you work in the elements. God bless them.

Ottawa messengers deliver my packages on time with frozen beards.

Nekura 03-21-07 11:04 AM

I never said I deliver Pizza, that was someone else up top. I deliver subs and drinks.

p.s. Patrick Dempsey is the man.
http://i.tvspielfilm.de/iimages/2/0/...-359x240-e.jpg

andypants 03-21-07 11:11 AM

and weed.

I totally believe you though, Jimmy John's jumps between 2-4am. My roomate has been known to have delivered and we live 3 blocks away. Personally, I think there's too much mayo.

Nekura 03-21-07 11:19 AM

LOL! We had a corporate guy in yesterday and he was telling us our standard amt of mayo wasn't enough.

I make most of the money in the AM thru lunch. Late night deliveries aren't as good and are sketchy b/c most of the drivers are all drunk.

lima_bean 03-21-07 12:30 PM

I spent the night in the hospital because of a bad sub from jimmy john's =( stay away!

LóFarkas 03-21-07 12:42 PM

Hmmm, are we ahead of the wave or what? We've had ads on messies for years.
The biggest messie service here has standard bags (bright orange ortlieb backpacks), and a huge ad covers the whole bag. Like so.
$1000-1500/week to rent the space on the back of 100 messies.

Hawk Wheels 03-21-07 02:02 PM


Originally Posted by Bikkhu
Recent thoughts

As probably discussed to death on this very forum, it does not take a genius to realize that "messenger" scence has blown out of proportion compared to the number of actual working bike messengers (you know, those guys who actually deliver packages for a living, often on cheap mountain bikes). Here in Finland most messenger companies are increasing the number of CAR messengers and trying to make bikemessing just another joke job (read Barbara Ehrenreich for definiton) - suitable summer job for "young people" who really don't need a living wage - or try to turn messengers into riding billboards. The wages are diminishing and a steady flow of rookies keeps the companies (if not the few remaining clients) happy. The day when a company employs "messengers" to ride around town just to advertise is not very far off.

Meanwhile, the "scene" is very active, hip and in vogue. A media darling. And it's killing all the half-hearted attempts to unionize the very corrupt industry and what little credibility and respect messengers still have workwise.

The doom mongers have written the entire industry off quite a few times in the past, but I myself am now increasingly sceptical.

Is the end of an industry far off? Could the new strict pollution guidelines work in messengers advantage in the future? Are we just billboards?

I am working as a bike messenger in NY since 1992.

It is a hard job with little or no security/benefits.

Love it so much, hard to explain!

Was very punk rock and anti corporate for many years and organized alot of fun events and fundraisers, using only the sweat and resources of the immediate crew.

Got so good at doing that stuff that I was getting approached continually by big companies that wanted to be part of what we are doing!?

A long time dream of myself and some others was a 501c3 nonprofit organization to benefit the NY Messenger Community.

The amount of legal hurdles/$$ kept us from attaining this goal for some time.

In 2003 Body Glove approached us to do a branded messenger event in Manhattan. Long story short we produced the event for them and they produced the legal team to help us secure our nonprofit!

http://nybmf.org/


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