Life In The Curb Lane
Neither heat waves, nor rude receptionists, nor ambushesby car doors will slow a bicycle courier on his appointed rounds.
Our fearless reporter found there is plenty of pridein the trade, though not much of a living.
By Jared Mitchell
Report on Business Magazine, September 1988
My short career as a bicycle courier on the streets of downtown Torontobegins as a lesson in humility. A friend assures me I'm physically unfitto work at Sun wheel Bicycle Couriers Ltd., Canada’s largest bike fleetFred Budan, Sunwheel’s operations supervisor, tells me to dress properly:Shorts must be mid-thigh length and shirts must have sleeves. "Youcan't walk into First Canadian Place dressed like you're going to the beach,"he says, Besides, a scantily dressed, sweaty man can disrupt the concentrationof female workers in an office. This at least sounds like an ego boostuntil I head out on my first calls. Nearly every woman I encounter studiouslyignores me.
I begin to wonder what attracts people to a career in the curb lanesof Bay Street. It's not the pay; the average courier at Sunwheel collectsless than $10,000 annually, and top producers make only about $35,000,all on commission. For that they endure extremes of weather all year round,perilous scrapes with motorists, sometimes hostile stares from office workersand physical exhaustion. Good couriers are hard to find in addition tostamina, they must have the intelligence to learn the system and keep trackof addresses and times, and a thick enough skin to disregard the lowlystatus couriers have in the business community. You know you're not welcomewhen you leave sweat stains on the plush chester fields of executive suites.
The couriers at Sunwheel are proud of their professionalism, thoughfew believe in cycling as passionately as Sunwheel founder Hilda Tiessen.Bikes provide so many benefits, she says, "not only exercise but alsoin terms of pollution and improving the urban congestion." A quiet,thoughtful woman, Tiessen and her partner Barbara Weiner have built thenine-year-old company into Canada’s largest bicycle messenger fleet. Startingin 1979 with a federal make-work grant, Tiessen, a former social worker,slogged up and down Bay Street trying to persuade office managers to useher new service. The first year Sunwheel had sales of only $4,000, buteven so, the competition took notice. As Sunwheel began to attract a significantcustomer base, larger motorized services introduced their own bicycle divisionsto handle downtown deliveries.
The bicycle courier business developed in big cities such as New Yorkand San Francisco in the early 1970s following the oil crisis, and it'snow reaching its full flowering, a sign perhaps of the frenetic pace ofdoing business today, The only Canadian cities clogged enough to requirebicycle deliveries are Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto, Courieringas a whole is estimated to be a billion-dollar business nation-wide; thebiggest chunk of the market is in Toronto, where the Yellow Pages listnearly 200 services in operation.
Sunwheel makes 1,500 deliveries a day using 55 men and women on bikesand on foot; with an estimated $1.9 million in revenues, it accounts fora third of all courier bicycles on Toronto streets. Overhead costs arelow because the couriers themselves must own their own bi-cycles and payfor all repairs. Unlike motorized fleets that get tied up in traffic, Tiessen’snimble riders guarantee downtown deliveries in one to two hours. Pricescompare favorably with the cost of sending items by taxi. A packet sentfrom the financial district a mile north to Bloor Street costs $3.70 fordelivery in two hours, $5.55 within one hour.
After some lessons on professional comportment, filling out waybillsand rules of the road, I am ready to hit the road. First there is a chequefor a scrap-metal dealer on Spadina Avenue. Sweating in 33 degree Celsius-heatafter only two kilometres, I arrive and find the deal-er seated at themessiest desk I have ever seen. A horse-shoe-shaped stack of papers risesup to his throat. Then I move across town to a Lombard Street law officeto drop off mortgage papers. I am supposed to call my dispatcher for moreinstructions from there. I can't the telephone in the reception area isbeing monopolized by a woman telling off her therapist. I head off to mythird delivery: a public relations office I once wrote an unflatteringarticle about. They recognize me and take pleasure at seeing me in my newcareer.
Veteran couriers are more than happy to share their tricks of the tradewith me, some of which seem sly and sensible, others merely obvious. Don't,as one new courier did, change your socks in reception areas of Bay Streetlaw offices. And unless you're sure that the doors will open from bothsides, never use the stairwells in office towers, You could be trappedin there for hours," says courier Tom Nicholson, 27. In small, olderbuildings that have only one doddering elevator, wedge your courier' bagin its door so it can't lumber off while you're picking up a package. Whenpassing between a streetcar and a line of parked cars, put your hand onthe side of the streetcar for balance. And if a receptionist is ignoringyou in favor of her switchboard, turn up the volume on your two-way radioto an obnoxious level.
I quickly learn the difference a good receptionist can make in my day.Most of the ones I encounter are cordial but neutral, and oblivious tothe way I'm dressed. Some are not so charming. One of my first is a matronfronting a Bay Street law office who inadvertently reverses the pickupand delivery addresses on the waybill, then glares damningly at me whenI arrive empty-handed. When I ask another in a Bloor Street office if Ican use her telephone, she claps a proprietary hand on it, as though Ihad proposed stealing it, In a third office I lean forward to present thereceptionist with the waybill and a big dollop of sweat spatters her desk;I try to wipe it away but my grubby fingers leave an oily smear. The receptionistconsiderately pretends not to notice.
In the sweltering heat, hard cycling exacts its physical toll. Desperatewith thirst, I arrive back at Sunwheel at the end of the first day withlegs that have turned to jelly. I have discovered the private luxury ofpressing my sweaty backside against the coal granite walls of the TorontoStock Exchange lobby but the relief it provides is short lived.
Even experienced bicycle couriers feel the effects of hard exercisein hostile weather. "You melt down on the job," Nicholson says.Indeed, the back room at Sunwheel is full of underweight couriers, someof whom have lost 20 pounds or more biking. Rail-thin Steve Norlock, 28,recently took a week off work expressly to gain weight. I gained one pound,"he says proudly. One obsessive former employee took up the gruelling sportof triathalon swimming, marathon running and cycling while he was stilla bike courier. He is best remembered for falling asleep against a hydropole outside the Sun-wheel offices while locking up his bike.
I sit down to total up my waybills, Another courier is seated acrossfrom me, sucking back a giant bottle of Gatorade. He has completed 38 deliveries.David Miller has been a Sunwheel courier for four years and has becomeits top producer; today he's done 40 deliveries. Mine add up to only 22but after enduring unbearable heat and thundering traffic I'm pleased withmy effort. Pleased until Budan totes up how much money I've earned: Ata straight commission rate of 50%, it is just $40.42 for nine hours’ hardbiking. I am too tired, dirty and thirsty to care; I just want to go hometo bed.
The next day I am determined to beat my previous record. Lunch is reducedto a cheeseburger eaten in a Spadina Avenue phone booth where I am takingdown the addresses of new pickups and deliveries from the afternoon dispatcher.Seasoned couriers working with a good dispatcher can handle as many as15 addresses at a time; novices receive only two or three. The morningdispatcher has already chewed me out for neglecting to pick up a packagein the Sunwheel office bound for uptown. It was my mistake, caused by tryingto hold the names and addresses of three deliveries in my head at once.
I am becoming increasingly impatient with every little incident thatslows me down. On Bloor Street I enter a feverish race with two other couriersfor a place to lock up. Like a pack of incontinent dogs, we all dash forthe last available tree trunk, 50 metres away The elevators in Air Canada’snearby offices prove infuriatingly slow. Later, an obese taxi driver onKing Street throws open his door, making me slam to a halt "The scariestnoises come from a parked car, Tom Nicholson says of his fear of car doorsopening. "It could just be settling after a drive on the highway.But still you go by and it makes a click and scares the hell out of you.
Sunwheel insists its employees behave in a professional and consideratemanner obeying traffic rules and being polite to customers. Even so, bicyclecouriers are among the least-loved workers of the downtown core. Earlyon I encounter a group of professional cyclists known in the trade as courierscum." Employed by other firms, they ride mountain bikes dangerouslyfast and wear bandannas around their heads, Aunt Jemima-style, They invariablypass me when I am stopped at red lights. But Toronto’s outlaws are a bunchof Maggie Mugginses compared with New York couriers, who have earned afearsome reputation for screaming down Fifth Avenue blowing whistles atpedestrians lawfully crossing the street. After many pedestrians were injuredby cyclists, New York attempted to bar them from certain streets last year.
Though Sunwheel’s owners try to distance themselves from courier scum,some of their couriers adopt the label as a matter of perverse pride, "It'sa rainy day," Nicholson explains. "You've had a flat tire, soyou're dirty. you're wet, you're sweaty you're pissed off- that's a givenand you walk into an office, Everyone's dressed nice and clean in theircorporate best and you realize, 'I'm scum here, I'm courier scum."
As much as Tiessen cherishes the business role she's built for bicycles,her company is threatened by new technology: the fax machine. Already onemanufactures boasts in ads that its machines make bicycle couriers "anendangered species." Tiessen’s blood pressure rises when she considersthe ad, not because it threatens her business, but because it shows packagesflying off the back of a bike. "Our couriers would never be so irresponsible,"she seethes. Sunwheel’s owners believe there will always be a core businessfor bicycle couriers since much of the trade is in original legal and realestate documents and materials for graphic designers.
For many of the couriers, however, biking doesn't provide much appealas a life long career. Most are between other jobs one recent recruit,for example, is a former stockbroker for Walwyn,Stodgell. Nicholson, whoaspires to be a filmmaker, says, "I got this job three years ago asa two-month stopgap. " Although Steve Norlock says being a courieris "the most fun I've ever had working," he admits it has a precariousfuture. "You start thinking about having a family and think ‘one cardoor and you're not going to feed your kids for a month'.
Exhausted, sweaty and plagued by a thirst that seems unquenchable, Ireceive the results of my last day on the road: 21 deliveries paying $44.15for another nine hours’ continuous riding. There is one final humiliation.Fred has asked the Sunwheel dispatchers for an evaluation of my skillsas a bike courier. Not incredibly fast," writes one. Quite slow, writesanother Couple of weird route screw-ups. Fred kindly advises me not totake it too hard. I do show potential for improvement, he says. CourierDavid Miller offers career counselling: "Be more efficient and witha sense of rage, you too can be scum."
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