Vancouver Sun, June 24, 1985
by Valerie Casselton
They streak the downtown Vancouver core like greased lightning. Bicyclecouriers are so quick and efficient their ranks are growing faster thanyou can say Bentall-to-Gastown. They are also very unusual people.
Tito Prescott shaves bis head, lives in a van and he's fast.
Garfield Tuuri's got one eye - and that's his real name.
Dan Maddess is biking - after trying his hand as a bus boy, stableboylifeguard, delivery driver and McDonald's burger server, among other things.
And Brent Postle cycled 200 miles a day before work, training for aEuropean trip and the prestigious cycle competition Tour de France.
Tuuri, 30, has been a courier for The Mail Bag Specialists for morethan two years. He makes $1,200 net on salary and covers 40 to 50 milesa day delivering in the City, A bike jock can run eight deliveries in anhour, and Tuuri says he once sped from Stanley Park to B.C. Place stadiumin six minutes.
That speed has made obsolete the vehicle delivery of letters downtown."The bikes came out three years ago and there's just no way a carcan compete with a bike," says Mail Bag Specialists owner Brent Shaw,who employs seven bikers and plans to add another two or four this year.Regular letter delivery downtown will cost a client $2.50; regular vandelivery to Richmond will run about $6.50.
In three years Loomis Messenger Service has expanded to 21 bicycle couriersfrom six, making it the largest bike fleet in the city. Loomis dispatcherRob Hall estimates about 100 couriers cycle the streets downtown, savingtheir employers from $4,000 to $6,000 a month each for vehicle overhead.His riders deliver about 400 letters and envelopes each day, about twicethe number of deliveries made with the company's 15 vehicles which makeparcel runs and longer runs outside the core.
At least 15 of about 70 Vancouver courier companies employ cyclistsan more would likely do so if there weren't such a turnover in staff and,in winter, low momorale among the cyclists.
Hall remembers how growing downtown congestion put the brakes on truckdelivery: "Often I would park my van downtown and run."
Hall cycled for three months before moving into the office and, likemany of the bikers, loved it, despite the frequent Vancouver rains. I usedto get on to an elevator dripping wet and look at the people in suits andsay, 'boy it sure is raining out there good thing I'm riding a sub marine,'It broke them up. "
Loomis couriers operate as bonded, self-employed de pendent contractors,providing their own bikes and taking home 65 percent of their daily takewith a guaranteed monthly income of $900. One big wheel took a record $1,900in eight working days, netting himself a tidy $1,240.
Loomis's Prescott, 19, has been a bike courier since he was 17 and offwork eight times because of bad accidents on the road. He says he's gettinga bit tired of the stop-and-go routine downtown; he likes to get on a longstretch and ride. Business is quiet in the summer when office workers preferto get out for a short walk instead of calling couriers.
"It’s a different scene down here than it was a year ago,"says Prescott. "I used to do 80 deliveries a day; now it's 50. Everyoneand his brother’s trying to get into it and it's hard to turn away people."
Danger and hassles on the road, especially from bus and cab drivers,are not unusual, says Loomis broker Maddess, 24. "They open doorsas you pass, slam on their brakes, try to run me off the road and theyspit on me.
"That's the average drivers, not the taxi drivers or bus drivers.I came round the corner the other day and some guy tried to jam his umbrellain my spokes."
Maddess says many bikers bring the trouble on them selves, running redlights, cycling on sidewalks, riding down one-way streets and making illegalleft turns. "There's a few who ruin it for the rest".
But generally the freewheeling bikers, whose average age ranges fromabout 17 to 26, stay in the business about one year, for the money andthe fun.
Postle stayed with Mail Bag one year before moving to Europe, says Shaw."The guy’s amazing. He used to ride 200 miles before he came to work.He had legs like tree trunks."
Maddess earns about $70 a day and loves the freedom of being outsideand meeting people. "I got into it at the time I was unemployed Iliked riding my bike and I put two and two together and said why not getpaid for riding my bike?’ "
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