I'm going to get told off soon.

What are bike couriers used for these days anyway? There's only a
fraction of the demand for 'em these days since the interwebby, shirley?

 

theoretically, couriers will take small objects and parcels whereas despatch
riders only take messages, which was their original military function.
practically, there is no difference.

 

we use them to transfer internal mail between offices.

 

You must have really grippy corridors.

 

How quaint.

 

I know - it's pitiful.

 

we have 80:20 Shellgrip.

 

That's because we were the best of the best

 

<snip useful advice>

The most important thing: don't filter between cars when they are side
by saide. Wait until they're staggered: more room for manoeuvre and more
room for escape.

I always wave at cars with lots of kids in the back. They wave back and
jabber and maybe, just maybe, Mummy will realise there'a motorbike on
the same chunk of road.

 

<Sniffs stinky bait, swims away>

Ducatis are shit bikes in traffic anyway.

 

I was looking at this a while back and I know a guy who manages the
fleet for, um, dammit, forget the company now.

It's not what it was, no, and the rates have not kept place with
inflation. When I was doing it, 26 years ago, the minimum charge (W1 to
W1, say) was £5.12, which was £2.25 to the courier, £2.25 to the
company, plus 15% VAT (as was then). Slightly cheaper for negotiated
rates with big customers.

You could make a good living on it then. I remember ads in MCN promising
£20,000 a year, and they were not lying.

 

Ha!

The CD replication company that we use will apparently only accept
"real" CDs, not ISO images. With the hilarious result that a recent
important release was delayed because the DHL van got stuck in the snow
somewhere. Idiots.

 

I'm sure someone on here has said exactly the reverse - that it's only
when cars are side by side that you can be reasonably sure they're not
going to change lane so you can filter in relative safety. Simian was
it?

 

Hm. I prefer the opposite. When one has maybe half or three quarters of
a car's length lead over the other.

When there is a decent distance between them, I don't stay in 'filtering
position' (ie: in between lanes), but move sharply from one to the
other, always accelerating.

Otherwise, yes, sudden lane changes can be disconcerting... I have to
add that I don't filter on the M25 at anything over 30mph either,
because that's where/when people see the other line is moving one mile
an hour faster than theirs and make the unsignalled jump.

 

'Joggling', maybe.

 

I love this place; 'I had fun' gets translated into so many different
discussions.

 

<AOL> to all of that. And if you had the right bike (something
indestructible and cheap to run) you could earn a decent screw. Even if
you netted £10k from a gross of £20k, that was decent money for the
early 1980s.

 

I remember having to take something[1] to Luton in the middle of the
winter.

And it started snowing really heavily. I ended up putting the bike in
the guards van[2] of the train and got back to London that way.

[1] A slide carousel. That was all it was. Some PR or ad company giving
a presentation and forgot the slide carousel. They could have walked
down the street and bought one, but no, they couriered the forgotten one
up from London.
[2] Remember them?

 

I got a bit shouty at some twat on an MP3 this evening. Revving behind
him hadn't got him going so I was reduced to bellowing comments about
the kind of multi-occupant vehicle that could fit through the gap he was
umming and ahhing at.

Tit.