Does London still have bicycle couriers?

There used to be a healthy cycle courier scene in London, I tried it for a bit in the mid 90’s and was useless so didn’t last long. I did get to spend a while delivering pre hospital care from a bicycle in the mid 00’s though and was far better at finding my way around then!

Have they all gone the way of the ebike now or is there still a core of fixed gear riders?

I think the scene was alive in the mid 90’s, email had a significant impact by mid 00’s, how are they fairing these days?

Having just read Jon Day’s Cyclogeography, I’m interested to know this too.

Haven’t seen someone obviously cycle couriering in London, as opposed to hipster chic, in a long time . Motorbike couriers, still see the odd one or two but not like bitd. Mrs Kilo who works in private equity says they still use motorbike couriers occasionally but not like before, pdf and docu-sign have taken over.

I think they’ve all been replaced by Deliveroo cycle couriers haven’t they? Same principle different cargo.

There’s a couple in Edinburgh so they are still a thing.

I spent 79-82 as a motorcycle despatch rider in London. Best job I ever had. But almost everything we used to carry – which was mainly advertising or packaging artwork, audio tapes, press releases, film and photographs, urgent letters – now goes electronically. The last holdout has been legal documents, but with the increasing use of e-signatures even those hardly ever need to be physically transferred.

I think they’ve all been replaced by Deliveroo cycle couriers haven’t they? Same principle different cargo

Yep this – there’s bloody loads!

My next door neighbour used to be a cycle courier in his younger days. These days he’s a lorry driver, so only cycles the 20 mile round trip to the depot and back…

Yeah they’re still about,  but nowhere near the numbers there used to be when I was doing it from 86 to 95. Money fell off the edge of a cliff and the job went from outlaw fun to corporate compliance and so called “professionalism”. I got off the road and became a controller,  that also used to be a laugh until around 2010. The job is is just so by the book,  stressfu, l but at the same boring. Doesn’t help when your bollocks-talking manager takes on jobs with deadlines that you have no chance of covering, and the last two words out his mouth to me punter are “No problem” .My thoughts are “Well,  you pull a rider out of your own arse then”. Glad I seem to have escaped with my sanity.

Other than food deliveries, there’s a handful but ultrareliable 4 stroke 125cc scooters are carrying most of the things that can’t be emailed: blood and piss samples, Screwfix components, the occasional hard copy legal document that can’t be Docusigned, fashion samples…