A brief history of bike messengers (and their Fixies) Even in our modern information age the bike messenger still has a job. One might think that in the age of fax and no e-mail but the most extraordinary of packages and documents must be hand delivered.
But what saved the profession of bike messengers "120 years that distrust is inherent in humanity from everything that is new (ish) and the need to physically feel things that are important.
From my observations, it appears that the first bike courier company in North America emerged in the 1880s. HT Baily opened a delivery service that used non-stop bicycle couriers.
In letters from the United States motorcycle made their debut in 1894, when a railway strike had stopped delivery of mail in San Francisco. The owner of a bike shop Fresno had the bright idea to create a route from Fresno to San Francisco, which had remarkable success.
Soon the big companies also started to use bicycles to make deliveries, first, including Western Union and finally even the U.S. Postal Office.
With the advent of UPS and DHL and other major delivery services, courier companies have begun to suffer, but bike messengers always provide a faster service for local deliveries.
In the 20s and bike messengers 30. Although most companies required to specialized firms to take care of their needs Some companies have their own messengers, Tamblyn pharmacies have to be one of the greatest messenger "fleets".
Due to the fact that couriers are commonly used to transport packages more expensive (and usually more money) they have become the prey of thieves and bandits. At one point there was even a gang specialized in stealing bike messengers, which makes it so bad that in places such as night-time deliveries have been arrested in Toronto for some time.
The courier company best known after the Second World War was founded by Carl Sparks in 1945, in San Francisco. Sparkie's later became Aero which was purchased by CitySprint in 1998.
bike messengers are as modern today as are phones with Internet access, state of the art walkie-talkies or devices, even GPS (although most use the good old paper maps) but the most important piece of kit is often a return to the past - fixed gear bikes.
Although fixed-gear bikes (or Fixies) could be regarded by foreigners as bike messengers unnecessary headaches use them for good reason: When you cycle from 80 to 100 miles every day from work, the parts most your bike has the better chance there is something to decompose.
However, many messengers prefer to chill on their knees, but still keep things simple, so they use single speeds. For those who do not know the difference - a fixed gear is a single speed without freewheel - the pedals on a fixie still spin when the bike is moving.
Theft is a serious problem for bike messengers, especially considering they have to leave it on the street and a suitable anchoring structure may not always be found. Most messengers wear thick chains around their waists and secure bikes with U locks whenever possible.
Posted on March 10, 2010.