New food couriers?

Someone please explain all these new food couriers…

Suppertime and deliveroo? Last night I spotted 15+ different riders just on my way to Coles.

  1. People eat food.
  2. People like staying home.
  3. ???
  4. Profit!

They always look uncomfortable on their bikes. Can’t decide if it’s inexperience or those giant boxes/backpacks.

I keep passing one of the bikes parked at the Museum/IMAX, rig looks a bit strange to me, like they forgot the bit that connects to the frame, basically the entire thing held by the seat post, would sway the bike around majorly I would think. Nothing to stop it moving. Not sure if they are all like this or just this guys. Do they make them use their own bikes I wonder?


A lot of the neighbourhoods they operate in have people complaining on Facebook about their advertising being plastered up everywhere and huge numbers of riders blocking paths, to be honest I haven’t seem them out and about myself yet. What area were these 15 spotted in?

Ha! Really? So massive billboards are okay but a few flyers stuck up around the place are bad.

The rack clamps onto the seatpost, which stops it swaying, and also stops it sliding down. However, if you had a really heavy load and tilted the bike over, I’m guessing it could overwhelm the clamping forces and shift

I haven’t seen them myself so not sure what they are like but some people posted pictures of where they apparently put their ads over the top of the button for pedestrian light. The rest of the complaints were about the shear volume of the ads but I am sure there is a pretty big degree of exaggeration. Either way, they are making a mess of the companies Facebook reviews.

The legit reviews seem to be about 2/3 positive 1/3 negative, the negative ones are usually about delivery timeframes but there are quite a lot also claiming good times. Might be some astroturfing there but I can definitely imagine riders getting around pretty briskly in Melbourne.

I see a tonne of them in inner sydney and reckon it’s great. Food bike couriers are plentiful in other countries and really gets people out on their bikes earning additional income (just needing an ABN and a bike).

Never really seen a drama with them.

Dominos delivery vespas however, have nearly killed me, or nearly been killed, on multiple occasions in front of me.

Genuinely do ask myself how many of them are actually licensed to ride a motorcycle… Although that might possible have been averted by this. The bicycle revolution is a comin’ ya’ll.

I’ve never seen a bicycle delivery person myself other than a postie because I live in the 'burbs, but all in all it’s a good idea. Get fit, earn some bucks, help lazy people like myself get dinner. Win win.

Sudden influx of companies offering the services would just be an like any other industry really, an opportunity to make money.

Plenty of Dominos motorised bike couriers around Brisbane these days. They move pretty darn quick too.

Obligatory pic of dude in Geelong using same bike.

^ Few of these around my place too, coz I live near a Dominos so I probably see a disproportionate amount of them

Prahran/Windsor

I’m going to have a guess and say the crazy insecure box thing is both a combination of getting as much advertising space as possible and ensuring the riders have to corner fairly carefully to keep the food upright. It would be good if they put reflectors on them because I’ve seen some very poor bike lighting going on.

I got overtaken by one smashing it up Chapel Street from Alma towards Dandy Road.
I think he was a super delivery man, he’d make heaps more money than the others struggling to even ride a bike.

So I had a chat with a Deliveroo rider the other day and the system actually seems pretty bad from a riders perspective and I can only assume Suppertime follows the same model.

Each rider is designated to an arbitrary ‘zone’ or suburb to ensure minimal wait time in terms of participating restaurants. Meaning - if a rider is designated to zone x, and for whatever reason that zone is dead quiet that day, they cannot move to a different zone and snap up more work. Surely this would lead to under-employment right?

Not fairly dissimilar to the uber model, however from what I’ve gathered they are able to circulate fairly easily.

I discovered yesterday that ‘Cuz Bro’ who some very old time FOA members will remember is actually a Deliveroo rider now.

Why is this amusing? Because he is a former Total Rush rider, NRS racer and Vic Metro road elite champ. Can/could ride, but a very loose unit. The idea of him sorting out your food delivery is A++.

HOLY SHIT! Stop off at revs

while i like this idea i can only imagine that the dileveroo box would get in the way of his superman, thus limiting the maximum levels of “epic” that could be achieved

There’s a guy in London who makes a killing doing bike delivered condoms late at night apparently.

#ifitsavesonelife from being created…