City makes bike delivery year-round
CTV has an ultra brief piece on cycle delivery and how it will continue year‑round (seasonal amnesia?), but there’s not much more to the story. I’d like to see a more detailed piece about the cycle delivery service – who’s using it, what it’s like on a delivery trip, can anyone really haul 500 lbs. on a bike and so on.
DeWolf 01:10 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
I get coffee from a couple of local roasters that deliver by bicycle. if I’m not mistaken they continue delivering in the winter. Based on the last time I saw the delivery person they use an electric assist cargo bike so it’s not particularly challenging except in the iciest of conditions.
j2 08:02 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
I’m also curious what it means that the city started it and how that relates the owner they cite.
There are different retailers in Montreal that specialize in cargo bikes, and I know I’ve seen a bike trailer collective (“borrow me!” on a trailer parked in a known location) near de Courcelles and St Jacques, so this makes a lot of sense.
E-bikes (and e-scooters) won’t solve all accessibility issues but they do solve a lot of them for different use cases.
jeather 09:12 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
I also get coffee by bike. I don’t know which delivery company does them. I did have a friend who moved by bike once, apparently it went just fine, though I cannot imagine how.
Ian 12:34 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
e-bikes have become super common in NYC over the last few years – the cops don’t like them and they’re technically not street legal there so they get fined fairly often – but pretty much all food delivery in Manhattan is done that way now.
jaddle 13:48 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
You can haul a lot on a well-fitted-out bike. A few weeks ago, in New Brunswick, I saw someone coming back from the river with a canoe behind him! The Westmount Independent (https://westmountindependent.com/) had a great picture on the cover last week of a of a mover with an enormous load on a trailer. If you aren’t going up steep hills, it’s really not too hard to pull a trailer.
MarcG 13:55 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
Surely somebody in Westmount has a few bucks they can throw at that HTML 1.0 website?
Michael Black 14:42 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
Why? It’s only used to distribute the pdf. 20 years ago there were endless webpages that were “good” if you judged how they looked, but lousy if you were looking for content. Groups were intimidated by the idea of making webpages, so they handed it off to third parties who made nice webpages but didn’t know the group so couldn’t make useful pages. It feeds itself, everyone has glossy pages so that sets the standard, and thus everyone demands them, and dismisses simple pages even wherecontent is king.
The Suburban has some or all content as webpages, but each week’s edition is presented as the paper edition, some weird system that’s used elsewhere. I find that really hard to use, so I revert to the webpages, but it’s easy to miss contents. The Indepent trumps that despite the difference in webpages.
MarcG 15:04 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
I hear you, Michael, I’m just surprised that the fancy neighbourhood doesn’t have a fancy website and felt like taking the piss.
Tim S. 15:28 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
The luxury is that the fancy neighbourhood has any kind of local news. The NDG sister publication was killed off a couple of years ago.
Taylor 16:59 on 2020-09-19 Permalink
Hi internet forum! I’m a bike courier here in Montreal – heading into my 5th winter on the job. I work for a company called Chasseurs Courrier that does large cargo deliveries like the ones this piece mentioned (however, we ourselves don’t use e-bikes or e-cargo bikes – pedal power only!) Not sure exactly what this website is, I stumbled upon it searching for something else on the internet, but I’m happy to answer any questions people might have about bike deliveries.
Kate 21:23 on 2020-09-19 Permalink
Hi Taylor. This blog moves fairly fast and you’ve posted to a five-day-old thread, but maybe I can ask:
1. How many days in an average winter are you simply off the road? I can’t imagine there aren’t ice stormy days or post-blizzard days when getting a bike out at all, let alone a cargo bike, is virtually impossible.
2. What is your delivery day like? How much stuff to do you lug, and how far? I know that’s a huge question.
3. Have you been involved in any accidents?
Thank you. If you reply here, I will link it up to the top so people can see your responses.