ndrew Brady ’ s personal logistics journey started on a bike , and four decades later , he ’ s still a fan of deliveries by pedal .
Brady ’ s company , King Courier , is now the largest bike messenger company in San Francisco . From where he sits , it ’ s the only way to deliver in a high-density environment like the City by the Bay . And while many are considering cargo bikes to tackle sustainability challenges , it ’ s all about practicality for Brady . “ We use bikes and cargo bikes to be fast and efficient ,” he says . “ A bike will always be faster in an urban area with a speed limit of 25 miles an hour or less . And can we talk about parking ? You can ’ t park anywhere in downtown San Francisco after three o ’ clock . None of my drivers want to go downtown , especially if they have to use a van . If a driver uses one of those vehicles in the city , he ’ ll spend 30 minutes driving around the block to find a parking space that ends up being two blocks away . Then he ’ ll have to walk back to the destination to make the delivery . On the other hand , a bike messenger can pull up to the front of the building , lock his bike onto a parking meter and walk right in . And then there ’ s traffic . Our office is on the edge of downtown , blocks from a freeway on-ramp . But if there ’ s a tieup on the Bay Bridge , it can take a driver 45 minutes to make that two-block trip in a car . On a bike , that ’ s probably a minute and a half . That ’ s why most of our bikeable packages in or out of downtown come into our office . If they ’ re outbound from downtown , a bike messenger picks them up and brings them to our office . Another driver takes them to their destination . If they are inbound , the bike messenger picks them up from the office and brings them downtown . The bottom line is that we prefer to have as many deliveries as possible go in and out of downtown by bike .”
It All Began on a Bike
Brady started as a bike messenger in Boston in 1983 . With no radios or pagers , they had to rely on pay phones and the goodwill of receptionists ( who let them use their phones ) to get from gig to gig .
Brady moved to San Francisco in 1990 . He started King Courier on January 13 , 1992 , when he and five other bike messengers were laid off . “ When we first started , all we had were bikes ,” he recalls . “ We had a bike trailer before we had a vehicle . A former bike messenger turned bike-builder made the trailer for me . It was super heavy-duty . I used it to deliver 6000 pounds of cookbooks for a publisher we worked for . In fact , my business card to this day has a photograph of me on that cargo bike on top of Potrero Hill with two kegs of beer and some boxes . I had to ride up a street that is so steep that the sidewalk is a staircase !”
King Courier added other vehicles when the company combined forces with Careful Courier out of Mountain View in 1994 . “ They had mostly pickup trucks running auto parts routes and drivers using their cars ,” he says . “ They needed bike messengers to go into San Francisco , and I needed vehicles to deliver out of San Francisco . So , we merged , and the companies doubled in size overnight because of the bike capabilities we could offer their customers and the vehicle capabilities I could get for mine .”
Today , King Courier has ten bike messengers in addition to cars and cargo vans . The company has stuck with the bike deliveries even though many of their
spring 2024 I customized logistics & delivery Magazine 31