Despatches: Having fun whilst earning money!

My Suzuki GS450E, with only 7000 miles on the clock, seemed an ideal device on which to earn a crust. I'd worked as a DR some ten years earlier, so knew enough of the basics to drop a line of informed bullshit on potential employers. After a couple of days phoning around and having interviews I'd found a job. The usual self-employed basis, no paid holidays, sick leave, etc. I'd figured out that if I worked my balls off I'd come away with about £350 a week in my pocket. That assumed nothing went wrong with the GS and didn’t take into account that after a year’s despatching the bike would be practically worthless.

Just commuting into work I'd found little to complain about with the GS, but doing ten hours in the saddle every day was an altogether more serious matter. For instance, its clutch is light and gearbox slick, but after a few hours my left wrist was complaining with fierce shooting pains and my left ankle felt like it was going to fall off, leaving me cursing the need to keep swapping cogs to keep my momentum up. The seat made me feel like I was eighty and about to fall apart with piles.

By dinner time I wanted to go home and sleep the rest of the day off. What had been to me a ferocious pace, and a minor miracle that I hadn't got lost as some areas, like the Docklands, had changed out of all recognition, to the controller was such pathetic slowness in getting jobs done that he threatened me with the sack if I didn’t speed up. Much to the amusement of my fellow DRs, who despite the recession were to a man equipped with big GT750s on which they defied physics by taking off from the office on one wheel. Their maniacal grins and blank eyed dementia were enough to have traffic wardens cringing in fear and cagers shaking in terror.

After a quarter hour break for a dubious hamburger I was back on the toad, the idiosyncratic radio adding to my woes. Half the time it made the controller sound like a demented parrot, the other half he apparently couldn't hear what I was saying. Either that or he was taking the piss: twice I rolled up to collect a parcel only to find one of the veteran DRs already strapping it on to their own machines. The third time it happened I beat the other DR there by half a minute, but we came close to blows over who should do the job. I eventually won by sidestepping him and hurtling off down the road. He’s never spoken to me since!

The traffic was also mad, the only way to keep up with it was by thrashing the GS through its excess of gears and riding on the brakes, the front disc glowing red by the time the day was over. I was spared the indignity of being sacked by the narrowest of margins. My net income for the first day was £41 after expenses.

The next morning my body had been so punished that I could hardly move out of the bed. I knew if I turned up late that would be the end of my job, so forced my frame off the bed and under a hot shower. For sustained town riding I soon found that higher bars, thicker grips and a K&Q seat all made the Suzuki much more tolerable.

The next few days I really got into the swing of hustling the bike through Central London, though at the end of each day I really needed the attention of a Thai masseur, though I doubt if the Inland Revenue would allow the cost as a deductible expense. The IR actually descended upon the company two weeks after I started and took away a couple of the DRs who couldn't prove who they were. This meant we had to work harder and harder and I was only allowed off the bike to pick up and deliver jobs; eating Mars bars as I went along.
 
Being the summer, the weather was so nice that even when stressed like that I still found myself enjoying the challenge of earning more than £300 in a week. After a month most of my muscles had adapted to the rigours of despatching and the GS needed little more than a clean and oil change every weekend. It was one of the tougher motors to come out of Japan and seemed to thrive on an excess of throttle abuse.

The first time it rained I fell off. The first dose of water had released all the accumulated dirt and grime in the toad surface, making it feel like I was riding on ice. I had anyway been meaning to replace the worn Michelins with something better but hadn't found the time nor energy (I usually didn’t ride the bike on weekends). The front wheel slid away from under me, slowly enough for me to try to wrestle with the handlebars but that just produced an almighty lurch which probably added to the violence with which I was thrown off.
 
This happened at a slow speed but in the middle of traffic. I barely missed having my head run over by a black cab (I guess he was too slow to get me) and the GS whacked the kerb, and flicked over on top of some startled pedestrians. I don’t think they, bruised and burnt, were too amused by the fact that I'd escaped without any injuries. Nor that they had provided a soft landing for the Suzuki. I lost over an hour whilst they were disentangled and the police made threatening noises.
 
The controller was almost hysterical by the time I'd finished describing the accident. Everyone who's been despatching for a while had their own store of anecdotes, some of which were so unlikely that hardly anyone, not in the business, believed them but it’s one of those areas where truth is often stranger than fiction.

I thought I was in fairyland when for a month I made over £400 a week. A couple of times I had so many parcels on the bike that there was hardly any room to sit and the rear shocks were so compressed that they threatened to let the mudguard and the tyre attempt to fight it out for their survival.

It was on one of these runs that a huge A2 envelope flew off the back. I knew something had gone because it had been trying to dig a hole out of my spine and the flurry of car horns were even more intense than when complaining about the way I thrust the Suzuki into what they considered to be their sacred bit of road space. By the time I'd pulled over, run back and retrieved the package it had been run over a couple of times, with a big, tyre sized, crease on the one side.
Luckily, there was another package for the same delivery, allowing me to hide the battered one and obtain the signature saying it was delivered in good condition. God knows what the contents were like.

The worst thing I ever had to deliver was a huge box of bearings that had to be strapped on top of the top-box, but not so securely as to stop it from wobbling from side to side. It was so heavy I had to have help lifting it up! The effect of having this mass way back and high up was to put the GS into permanent wobble and wheelie mode. To say I was terrified was the understatement of the year! I wasn't that surprised when the police pulled me over and gave me a stern dressing down. Arriving at the factory in Acton, the bike fell over as the mass whirled it around on the sidestand. The box whacked the ground, split open and sent packages of bearings flying every which way. I lost almost an hour overall during that job!

The controller, even after I'd been there for six months, was entirely unsympathetic to any complaints about the way the job turned out. He'd been a DR himself and viewed with deep suspicion and cynicism any excuses; was rarely surprised by even the most obscure reason for delays. Taking a day off sick, even though they weren't paid, was taken as a personal insult. At least he knew his job well and keep us screaming all around town for most of the time.
 
The GS has now done over 40000 miles but the engine seems fine, only a full complement of replaced chassis bearings, quite a lot of corrosion and a slight reluctance to start are showing up its abuse. As for me, I think I'll keep at the despatching lark for at least another six months, as I found myself even enjoying the winter, for all its freezing weather and heavy rains. After a while everything either clicks into place or you go after a new kind of job.

Martin Stephens