Big hauls on bikes
Most things can be moved by bikes. For instance, every time I see a Fresh Direct truck, I think of how easy it would be to delivery groceries with pedal power.
From the Times story:
A small but growing number of pedal-powered messengers are outfitting their bicycles and, in some cases, tricycles, with boxes and flatbeds on which they can load hundreds of pounds of cargo.
“Eighty percent of the jobs done in a van I can do,” said Hodari Depalm, the owner of Checker Courier, a cargo messenger company in Manhattan that says it can move up to 200 pounds of documents by bike. Mr. Depalm said his two-man messenger business had increased by 20 percent within the last year.
Gregg Zukowski has had similar success. A couple of years ago, Mr. Zukowski, the owner of Revolution Rickshaws, a fleet of pedicabs in Manhattan, replaced the passenger seats on a few of his tricycles with flatbeds and lockable cargo boxes capable of carrying up to 550 pounds of goods. He started using the tricycles to make deliveries for bakeries and catering companies and was even hired last month to help a man move into a one-bedroom apartment.