It's March, and I've just made it through my first winter as a bike courier. As I ride past my old office on my Omnium, a cargo bike popular among couriers, not far from CROW headquarters, which we lovingly call "the nest," a feeling of relief washes over me. I'm glad I traded the supposed safety and comfort of the office chair for the hard bike saddle.
In my first job after school, I regularly staffed the reception desk of a large company. Today I often remember how, sitting behind that reception desk, I already admired the couriers coming and going. They seemed like free spirits who, against all odds, refused to submit to the dogmas of our modern world. All they seemed to need was a simple bicycle and the hope of good weather.
And yet I spent most of my later working life in the monotonous world of corporate jobs. What was initially meant as a stopgap until something better emerged from my ongoing self-discovery became, for reasons of financial security and lost nerve, a permanent state with no way out. As the years passed, the idea of a career restart drifted further and further away.
The turning point came only with a personal crisis. When I was forced to seriously confront the question of what I would actually want to do for work, free of external pressures and expectations, it came back to me in an instant: bike courier. Despite my self-doubt, I decided in that moment to at least try it, and applied to CROW shortly after.
Being a courier has changed my life since. Even the fact that I still work two days a week in an office is quickly forgotten the moment I strap the courier bag back on and start pedaling.
Courier El Vino #45 belongs to CROW Courier, which replaces delivery vans with cargo bikes and, in doing so, helps improve quality of life in the city. Info at crowberlin.de