Bicycle and E-Scooter • 2025-10-05

It's time for my weekly report on two-wheeled trips.

• Cycling 🚲

  • Total trips over time: 288
    • Trips this week: +1
    • Perceived income over time: $774

• Scooter 🛴

  • Total trips over time: 221
    • Trips this week: +6
    • Perceived income over time: $518

When my computer work gets frustrating, I tell myself that I'll switch to delivering pizza on an electric bike. But recently, I watched a TV report about food delivery on electric bikes, and learned some interesting things. I already suspected that the delivery job had its challenges, but now I realize it's even illegal.

The aggregators don't give out orders directly; instead, they open small broker firms in each city. These brokers take a cut of the income, falsify documents. You're supposed to work half a day on paper, but in reality, it's 10 hours a day. There's no vacation or health insurance. The broker can also demand money for access to the job, and they can shut down at any moment, leaving the delivery person with their "account" funds that are gone forever.

Legally, it's hard to bring order here, or perhaps they don't want to, as the fake firm is already closed on paper, and the aggregator isn't involved. But in practice, the aggregators know everything—every order and delivery goes through a central database.

In short, becoming a delivery person is a bad idea, unfortunately.