A new shift is starting at the headquarters of Rapido, one of Cologne’s two long-established bike courier firms. Dispatcher Nino, who’s just taken charge of the office chair, the telephones and the running of the operation, is going through the delivery schedule with courier Lu. Good planning is about being efficient. But on this particular day, efficiency doesn’t primarily mean more turnover, it means helping out a colleague who’s not feeling too good and wants to go home early.
It seems Cologne’s bike couriers are well-balanced people in more ways than one. The sense of freedom in the saddle and the total concentration on the traffic and the best route whilst the city passes you by with its streets, houses, office blocks, parks, bridges and riverbanks. “Fitness and inner calm: I find it incredibly stabilising,” says Lu, whose name is actually Lutz.
A strong sense of solidarity
Lu introduces themself as trans, in the process of transitioning to a male identity but currently still read as female. There’s quite a lot of opposition to women couriers and people often beep their horn at Lu. “Cheeky women really annoy a lot of male drivers,” the 28-year-old tells us. However, Lu feels at home in the bicycle messenger scene, generally considered a left-wing, progressive community. It’s not just the open-mindedness they appreciate though. There’s also a certain affinity with the adrenalin, with the traditionally male-dominated sport of cycling, characterised by routine time pressure, occasionally monosyllabic communication and sometimes less-than-careful treatment of one’s own body.
It’s not as appealing to women, says Lu. Nino adds that Rapido has had three female couriers for years – key members of the team – but women are unlikely to outnumber men anytime soon. There’s no incentive for them to fight their way in to the industry, Lu tells us, particularly because the pay is bad. “They’d be fighting their way downwards through the glass ceiling instead of up like everyone else.”
Rapido’s bike messengers have been cycling across Cologne since 1986. Photo: Rapido 
Their work has changed over the years, one reason being the impact that digital technologies have had on the sector. Photo: Rapido 
But bike couriers are still part of everyday life in Cologne. Photo: Rapido 
And even if things on the roads are slightly different to the end of the 1980s… Photo: Rapido 
…messengers’ love of their bikes and the buzz of whizzing between buildings have remained. Photo: Rapido
Nobody ever got rich working as a courier. The messengers who need to start thinking about their pension – yes, some of them really have been doing this that long – make sure they get out at some point. But if you listen to them and take them seriously when they share their thoughts about the city, the traffic, the streets, society and the future, you get a sense of what keeps them together. They see themselves as united by a strong sense of solidarity, a community of characters who love their freedom as much as they love their bikes and the people around them. Beyond all the glorification and despite the commercial selling-out of the urban cycling aesthetic they inspired, you can feel they were true pioneers too – and still are.
The golden years of overflowing pockets
There was a time in Cologne, roughly between the 1980s and the noughties, when their pockets were overflowing. In particular, it was the graphic design agencies and advertising firms of this media city that entrusted their data CD-ROMs, proofs and finished products to the messengers. They then braved the permanently congested streets, kitted out with their bags, shorts, hats and sturdy locks in their trouser pockets. People who needed to get official documents to their destination in a hurry were grateful for their service. Often, there were more orders than their legs could manage. Even back then, being a bike courier in Cologne was a way of life. Then glass fibre and legally compliant e-mail correspondence arrived. The couriers are still here.
Considerate anarchy
At Rapido’s offices in the Belgian Quarter, the couriers acknowledge that adjustments have been made to the city’s traffic situation to accommodate the growing number of bikes. They call the bike path on Cologne’s inner-city ring road the “bicycle Autobahn” because it’s so wide. Less than ten years ago, the road had two car lanes on each side and was firmly in the hands of perpetually stressed commuters and posers showing off their wheels.
You have to be a phantom on the road.
Nino, bicycle messenger with Rapido in Cologne
Things have “changed incredibly”, according to Nino. “18 years ago, we were the only ones between the cars,” he says. Having said that, none of the couriers wants to limit themselves to the bike paths yet. They choose the route that helps them get where they’re going without posing a risk or an obstacle to others. Anarchic, quick but considerate too. Or, as Nino puts it: “You have to be a phantom on the road.” That’s easier now, he adds.
German Cycle Messenger Championships – a chance to party and connect
Just recently, 250 couriers from across Germany gathered to celebrate the human/bike symbiosis at the German City Messenger Championships. The event was held on an industrial estate in the district of Vogelsang where a bright red bicycle bridge across the Militärring road features a striking, space-saving zigzag ramp to the top. On a racetrack based on their day-to-day “workplace”, the messengers put their speed and skill to the test and proved their persistence in the track stand competition and the tougher form where they were allowed to push each other off balance. A non-commercial subculture, a bit punkish, very DIY, a thorn in a transport system that’s still very much defined by the automobile – that’s their socially aware view of themselves. “It’s a progressive left-wing scene,” says Laurenz, one of the organisers and a courier with Bike Syndikat, the other firm in Cologne.
The struggle for a minimum wage and the “last mile”
The championships in Cologne were intended as a platform for network-building – across Germany and Europe. And those connections can lead to friendships and working as a messenger in another city for a few months, sleeping on a couch in a flat-share and enjoying a change of scene. As a segment, bike courier services are having to think about their business. They started diversifying a long time ago. The logistics industry is looking for climate-friendly alternatives to lorries for the “last mile” within the city. E-bike delivery services and businesses with fleets of cargo bikes offer services that go far beyond those of conventional bicycle messengers. Laurenz, Lu, Nino and their colleagues are following very closely how the struggle for acceptable working conditions and appropriate pay pans out – though it’s actually self-exploitation that’s more of a threat in their business. At least their hourly rate is above the minimum wage now. And they wouldn’t want to do without their own bikes anyway.
A job with a long past
They’re not really worried about their niche in the market. Perhaps they’re helped by the typical Cologne custom of tracing anything and everything back to the Romans. According to the plans that Laurenz submitted to the council when he applied to have the bike messenger championships approved, there were couriers transporting important documents and goods from A to B as far back as the ancient colony of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.
Watching today’s messengers whizzing back and forth along the ring road, through alleys in the old part of town, along the riverbank, between industrial estates, shopping streets and office buildings, the compact city of Roman times might seem far away. Yet the thought that couriers who depend completely on their muscle power to move through the city have simply been part of everyday urban life since time immemorial does seem plausible – as does the thought that they will continue to do so for some time to come.
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