Hey Bumpkin. I was at West One in 1983. They had a contract with a photo studio and I remember three of us would be sat there semi permanently waiting for jobs as they had that many. I think it mainly consisted of back and forth to the developing labs and then out to their clients. I had a 400/Four, quite a good little bike for that job. I sat next to BA Robertson one day on a dellivery and I wouldn't give him the time of day as he didn't rate up there with The Jam or Joy Division I came to this thread wondering where the West One office was. Ii was one of the side roads one back from Oxford St. When I was young and skint I would promise myself I would go round all the delis and get whatever I wanted. Now I can, I can't remember where it was!!
I would have been there around the same time. 1983 to 85/86. Started out on contract with a travel firm in Portland Sq, then a large corporate solicitors in the city before joining the city circuit. IIRC it was on Newman Street, no 33 maybe... Had a florists at ground level, part of the same business. One day we were asked if any riders had a car licence as they needed someone to drive the florists van. I volunteered and did that for a few weeks until I had a coming together with a cab. Whilst I worked there they moved to bigger offices on Euston Rd, near Gt Portland St tube Station.
Ex Trans-Action rider myself. Nearly dropped my beer when I opened this post ! Was with them for a good while on my good old CX. I was riding out from the old spiral staircase at Chineham house. Eventually gave up picking up jobs to central London (Basingstoke to London about £20 early 80’s) so decided to just go to work for A-Z out of their W1 office instead. Crazy days but so glad I did it. It certainly helped my riding awareness and nobody can filter like an ex London dispatch rider lol...
When I ran my presentation company we used a lot of bike couriers but I remember we once had to send a single 35mm slide to New York for an important presentation the next morning. At one point we thought the only only option was to send someone on Concord to get it there in time. The client agreed but we then found there was another early morning flight that would arrive in time. The guy who took it spent the weekend in NY before he flew back home.
After getting soaked to the skin for weeks on end I was standing in my garage thinking about how I could better waterproof myself. You know you come up with those daft ideas that you ponder over for a millisecond and then amuse yourself at your own stupidity and dismiss..... well I didn’t get to that second stage. What I did see was a good old tin of Duckhams Grease ! I had hated the “handlebar muffs” look and had a pair of knackered old Belstaff overmits that were useless. I proceeded to apply a very thin (I’m not stupid lol) layer across the back of the gloves to assist their non existent waterproof quality. The next day was as predicted wet again. This didn’t bother me as I courageously swept down the M3 glancing down at my handiwork all chuffed at myself. Little rain teardrops dancing on my overmitts and dry gloves beneath. As I ventured further into London, one of my nonsensical practices started to cause an issue. I (used to) always lift my visor on approach to roundabouts or lights but now, the grease was starting to spread to my visor. Vision soon became awful. The final straw came by the time I’d got to Hammersmith. I’ve gone for the clutch as I’m coming to a stop at a set of lights and couldn’t keep it in, it kept slipping out of my grip, obviously the lever was covered in grease as well. I got her stopped eventually and got rid of the mitts. The levers, visor and everything else was covered in my mess. What an idiot!! Young and dumb. I did actually buy the muffs at a later date and they nearly killed me.
Used muffs during the winter and they were a revelation. Never caused issues and allowed me to wear shorty unlined gloves which aided feel of the controls as well as using the radio, signing for stuff etc. Mind you I was on the city circuit so very rarely did work outside of city and west end, which as all short distance with multiple PoB.
