What happened this week?

There are 5 days in the week, and these are the 5 things that stood out from last week, ie one short anecdote for each weekday. Remember, #bicyclecouriers do not send documents via bicycle — we send the whole bicycle.

An out of the ordinary bicycle collection

Broke of with your girlfriend (or she with you, either way) and need to get back your bicycle without making it personal? Sure, call us, we’ll do it. We don’t judge, we just deliver. And we have done so this week, ensuring a smooth handover. Above and beyond.

So, if you ever find yourself in a sticky situation when it comes to sending, or in this case, retrieving a bicycle, then click on over or pick up the phone and contact Bicycle Couriers without delay. Special mention to Brett at Northcliff Cycles, thanks mate.

Saving the day for our best Review to date!

This must have been one of our best testimonials yet — and a perfect summary of what we do. Background: Liezel originally booked with us to transport a bicycle from JHB to DBN, but the sale fell through, and she eventually found a replacement in Welkom, at a used goods dealer.

The salesman sent me a pic of how they packed the bike and I immediately intervened, by arranging with a local bike shop (Cycle Shack in Welkom) to collect from the store and do it properly. They promptly packed the bike for shipment, and we sent it off to DBN. Safe and sound — saving the day; and saving on shipping costs!

Hope you are well. Must say it was the 1st time I ever used a courier company. Nico was very helpful and accommodating. I bought a bike online from a secondhand dealer, sad to say their package skills was questionable. Thanks to Nico my bike was re boxed and transported at a reasonable price to me in Durban. Attached is the boxing from the secondhand dealer…. And wow oh wow the re boxed bike as recieved from Nico. I will definitely recommend their services to all my cycling buddies. Kind regards, Liezel Coetzer (VERBATIM).

An all in one Bike transport & inspection solution

Well, this was something else. Dayne from Used sports gear approached us. They help South Africans buy and sell pre-loved recreational gear. I saw a clever courier solution for small parcels on their site, uAfrica, with a WordPress WooCommerce plugin to aggregate and show different shipping quotes. Kind of what Bicycle Couriers do, but their solution is way too expensive for bicycles (as we focus on larger parcels in general and have geared ourselves around it).

Either way, we offered a bicycle inspection and courier service through our network of shops and providers to enable them to have a pre-loved bicycle inspected and package to send to their warehouse in JHB. I like their ambition and am keen to see where this goes. Maybe you see us partner and ship their bicycles in the future, maybe not. Have a look at https://usedrecgear.co.za/

RTS: Return to Sender

There is a first time for everything. And this week we had a return to sender. A very friendly couple from Centurion wanted to send a bike down for their son, who was due to start at Stellenbosch university, but just before the bike landed in the Cape, he also got accepted at Tuks and decided against Maties. We promptly re-routed his bicycle back to Gauteng and hope he has a wonderful student life up North – I certainly have very fond memories of the LC de Villiers sports grounds in Hatfield, even though I much prefer riding a bicycle around Coetzenburg in Matieland 😊

Ps, we adjust. After switching the collection point and then the destination and then return to sender, we had a lot of fun in keeping our client happy and informed during the whole process and would easily do so again. I must also mention the stellar service that we receive from Johan Bedford at the TREK concept store in Lynwood, Pretora — it is an absolute pleasure working with such professional individuals.

A Waybill conundrum just before the weekend

What is the last thing you want to hear on a Friday afternoon? That the bike shop stuck the wrong waybill on the wrong box, and you have to sort out the admin. This was an easy fix though, as it was collected from the same chain store in Gauteng and both bikes come down to the Cape on the same carrier. Had it been different couriers and different cities the fix would have been much more costly and time consuming for us behind the scenes.

Bicycle couriers is a manual version of least cost routing for bicycle transport, but only through vetted service providers that we can count on (ie ones that I would comfortable use to send my own bicycle with). And why manual? Because we don’t lose the human touch. After all, we are dealing with humans in the chain, and they are sometimes unpredictable and keep us on our toes.

Now, what’s in store for next week? We can’t wait to find out!