Way back when... a secret project started..

Sooo a few months ago I might have mentioned we had a bit of a secret project running which we had been working on. It started off pretty small and then over Christmas and into the new year it turned into a monster of a job and now it’s just about settled back down.

So what was the project? Well it was a direct contract from DHL who used to have a depot in Hereford but then it got shut down and relocated to Gloucester. So in a roundabout fashion we got in touch with them about doing some work that was pretty awkward for them with the concept of running a trial before potential further opportunities presented themselves in 2011.

After a journey up to Gloucester we arrived at a big empty depot to have a chat with some folk who very shortly arranged for us to begin trying some things out.
The next day we had a tiny load of parcels delivered to us.

Loaded them into one of our bikes.

And went and delivered them

And it all went very very well. In fact it went better than well, it was great. The major impression we were left with was that our little company was the final link in a very long chain of events and a really important one because we were the link that presented goods to the customer. It took some getting our head around.

So, little by little we built on what we were doing and we were called back to DHL to see if we could assist with some of the other work over the very busy and looming Christmas period. We said yes straight away and figured we’d work the details out as we went along..

On a cold dark morning we arrived at a very busy depot and loaded our parcels into a wagon, this was the start of the big stuff for us, I noted we were the only ones wearing lycra..

We had to borrow another bike from someone because we had so much to do.
Then it got really cold.. yep.. this cold...

But it wasn't do bad because the riding warms us up, then we were so busy we had to employ a chap for the short term contract. Meet Will Version 2

Some things were naturally easier to fit in/on the bikes than others

But generally it was an amazing exercise which has seen the team working frantically over the past few months.

So what now..

Well, we’ve just come to the end of the short term cover and we’re now in the process of assessing what might happen next, how much we can handle and how we want to move it. To start with we’ve had to just like it or lump it as that’s the way it seems to go with big companies, we’ve had delayed payment and different commands from a million different people (who definitely don’t speak to each other!) but in general our feeling is that it has been a very useful project. It certainly has opened the pathway to the feasibility of last mile bike powered deliveries by major companies.

Our ability to undercut the man in van and put our own touch on the final mile has come as a surprise for DHL.

So the plan now is to form a plan for the future and to put it into place. To be honest, at this rate the future looks very very promising…

We just have to fix a few things first.