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Sounds like you were a little unlucky. Slow restaurant wait times perhaps? 10 mins isn't great. A few double orders and things get a lot better. Are you going to do another couple of shifts in that area to see if this evening was typical?
Your ride times sound similar to mine (3-15mins). I manage 3 an hour on average but some nights that can be hard work, some nights pretty easy. Where are you losing time? Are you finding places and handing over quickly? An earpiece is useful for when local knowledge fails and GPS is called upon. GPS can fuck you up tho ... local knowledge is best. Nothing can help you for some drops when it's to a hidden fucking house in the garden of another house (with a house inside), or the numbers have fallen off the seemingly every door in the street, or if the customer has put a completely incorrect postcode (true stories!!!).
Glad to hear people are tipping.
You are right - the little time saving things are worth thinking about. If locking up takes 30s then you could easily be spending 10 mins a night on this ... that's a extra job right there.
If you watch the guys/girls who earn next to nothing it's clear why: they spend 4 mins on arrival at each job dorking around before announcing their arrival (plus time moaning to me about not getting paid enough).Re' locks and lights: I carry a mini d and a thin cable lock thing and use whichever is most suitable. 8/10 times I don't lock it at all but instead put it somewhere within arms reach, visible and/or uncarriable. Often I prefer to wait near the bike anyway rather than near a hot, smelly kitchen.
I suggest fixing your lights to your bike (cable ties, use a dynamo, use something bolted onto the mudguard or fork crown etc). As I'm sure you're aware, having a couple of lights means you can lose track of charging and still be safe. I find that's super applicable to Deliveroo :-)I hope things pick up. It can be a good earner, honest.
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miro_o
Yeah, not bad at all. A lot more waiting than I anticipated. I would wait around for 30 minutes, get a delivery, ride there in 5 minutes, wait 10 minutes for them to prepare stuff, ride 5 minutes to the person, deliver it and then start over. So only managed 4 deliveries in 3 hours and about 15km of cycling.
I think I'd be better off in one of the other zones, that one was nice in that I was never more than 5 minutes from my flat but I think there'd have been way more deliveries in the other ones. There are vastly more restaurants and people living in them. (It was Edinburgh West.)
Not sure how the pay is going to work, if I'm paid per delivery that's going to be a pretty shocking rate per hour. But on the other hand it was a 50% tip rate so that's nice.
Seems to me that the best way for me to improve the time for each delivery would be to become faster at removing my lights and lock. Might get some cheapie lights that I can leave on without worrying about them getting nicked. Not sure what to do about the lock.