Back in 2019, after two years of having no bicycle, I ordered a brand new bike and jumped straight into a daily cycling regimen, all in the name of fitness. Clearly inspired by my second 30-day challenge, I knew exactly how beneficial that habit was – and I also loved the freedom of being able to hop on my bike and go on an adventure every day, if I wanted to.
After a few weeks of this, however, it started to feel repetitive, especially mentally. For safety and out of consideration for others, respectively, I didn’t wear earbuds, and I didn’t play music out loud, so there wasn’t much for me to do mentally while I was cycling. It also didn’t help that one of my most common paths involved riding more-or-less in a straight line along the Saint Lawrence coast, clocking in anywhere from 20 km to 30 km of total distance in a day.
And so as this continued, a strange thought entered my mind: why am I not being paid to do this? Lo and behold, two weeks later, I was indeed being paid to bike. This speaks to the importance of boredom, in my opinion; if not for that, I would have not gotten creative and looked for a potential solution.
So how exactly did I do this? Uber Eats, that’s how. I had never realized that it was possible to get paid to deliver food on your bicycle, and that Uber Eats actually officially supported it – in Canada, no less. It also surprised me to discover that they even allowed walking deliveries, which of course I could only fathom being useful in downtown Montreal.
But anyway, in my situation, the bike was the key – I knew that I was already cycling nearly every day for fitness, so it didn’t really matter if I was doing this while doing deliveries or casually exploring. And I knew given my work ethic that if I had tasks to complete, I wouldn’t possibly be bored mentally – the time would fly by, and I’d still get the fitness benefits, and as a bonus, I’d get paid something greater than 0$, which was perfect considering I wanted to exercise regardless.
The key item I needed before embarking on this quest was a bag in which I could carry food and maintain its temperature. After a bit of research, I eventually settled for a standard Uber-recommended bag that supported, I’d say, about four different deliveries at a time.
Once I finished the onboarding process and I felt ready to give it a go, I fired up the Uber Driver app – which is the same app used by Uber drivers that use cars – the only difference is, when I go online, I have to select “bicycle” as a vehicle. Thankfully, Uber is sensible and limits delivery distance depending on the vehicle you select. This AI-generated infographic gives you a decent idea:
Once I understood this, before starting an Uber Eats shift, I would strategically drive to a specific location where there were a lot of restaurants, that also happened to be away from the Jacques Cartier bridge. Effectively, what I was doing was moving this imaginary circle so that Uber Eats wouldn’t pitch jobs that would send me into Montreal. Once you fire up the app, you wait for deliveries to be offered to you. When you get a job, you go pick up the food from the restaurant, and only then do you find out the destination. You may also be asked to handle multiple deliveries at a time.
What working for Uber Eats gave me was a purpose when exercising – it kept mind focused on specific objectives. I didn’t have to question where I would go and as a result, time would fly by. The free exercise was the real payment for my work – whatever they paid me in cash was a bonus. And by the way, that’s the only approach I’d recommend to people doing Uber Eats by bicycle – the cash earned per hour isn’t worth it if that’s the primary purpose.
I also discovered that it was really nice to combine this side activity with my day job. After an entire work day of navigating IT problems with my mind, it was refreshing to hop on the bike and primarily do work that relied on my body for 2-3 hours, without requiring much of my mind. It was at the end of these types of days that I would find myself in meditative states – quite rare – and I think it’s thanks to the combination of having exhausted all mental and physical energy. Add a return trip which often featured a riverside view, a cool breeze, and the sun setting in the distance, and you get the picture. Honestly one of the best memories of my life just because of how peaceful those return trips were sometimes.
Years later, I came across a quote from professional cyclist Moriah Wilson that captured the feeling:
I kept going – to that deep, dark place of complete emptiness. This is one of the feelings that I believe every bike racer lives for — the emptying.
It’s a beautiful paradox, that emptying yourself can be such a fulfilling experience.