Working food delivery in Portland can give you a completely different perspective of this beautiful city, especially when you’re a rider for a bicycle delivery company such as Portland Pedal Power. One of the most crucial assets to our company are our riders. Rider, Colin Wagner, has played an integral role in the success of PPP and our efforts to grow. Now take the time to read a little more on Colin’s view and experience of the city as a rider for PPP.
“As a delivery cyclist, every day is a rife with adventure and unpredictability. I’m learning that big cities are filled with beautiful little things. Portland is brimming with life and more variety than you could cram into the biggest box of chocolates. The breadth of Portland just makes for that much more variety in seeing or experiencing captivating little moments.
Since I bike through the heart of the city on a daily basis, I have an up-close and personal perspective on these little moments. Sometimes I’ll have my route dialed in my head only to find myself on SW 5th Ave. blocked by police guarding an inmate transfer from the county jail to the protected transport truck. Standard fare here, yes, but for someone who grew up in a little farm/college town another big city flavor to enjoy.
Other times I’ll pick up food from one of our vendors and be able to ask how that barbeque last weekend went and, when I drop the food off, have a regular customer ask how I liked the Beirut show at Pioneer square. I pop in and out of so many peoples’ work lives each day that my work-day feels more like a chance mosaic of the bits and pieces of their days.
My favorite recent moment was this Monday when I was handing out Bowery Bagel samples to a tour group only to be invited to join in singing an impromptu rendition of “Happy Birthday”. It’s little moments like these when I’m surrounded by strangers and joining in a chorus of “Happy Birthday” on a brisk, pre-Fall morning that I realize how real and awesome this city is. See you on the streets Portland. Stay weird.
In my free time I spend a lot of time swallowed in music. I listen to it, I write it, I play it. In a lot of ways I shape my life directly and indirectly around it, from grasping new perspectives and flavors of emotions while I listen at home to simply getting out to shows.”
Go Colin! You rock!