Courier

Name: Richard Gaywood. Age: 34. Salary: 45-plus per week. Special requirements: Grim determination and a hatred for cabbies. Work Bike: kawasaki GT550. Bike Extars: Parcel box. Crash bars.

Former designer Richard Gaywood turned his back on office politics and the whole Soho thing and became a motorcycle courier for Addison Lee. Not the obvious career move perhaps, but Gaywood has no regrets.

” I had an early mid life crisis and thought I don’t want to do this anymore, what next? I liked riding bikes, I had a licence and I love the feeling of being out on the road, so it seemed the right move at the time. ” Gaywood works for Addison Lee six months of the year and spends the winters in Goa on India’s beautiful east coast, where he owns and runs an prganic restaurant.

Richard admits that being a courier has completely changed his attitude to biking. ” Come Friday I don’t want to go anywhere on my bike. I begrudge going anywhere on it. When I pick my son up from Primrose Hill I just think ‘I would be getting £8 for this if I was at work. “