Va-Va-Vroom

Puget Sound's Motorcycle Courier Service

When you need it now, in a few hours or same time tomorrow

It’s been a while since Seattle had a motorcycle courier service. A few decades at least - unless you count that futile attempt by kozmo.com in 2000 to deliver movies and candy bars to anyone who would pay the price.  

Around 1910, Evert McCabe created the McCabe's Motorcycle Delivery Service based out of downtown Seattle and used numerous two- and three-wheelers to get goods and paperwork around town for same-day delivery. After being sold in 1913 to American Messenger Company, the two companies eventually became UPS and later switched to trucks and vans.

In mankind’s continuing quest to marry personal passions with work, two Seattle women have embarked on an adventure that puts them on their motorcycles and making money at the same time like a blast from the past. Say hello to Va-Va-Vroom!

Janine Cundy and Willow Brugh arrived in Seattle a few years back and met while doing Parkour training, aka PK, it essentially teaches one how to move efficiently around obstacles at speed through whatever environment they are in. Think Spiderman, but for real.

Seattle has courier services and they’re not cheap. The alternative - overnight mail -  starts at just under $30. If you want it today, expect to pay more than that.

But Brugh considers herself from the future where all is efficient, and using a car for a delivery just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Bicycles are okay, but their functional area is limited based on the hills and logistics of the Puget Sound. You can’t have someone retrieve a spare car key from your house in Bellevue and bring it to your office in Seattle on a bicycle. But the dynamic duo can and will do so quickly on motorcycles. Just how far will they go? It won't be cheap, but destinations like Olympia, Portland, Spokane, Vancouver (BC or WA), and all points in between are not out of the question.

On the Va-Va-Vroom website you can input the ship-from and -to points, determine how soon you need it picked up and delivered, and a real number comes right back at you. If you’re okay with that, you can complete a form and a rider is dispatched.

To see how easy it was, we shipped a case of 30 books from our warehouse in the Greenwood district four miles away to Ride West BMW on Lake City Way. The box was picked up within several hours, bungeed to the bike and arrived at Ride West in 15 minutes without a scratch. Total cost = $15.86. Much less and far faster than a USPS overnight delivery - and don’t even think about what that would have cost using UPS.

At present the business is part time for both with each possessing a number of other skills that help them make a living. Cundy is also a locksmith by trade and probably one of the only ones who can make a call on a motorcycle.

The price is right and the job gets done right. At this point these two won’t need luck to make it stick and go full time, just an ever-growing list of clients and they’ll be there.

SR!/Winter 2011

Visit the Va-Va-Vroom Website at www.va-va-vroom.com. Want same-day delivery on any item we carry in the Sound RIDER! store? If it's in stock, Va-Va-Vroom can make it a reality.