For a month, I was a sole trader. I rode a pedicab in Cairns.
Considering how many things could have made it a really bad experience, I really enjoyed it. When I was riding, I was happy.
Risk 1: The Customers
One meets all sorts of people riding around Cairns at night. Most customers are nice, of course. One night I saw a man carrying a woman in his arms and thought to myself, “They need a ride.” I was right; she had blisters on her feet and they were grateful to hop on. The next weekend they came for another ride with me, that time with their children. In my first week I took around a retired couple who had been sailing up the East Coast of Australia since October. “We don’t want to go home,” they told me. On my last night two Pokémon hunters hopped on my bike. A website had told them that a rare warrior turtle was lurking on Spence Street and had about eight minutes left. “I’ll give you a tip if you get us there in six minutes!” One of the guys caught the turtle (“YUSSS!”) and I got my tip; the other’s phone crashed. One night I had three cheery Scots who gave me a big tip because they were afraid they were too heavy. A lot of people were concerned about being too heavy, but I told them the bike is on wheels, I can cope. Some people commented on my legs - “Look at those calves! She can do this.”
Another bunch of people commented on my ass. That was always charming [insert sarcastic tone here]. One chap on a Friday night even asked me how many people had done that. “With you, about ten.” It wasn’t only men; one night a very drunk woman spent the whole ride telling me how sexy I am and how fabulous my ass is. She was married with several children. A tour guide I met when I went to Cape Tribulation for a few days said he was under the impression that pedicabs were treated pretty much as low-cost strip dancing, the rider’s bum working just a metre away. I did once have a customer who shouted, “Stand on the pedals!” at me. I didn’t. His mate threatened to knock his teeth in for the disrespectful tone. At the end of the ride, they asked me to arbitrate, and I told them both off; one for being rude, the other for threatening violence. Some men, going to a strip club, said they would pay me double if I took my shirt off. When I said, “I thought you were going to the strip club”, their reply was, “You are basically a stripper.” Yeah. Right.
One couple offered to pay with a physio check up (one of them was a physiotherapist); one guy, who had consumed rather too many mushrooms, invited me to smoke weed with him (he was low on cash). The one I didn’t even deign to comment on was the handjob. I told a couple of people outright that they were sexists: a couple of guys who said they would pay me more because I was a woman; a drunk man who said he would feel bad having a woman ride him around and wanted to pedal the bike himself (he was the annoying gentleman sexist type). After that he offered me money if I came and had a drink with him. He didn’t seem to realise that I was in the pedicabbing business, not the escort business. The worst one was a guy who, on hearing that I would charge $15 for two people for a 850 m ride, asked if that included “you sucking me off”. Though I guess I was “lucky” that I only had one person ask for a blowjob; one colleague had that happen to her on every other ride on a Friday night.
Enough with the sexists, this is a travel blog after all. Most customers were very nice. Children often got very excited to be riding in a rickshaw. I received many good tips about places to go in Australia and had many engaging discussions about law and legal practice. I might even have changed one Australian’s opinion about refugees. On average people tipped by about 25%, although most of this was made up of a few very generous tips. When people asked me whether it was hard work, I replied, “Yes, but I love it.”
Risk 2: The Work
Of course it was tiring. Physically demanding work at night means aching muscles and poor-quality sleep during the day. Some nights at 1 am my legs (already) felt like jelly. During the day - after I woke up between 11 am and 1 pm - I didn't feel like doing very strenuous things, especially ones involving leg muscles. I went for a walk in the Botanic Gardens, though, and to Kuranda for markets and bush walking. Overall, I didn’t ‘achieve’ very much in Cairns; for having spent a month there, I didn’t go to very many places.
There was always the stress of the sole trader. After about the third week I stopped stressing about whether I was going to earn enough to pay off the rent, but even then my mind would be calculating the size of my travel budget. It was not a job to make you rich, but it paid the bills, including snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef and a trip to Cape Tribulation. The hourly rate was not fabulous, though, and not much was left over for when I left Cairns.
Even when I knew the job would pay off, I could still feel the pressure of being a sole trader in Australia on a Working Holiday visa, with no social security. If I fell ill or had an accident and couldn't ride, I would be in trouble. Those things didn't happen though; my only ailment was tiredness from the night work.
Sometimes it got monotonous as well. I didn’t even try counting how many times I heard “This will keep you fit” or said that I'm from Finland or explained why I speak “very good English”. Some nights I’d be waiting for two hours without a single ride; possibly due to the unusual amount of rain in Cairns this season, customers were sometimes thin on the ground.
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| Waiting around for customers on a Sunday night (early hours of Monday). |
But on the flip side, being my own boss I chose my own hours. Usually I started around 7 or 8 pm. On Sunday to Thursday nights I finished between 12 and 2am, on Friday and Saturday nights around 3 or 4 am. On some nights, when I was tired and had made a bit of money already, I just knocked off at 10 or 11 pm. On Tuesdays I didn't work. One week I took both Monday and Tuesday night off and went to see the Great Barrier Reef. Four hours of snorkelling, a turtle and a reef shark later I was happy for an extra night off.
I also loved riding. It just felt good to be back on a bike after almost five months of not even sitting on a bike. With nice customers in the back and a few coins rattling in my tip box, it was so worth it.
Risk 3: The Taxis
It takes a while to get used to riding a pedicab. Because it is on three wheels, you don't need to put your foot on the ground when you stop; the bike stays upright without your help. Also because it is on three wheels, the bike will be tilted on an incline, such as the kerb. A bike rider's first instinct is to turn towards the incline to right the bike, i.e. ride into the kerb. At first I had to consciously tell myself to keep the front wheel in my desired direction of travel; by the end I didn't even notice that I was adjusting my body for the tilt of the bike. A side effect is that it is more strenuous to ride closer to the kerb, as it takes more strength to push the front wheel straight.
I tried to maintain good relations with cars. When I could, I pulled over to the side to let them pass. Often they would wave thanks. I don't think the drivers really appreciated that riding on the incline closer to the kerb was harder for me and also that if I had to slow down for them, all my re-acceleration came from my muscles alone. That's why I didn't pull into every empty parking space there was. I got beeped at a few times, but most drivers were surprisingly patient.
Risk 4: The Boss
The contract I signed was absolutely awful. Under Finnish law, I doubt it would even be enforced as was, it was so one-sided. It was a list of obligations that I undertook for the company that owns the bikes. Mostly it was about paying money, but also about checking the bikes and such, something we were not shown how to do. The contract didn’t contain anything about the company’s obligation of maintaining the bike in working condition (although they would bear the cost of normal wear and tear on the bike); there was no provision for a rent reduction if the bike was not rideable one night. There was, however, a provision that the company could terminate the agreement for no reason and keep the deposit I’d paid. For no reason. I had to commit to a certain number of weeks or I would forfeit my deposit. I was told the company wouldn’t keep the deposit unless I did something stupid, like ride drunk, sell drugs on the bike, let a customer ride my bike or simply not give them a week’s notice before leaving. However, it would have been better to have that in the contract, rather than taking on faith the words of people I’d never met before. I didn’t have any problems in the end, but not everyone was so lucky.
Overall, I’ve been lucky. I took with me happy memories and would ride a pedicab for a job again, if the right conditions presented themselves.
