That Monkey Bike Taxi Service....

[arun1uk]

....that was on Top Gear, you know the one, where they turn up on their bikes, dismantle it and drive you back in your car?

What was it called again? I tried Googling it but to no avail....hoping to try it out tonight! (if it's still going)

[P-J]

"one for the road"

[bigandclever]

scooterman

[P-J]

Scooterman was the one used in the programme, but I've used "one for the road" in the past and found them very reliable.

[The Moose]

Whats the sort of cost in comparison with a taxi journey?

Cheers

The Moose

[P-J]

I paid about 1.5 times the cost of a normal taxi back, but it's offset by not having to go back the following day to pick up your car. TBH I wouldn't have been in a fit state to then miss the parking nazis!

[The Moose]

P-J said:

I paid about 1.5 times the cost of a normal taxi back, but it's offset by not having to go back the following day to pick up your car. TBH I wouldn't have been in a fit state to then miss the parking nazis!

Not quite the reason I ask!!

What I was curoius about is how they make any money!!

Once you factor in the insurance cost (both bike and car), cost of the bike, getting to the car etc etc etc there has to be such a low profit margin??

Do you mind me asking what the journey cost and how long it took??

Cheers

The Moose

[P-J]

The Moose said:

Do you mind me asking what the journey cost and how long it took??

Sure - c40miles, £110 (plus tenner tip for not breaking the golf club in the boot), about an hour.
A normal taxi is about 70quid.

I guess if you get four of those per night it's quite easy money, although I wouldn't want to be the guy riding the bike back into London at 4am!

[The Moose]

P-J said:

The Moose said:

Do you mind me asking what the journey cost and how long it took??

Sure - c40miles, £110 (plus tenner tip for not breaking the golf club in the boot), about an hour.
A normal taxi is about 70quid.

I guess if you get four of those per night it's quite easy money, although I wouldn't want to be the guy riding the bike back into London at 4am!

This is me thinking as I go mate!!

Surely you would be lucky to get 2 of them a night?

30 mins to get to you, hour out of town, hour back (if your lucky on those little bikes (can they use the M.way cause if not would be a lot longer (obv. depending on where you lived)??)) hour out of town again, hour back again.

Well, that is 2 and a half hours, so I guess if you did that again working a 5 hour shift (from 11 - 4) it would actually be doable.

Therefore that £440 a night plus £40 tips. So I guess after costs etc you would get £150 - £200 a night??

4 nights a week = £600 - £800 a week (extra to what you have) = £31,200 - £41,600 a year. Plus this is only 5 hours a day 4 times a week so would be possible to do other stuff too.

Am I missing something here?!?! If not why the fk am I not doing this ontop of what I'm doing atm!! LOL

Cheers

The Moose

[KingRichard]

The Moose said:

P-J said:

The Moose said:

Do you mind me asking what the journey cost and how long it took??

Sure - c40miles, £110 (plus tenner tip for not breaking the golf club in the boot), about an hour.
A normal taxi is about 70quid.

I guess if you get four of those per night it's quite easy money, although I wouldn't want to be the guy riding the bike back into London at 4am!

This is me thinking as I go mate!!

Surely you would be lucky to get 2 of them a night?

30 mins to get to you, hour out of town, hour back (if your lucky on those little bikes (can they use the M.way cause if not would be a lot longer (obv. depending on where you lived)??)) hour out of town again, hour back again.

Well, that is 2 and a half hours, so I guess if you did that again working a 5 hour shift (from 11 - 4) it would actually be doable.

Therefore that £440 a night plus £40 tips. So I guess after costs etc you would get £150 - £200 a night??

4 nights a week = £600 - £800 a week (extra to what you have) = £31,200 - £41,600 a year. Plus this is only 5 hours a day 4 times a week so would be possible to do other stuff too.

Am I missing something here?!?! If not why the fk am I not doing this ontop of what I'm doing atm!! LOL

Cheers

The Moose

You can't fall into the trap of thinking you will get even one £110 fare in an evening. Most customers are going to live 2-3 miles away from the boozer.

Also don't forget that if you're planning a night on the piss then you'll arrange somewhere safe to park / transport home / hotel room etc, it's really for the people that find themselves caught over the limit and unable to leave their cars.

[The Moose]

KingRichard said:

The Moose said:

P-J said:

The Moose said:

Do you mind me asking what the journey cost and how long it took??

Sure - c40miles, £110 (plus tenner tip for not breaking the golf club in the boot), about an hour.
A normal taxi is about 70quid.

I guess if you get four of those per night it's quite easy money, although I wouldn't want to be the guy riding the bike back into London at 4am!

This is me thinking as I go mate!!

Surely you would be lucky to get 2 of them a night?

30 mins to get to you, hour out of town, hour back (if your lucky on those little bikes (can they use the M.way cause if not would be a lot longer (obv. depending on where you lived)??)) hour out of town again, hour back again.

Well, that is 2 and a half hours, so I guess if you did that again working a 5 hour shift (from 11 - 4) it would actually be doable.

Therefore that £440 a night plus £40 tips. So I guess after costs etc you would get £150 - £200 a night??

4 nights a week = £600 - £800 a week (extra to what you have) = £31,200 - £41,600 a year. Plus this is only 5 hours a day 4 times a week so would be possible to do other stuff too.

Am I missing something here?!?! If not why the fk am I not doing this ontop of what I'm doing atm!! LOL

Cheers

The Moose

You can't fall into the trap of thinking you will get even one £110 fare in an evening. Most customers are going to live 2-3 miles away from the boozer.

Also don't forget that if you're planning a night on the piss then you'll arrange somewhere safe to park / transport home / hotel room etc, it's really for the people that find themselves caught over the limit and unable to leave their cars.

This is the sort of input only someone working around taxis would have!!

If you only lived 2/3 miles away, why not taxi it one or both ways??

Im sure the % difference between the taxi/moto services gets less the longer the trip?? i.e. a 2 mile trip in moto maybe 300% the cost of the taxi service, yet 40 miles will be 150% the cost. Therefore it would be cheaper to take 2 taxis??

Or am I missing something here??

Cheers

The Moose

[KingRichard]

The Moose said:

KingRichard said:

The Moose said:

P-J said:

The Moose said:

Do you mind me asking what the journey cost and how long it took??

Sure - c40miles, £110 (plus tenner tip for not breaking the golf club in the boot), about an hour.
A normal taxi is about 70quid.

I guess if you get four of those per night it's quite easy money, although I wouldn't want to be the guy riding the bike back into London at 4am!

This is me thinking as I go mate!!

Surely you would be lucky to get 2 of them a night?

30 mins to get to you, hour out of town, hour back (if your lucky on those little bikes (can they use the M.way cause if not would be a lot longer (obv. depending on where you lived)??)) hour out of town again, hour back again.

Well, that is 2 and a half hours, so I guess if you did that again working a 5 hour shift (from 11 - 4) it would actually be doable.

Therefore that £440 a night plus £40 tips. So I guess after costs etc you would get £150 - £200 a night??

4 nights a week = £600 - £800 a week (extra to what you have) = £31,200 - £41,600 a year. Plus this is only 5 hours a day 4 times a week so would be possible to do other stuff too.

Am I missing something here?!?! If not why the fk am I not doing this ontop of what I'm doing atm!! LOL

Cheers

The Moose

You can't fall into the trap of thinking you will get even one £110 fare in an evening. Most customers are going to live 2-3 miles away from the boozer.

Also don't forget that if you're planning a night on the piss then you'll arrange somewhere safe to park / transport home / hotel room etc, it's really for the people that find themselves caught over the limit and unable to leave their cars.

This is the sort of input only someone working around taxis would have!!

If you only lived 2/3 miles away, why not taxi it one or both ways??

Im sure the % difference between the taxi/moto services gets less the longer the trip?? i.e. a 2 mile trip in moto maybe 300% the cost of the taxi service, yet 40 miles will be 150% the cost. Therefore it would be cheaper to take 2 taxis??

Or am I missing something here??

Cheers

The Moose

Don't get me wrong... it's an awesome idea.

The way to make money out of it is to have stloads of local customers so you have less 'dead' mileage. The guy drives someone home, then nips round the corner to another job, drives them home, then picks up another nearby.

A wise old taxi crone once told me that it is less important how much you charge per mile, than how many miles you get paid for in a shift. Dead mileage is your phrase of the week

I would imagine the service would only really work in quite a big, densely populated area with lots of different social areas - ie: London.

A single seat Monkey bike pillion service might work in a student town, but you really wouldn't want a pisshead on the back of the bike dicking about - it's controllable in a car, not so when you're trying to balance a bike

[arun1uk]

Cvheer feellas, I used Scooterman and a fine man with a scooter he was. Not too expensive either...I would recommend it, so much better than leaving yuour car in London and having to get up early and going to get it. And obviously beats pubic transport!

[The Moose]

arun1uk said:

Cvheer feellas, I used Scooterman and a fine man with a scooter he was. Not too expensive either...I would recommend it, so much better than leaving yuour car in London and having to get up early and going to get it. And obviously beats pubic transport!

So arun... costs and distances travelled and associated taxi costs please??

There you go KR - Dead Milage!! I'm not sure having a piss-head on the back of a bike would be a particularly good plan!! Especially as you'd have to get a helmet on him some how

Cheers

The Moose

[SystemParanoia]

imagine the insurance claim if he inside his helmet and drowned.

definitely not good for business lol

[The Moose]

SystemParanoia said:

imagine the insurance claim if he inside his helmet and drowned.

definitely not good for business lol

[KingRichard]

SystemParanoia said:

imagine the insurance claim if he inside his helmet and drowned.

definitely not good for business lol

Oh yeah, you'd need different sized helmets for different people... and then you've got to consider another point - would you rub your face on the average minicab seat?

No? Then people ain't gonna want to share helmets.

Our cars get steam cleaned (deep biological clean) once a week on top of normal valeting. Some of the people you get in the cars are just fking grim

[Plotloss]

You had to be careful with them some years ago, there was an issue with the insurance.

As my mate discovered when a monkey bike monkey put his E55AMG into a burger place just passed Clapham Junction one night.

[davido140]

I'm assuming they have a fixed range/locations they can actually go to, getting back being the issue. I cant see them chugging down the M3/M4 on one of those little bikes, I'm guessing they are only 50cc anyway. Must be a hell of a trek back from Reading to London on A roads!

I often see ads for scooterman in pucs in town, never used them myself but several cstomers have and always have good things to say about them.

[Owain]

KingRichard said:

SystemParanoia said:

imagine the insurance claim if he inside his helmet and drowned.

definitely not good for business lol

Oh yeah, you'd need different sized helmets for different people... and then you've got to consider another point - would you rub your face on the average minicab seat?

No? Then people ain't gonna want to share helmets.

Our cars get steam cleaned (deep biological clean) once a week on top of normal valeting. Some of the people you get in the cars are just fking grim

Isn't this where they drive your own car back though, you wouldn't be going on the bike at all?