PORTLAND (AP) – It wasn’t so long ago that bicycle messengers were a common sight darting through city traffic to deliver court papers, business documents and blueprints to companies across the congested downtown.

These days, there’s only one bicycle messenger company and one lone courier pumping along on any given day in Maine’s biggest city.

Taking a break on a park bench, courier Stephen Wagner said one word best explains the industry’s problem: e-mail. High-speed Internet, it turns out, is beating high-speed bicycle couriers in the race for fast and cheap delivery of documents.

“I enjoy this. It’s a lot of fun. But it’s not a tenable way to make a living. You’d be dirt poor if you did this for a living,” said Wagner, who splits his time working for Rapid Courier and working for a local bike shop.

Portland isn’t unique. In recent years, many courier companies from New York to California have been scaling back on the numbers of bicycle messengers. But don’t count them all out. They survived the fax revolution, and riders say they’ll survive broadband Internet as well.

“There’s still potential there. There’s still stuff that needs to be hand-delivered,” said Bob Smyth, a former bicycle messenger in Boston and San Francisco who came to Portland to serve as office manager for Rapid Courier.

Today, Rapid Courier has Wagner and another part-time rider, Maureen “Moe” Delaney. The owner, Eli Cayer, still rides once a week, as well.

At the peak, around 1992, there were about 14 or 15 bicycle messengers working for four or five companies in Portland, said Percy Wheeler, a former messengers.

The cyclists, a fraternity of sorts, hung out at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters while awaiting their assignments. On the job, they earned their reputation as rebels by weaving in and out of traffic, jumping curbs and bouncing down stairs. If necessary, they’d defend themselves from aggressive motorists by smacking cars with their U-shaped bicycle locks.

But business began riding downhill with fax machines and e-mail. Broadband, allowing larger documents to be sent quickly via e-mail, made things worse.

At the same time, independents who started with a cell phone and business card found tax laws to be stifling, Wheeler said. The gig was up once a customer filed a 1099 form and the IRS became aware of a cyclists’ income, he said.

Years ago, it was common for a courier to pocket more than $100 a day in Portland, Wheeler said. Now $100 represents a rare good day’s haul.

Portland may represent one of the more dramatic upheavals in the industry, but bicycle couriers have been hurt elsewhere, as well.

In Seattle, Dynamex had 15 to 20 riders at the peak; now there are five or six, said Phil Matthews, senior dispatcher. “At this rate, in five to 10 years, I don’t think there’ll be bicycle messengers,” Matthews said.

New York is the nation’s bicycle messenger capital with about 1,000 of them. Fax machines and computers can’t deliver fabric samples to the garment district, or hand-signed legal documents, or portfolios or blueprints.

But even in New York, growth has stagnated.

The number of bicycle messengers at Breakaway Courier has dropped from 100 to 40, said Robert Kotch, the company’s president.

New York Minute has 15 riders, roughly half what it had a couple of years ago, said Mike Sirota, general manager.

New York’s Urban Express, which has 250 bicycle messengers, reports that bicycle work has been flat while vehicle deliveries continue to grow.

In Portland, Wagner, who’s 22, started riding in September and he made it through a tough winter in which more than 100 inches of snow fell.

Business, ironically, booms when the weather is lousy, and studded bicycle tires kept Wagner moving. Now that spring has arrived, business has slowed further as people take advantage of warm weather to make deliveries themselves.

A busy day used to be 50 or 70 deliveries, but these days Wagner gets only 15 or 20 calls. A typical local delivery costs $5, and messengers typically pocket half.

As for Wheeler, he left the business after someone in a parked car threw open a door as he sped down Congress Street. The collision sent him careening to the ground, leaving him with a smashed helmet, gashed hand, numerous cuts and road rash.

At his fiancee’s urging, he hung up his bicycle messenger bag and his two-way radio. Now 35, he runs a bicycle repair shop, the Bike Cycle, but he misses the thrills, the friendships, and the money from the old days.

“I just miss riding my bike every day. I miss the fitness,” Wheeler said. “I don’t like being inside every day.”

—

On the Net:

International Federation of Bike Messenger Associations: http://www.messengers.org/

New York Bike Messenger Association http://www.nybma.com/