When UPS delivery man Jason Dube made his rounds Wednesday, he had to consider a lot more than the average package delivery guy. The weight of the boxes he was hauling. Getting enough space to turn around.

Whether the wheels of his bike would slip in the slush and snow.

“It hasn’t been too bad yet,” said Dube, who, in full UPS uniform, spent the morning tooling around the Farwell Elementary School neighborhood, a trailer of packages towed behind.

Not quite conventional UPS.

But during the busy Christmas delivery season, UPS officials say, it’s what helps get the job done.

“It takes lots of planning,” said Troy Wessel, business manager for the UPS hub in Auburn. “But they’ve worked.”

For years, UPS has used helpers on bikes to drop off holiday packages throughout cities and suburban neighborhoods, where deliveries are most likely to be door-to-door. Even hauling a small trailer, the slender, two-wheel bikes can maneuver more easily than the traditional UPS truck. And delivery people are more efficient hopping on and off a bike than stopping and starting a mammoth vehicle.

For UPS’ Auburn center, Lewiston-Auburn and Brunswick are prime biking locations. The only stipulations: no working after dark, no bikes in major traffic areas and no hills.

“It’s enough of a workout as it is without hills,” Wessel said.

Because of safety concerns, UPS bikers also don’t ride in snowstorms. And they don’t deliver the heaviest, most unwieldy packages.

“We try not to leave Bowflexes for them,” Wessel said. No one wants to haul that.”

The Auburn center hires about 20 bicycle delivery people every year, often college students or local cycling club members who want a short-term, part-time job. UPS uses bikes only to help with the holiday rush – from Thanksgiving to Christmas. That’s despite the fact Maine’s December temperatures routinely dip below freezing.

On Wednesday, Dube braved wind, fresh snow and slush to deliver 16 packages around the Farwell neighborhood, his first time delivering by bike. A uniformed UPS guy gliding through the side streets on a bike, he elicited both curious stares and curious questions.

“Some people say something, some don’t. A lot of people out shoveling, like today, will stop and ask if it’s a new thing, if it’s to save gas,” Dube said.

The answer: It’s not a new thing and it’s not to save gas, though with thousands of packages delivered by bike instead of truck in Maine alone, there are savings. That’s one of the perks for UPS.

For part-timer Dube, one of the perks is getting experience at a company he’d like to work for full-time.Though he’d like that permanent work to be in a truck.

“Would I do this full time?” he asked, glancing at the bike. “Probably not.”

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