THE CITY, FROM A SCOOTER
Orders come in two waves
Across the first nineteen days (07–25 September) the same shape holds: a lunch run, a quieter afternoon, and a much busier evening. Of 214 deliveries, 63 fell between 11:00 and 14:00, only 31 between 14:00 and 17:00, and 117 between 17:00 and 22:00 — 20:00 is the single busiest hour. Riding through the gap on purpose, rather than waiting it out, is the single biggest schedule decision a new rider can make.
Inside the city, houses are the easy drops — a visible number, a gate, hand it over. Apartment blocks are the hard ones: the map pin lands on the street, not the entrance, and the staircase and floor number only become known once you're already there. Asking for that detail at pickup, not on arrival, is the one habit worth building early.
WHAT GOES WRONG
Five rules worth knowing before they cost you
Standing at a counter for food that isn't ready yet is part of the job — ten to fifteen minutes at a time, unpaid, because the fee has no time component to draw on.
The no-show procedure. If a customer doesn't answer: call three times inside five minutes, message them in-app, and screenshot the attempts. Support needs that exact proof before they'll act.
The PIN rule. Most orders can only be closed with a four-digit PIN that the customer reads out. Without it, contacting support so an agent completes the delivery from their end is the only way to close it — however complete the photo evidence is, there is no rider-side override.
Photograph larger orders with your own camera first. Take the pictures with the phone’s normal camera, then upload them to Bolt — not straight through the app’s own camera. Photos taken inside the app stay with Bolt: once the help chat is closed, you have no evidence left in your own hand.
"No cash orders" isn't a real switch — for a rider working through a fleet. That's the likely cause, not a Bolt-wide flaw: riding through a fleet operator instead of a direct account means there's no in-app toggle to turn cash orders off yourself — it has to be requested through the fleet, and the request doesn't reliably hold. Asking got a process explanation, not a working switch — one came through anyway, at a busy lunch rush, with no way to decline it once assigned.
How the debt it leaves behind actually works, reconstructed from the app's own screens — this is the clearest picture available, not a confirmed official explanation:
- The rider collects the full order price in cash, not just their own fee. A 132 RON order means 132 RON changes hands at the door — only about 23 of that is actually the rider's to keep.
- The rest belongs to the restaurant, not the rider. That's the piece the app starts tracking as owed back — it shows up as a negative running balance, not a bill.
- It isn't paid back directly. Instead, at a later pickup — often a different restaurant entirely — the app asks the rider to hand over cash they're already holding to that restaurant instead of Bolt paying it digitally ("Pay 50.00 RON in cash to reduce your debt"). The debt clears through a string of these, not in one step.
- Past a ceiling, cash orders stop. Once the cash debt passes roughly 350 RON the app stops sending cash orders and starts asking for cash to be handed to restaurants at pickup instead. Each of those hand-overs shows up in the balance anything from a few minutes to about 25 minutes later, not at once.
- Until it's fully cleared, two numbers sit on screen at once — the negative balance and a separate "cash on hand" figure — and here they didn't visibly reconcile. No single line in the app explained the gap between them.
Whether a rider with a direct Bolt account can switch cash orders off themselves isn't confirmed here — a reasonable guess, not a checked fact. Worth asking for the reconciliation in writing rather than assuming the app's numbers explain themselves — they didn't, here.
The decline button is too easy to hit by accident. A rushed tap while you are distracted — mid-conversation, one hand on the bars, gloves on — can turn down an order you meant to take, and it can happen on any shift. The app gives you nothing to catch it: no confirmation step, no undo, and accept and decline sit close enough together that a hurried thumb hits the wrong one. It feels built for a desk, not tested out on the road. Know the layout cold, and look at the screen before you tap.
Support did concede one small thing once: a badly-categorised restaurant (a sushi place filed under a generic tag) got flagged for correction after costing a rider real search time. Worth raising specific problems by name — it's the only lever that moves.
PRO TIP · LEVEL CROSSINGS
When the barrier is down, a hot order needs a detour
Several railway lines cross the city at street level, and the barriers can stay down for a long time — long enough for a meal in the bag to go cold and for the customer to start watching the map. The route in the app does not know whether a barrier is down. You do, as soon as you see it.
- With an order on board, look for a detour as soon as you see the barrier down — before you are stuck in the queue and cannot turn round.
- Learn the crossings on your usual routes, and the nearest bridge or underpass for each, so the detour is ready in your head.
- Never ride round a closed barrier. No order is worth it.
- Cross the rails upright and as close to a right angle as you can, like a kerb (SAF-0001). Steel rails are slippery, worst when wet, and loose gravel often lies in front of them.
PRO TIP · SAFETY ADVISORY SAF-0001
Crossing a flat kerb? Take it at 20 to 30 degrees
This kerb in Craiova is only a few centimetres high and almost flush with the road. Riding onto it at a shallow angle, the front tyre runs along the edge instead of climbing it and the bike slides sideways. I nearly went down here on 29.09.2026, right by a restaurant entrance. Bigger tyres do not fix this.
- Cross at at least 20 degrees, better 30, measured between your front wheel and the kerb edge.
- Get upright and slow before the edge. No braking and no leaning while the tyre is on it.
- No room for the angle because of parked cars or traffic? Stop and walk the bike up.
- Wet, painted or dusty kerbs are worse. Treat them as flat as this one.
Safety advisory SAF-0001, Craiova, Bd. Carol I, 29.09.2026 12:46, own photos.
PRO TIP · SAFETY ADVISORY SAF-0002
Riding up a high kerb? Never stop with one wheel on it
The opposite of the flat kerb above. This one is a full kerb height, and the danger is not the tyre, it is your feet. Ride up head-on and for a moment the front wheel is on the pavement while the rear is still on the road: the bike is nose-up and tilted. That is the moment you slow to walking pace and reach for the ground. The right foot finds the pavement. The left foot, on the street side, finds nothing, because the road is a kerb height lower. A small lean towards the street and there is no foot to catch it. It nearly caught me here on 05.10.2026.
- Never put a foot down with one wheel up and one down. Either both wheels on the pavement, or both on the road.
- Head-on, keep a little throttle and let the rear wheel follow up before you slow. Then stop.
- Better: use a dropped kerb or a driveway, even 20 m further on.
- If you must stop on the way up, stop on the road and walk the bike up the kerb.
- A loaded bag makes it worse: more weight, higher up, and a fall goes towards the traffic.
Safety advisory SAF-0002, Craiova, 05.10.2026 13:19, own photos. Street not yet pinned.
PRO TIP · SAFETY ADVISORY SAF-0003
Autumn leaves and blowing dust: brake before the leaves, never on them
When the leaves come down, the road changes under you. A layer of wet leaves grips about as badly as ice, and dry ones hide what is underneath: a kerb edge, a pothole, a drain grate, a manhole cover. On a stormy autumn day the wind also lifts dust, grit and leaf litter off the ground and throws it at your face at riding speed, and the gusts push the bike sideways.
In Craiova it starts before the leaves. A fine film of dust and sand lies along the kerbs, thickest near roadworks but there even without them, exactly in the strip where a courier rides. Then the leaves land on top of it. The wind lifts both into the air and into your eyes, and if you have to brake hard at that moment, you are braking on dust and leaves.
- Brake early, upright, before the leaves. Then roll across them with no brake and no lean.
- Treat a leaf pile like a hidden kerb. Ride round it, or slow right down and expect a bump.
- Avoid painted lines, zebra crossings, metal covers and rails when they are wet or under leaves. Cross rails as close to a right angle as you can, upright, without braking on them.
- The first rain after a dry spell is the most dangerous day. The water turns the film of dust, sand and road dirt into a slippery paste, and wet leaves lie on top of it. On that first wet day, slow right down, brake gently and early, and leave much more distance.
- Wear clear glasses or close the visor. Grit in the eye at speed means riding blind for a second or two.
- On gusty days, slow down on open stretches such as bridges and ring roads, and keep both hands on the bars. The weather card on the home page flags the days with strong gusts.
- A loaded bag catches the wind like a sail. Expect the push before it comes.
Safety advisory SAF-0003, Craiova, October 2026.
PRO TIP · SAFETY ADVISORY SAF-0004
Side wind: a gust can move you half a metre to a metre without warning
A single gust from the side can push a courier scooter half a metre to a metre sideways, in one moment, in normal traffic. A top box and an insulated backpack sit high and catch the wind like a sail, so a loaded courier bike is pushed harder, and earlier, than an empty one. The danger is not the steady wind but the gust: it comes from a gap between blocks, at the end of a bridge, past an open field, or in the slipstream of a lorry.
Check the gusts in the forecast before a shift. These are the levels to plan by:
| Gusts | Level | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 39–49 km/h | CAUTION Bft 6, strong breeze | Ride normally but slower on open stretches, keep a gap on the side the wind blows towards. |
| 50–61 km/h | WARNING Bft 7, near gale | Avoid bridges and open roads if there is another way, no overtaking next to lorries, extra time for every drop. |
| 62 km/h + | DANGER Bft 8, gale | Stop taking orders and get off the road. No delivery is worth being thrown into traffic. |
Thresholds are the lower bounds of Beaufort forces 6, 7 and 8.
TRY IT: WIND AGAINST A LOADED COURIER SCOOTER
Drag the round handle around the scooter, or use the sliders.
| Side push | |
|---|---|
| Head / tail push | |
| Pushed sideways before you react | |
| Gust level |
An estimate, not a promise. It treats rider, scooter and load as one flat sail: force = ½ × air density (1.225 kg/m³) × drag factor × area × wind speed². Side area 0.80 m² for rider and scooter, plus 0.15 m² for a top box and 0.10 m² for a backpack, drag factor 1.0 side-on and 0.9 head-on with 0.60 m² frontal area. The sideways push is how far that force moves you, starting from still, during your reaction time, before you steer against it. Real bikes lean, tyres grip and riders brace, so take the numbers as a feel for size, not a measurement.
- Firm grip, loose arms, look where you want to go. Stiff arms pass every gust straight into the handlebar.
- Keep space on the downwind side. With wind from the right, do not ride close to the centre line or to a car on your left.
- Expect the gust where the shelter ends: gaps between blocks, the end of a bridge, open fields, crossing junctions, and the moment a lorry passes.
- Carry the load low. Put heavy orders in the box, not in a backpack, and keep the box lid closed and latched. An empty insulated backpack is a sail.
- Slow down before exposed stretches, not on them. A slower bike is pushed less far before you correct it.
Safety advisory SAF-0004, Craiova, October 2026.
NOT EVERY ORDER IS A RESTAURANT
Grocery pickups play by different rules
Some orders come from a supermarket, not a kitchen — a PENNY run in this case, 15 items for one customer. The pickup itself works nothing like a restaurant order, and the app tells you why up front, in bold, before you even arrive.
- The insulated bag isn't optional here — it's enforced. The instructions say it outright: turn up without one and the order won't be handed over at all. A restaurant might not care; a supermarket apparently checks.
- Pickup isn't at a counter, it's inside the store. The location marked is a specific desk — Customer Service / Click & Collect — not the entrance, not a till. Finding it costs time a restaurant pickup never does.
- Item counts run much higher. One food order is usually one bag. This one was 15 separate items bundled into a single pickup — worth knowing before assuming every "1 order" notification means "one small thing."
Same order-detail format as a restaurant order — customer name and a short code, same as any order — so at a glance the app gives no warning that this pickup is going to be structurally different. The instructions panel is the only tell, and it's easy to skim past.
What 15 items actually weighs. This is the real order, itemised from the app's own list, with the delivery fee it actually paid. Nearly all of it is drink — nine separate bottles and two multipacks of cans — which is what turns a modest-looking item count into a load.
- Roughly 19.7 kg, split across 3 bags — about 6.5 kg per bag, or two full bags in one hand and one in the other.
- 17.8 litres of it is liquid. 2.5 L of Coca-Cola, 2.5 L of Pepsi, two 2 L waters, two 2 L juices, a 1.24 L fabric softener, a 6-pack and a 4-pack of cans. Water weighs a kilo a litre and doesn't compress.
- About 33 litres of packed volume — the kitchen roll alone eats ~10 L of bag space while weighing almost nothing, so bulk and weight run out at different times.
- The fee was 10.21 RON. That works out at roughly 0.52 RON per kilo carried — before the climb.
And it went up to the fifth floor, with no lift. Nothing in the fee, the item count, or the map tells you that in advance — the address is just an address. Twenty kilos of bottled drink, five floors, on foot, for 10.21 RON. A restaurant order to the same door is one light bag; the app pays both the same way, because the fee is built from distance and basket value, not from what the job physically costs the person doing it.
THE NAME ON THE ORDER IS NOT THE COUNTER
One kitchen, several restaurant names
An order comes in for a restaurant, you arrive, and no such place exists at the address. It is not a mistake: several brands in this city are cooked in one kitchen, most of them in a mall food court. The customer orders from a brand, the food is made and handed over at whatever counter actually runs that kitchen.
The app often tells you, but not in the title. The brand is at the top; the counter is down in Instructions. One pickup at the Electroputere food court read Poki-Woki Craiova at the top and Orders are picked up from Roll Master in the instructions. Same kitchen, different sign over the till.
Not always, though. Some kitchens carry no sign for the brand at all, and the order gives no hint — nothing in the instructions, no counter named. Then the only way to find it is to ask around: the staff at the other counters in the food court usually know which kitchen cooks what.
- Read the instructions line before you set off, not when you are already standing in the food court — and if it says nothing, plan a minute to ask.
- Ask for the order code, not the brand. The staff at the counter will not necessarily recognise the name the customer ordered under; they will find the order by its code.
- Don't report the restaurant as closed or missing because the sign doesn't match. Check the instructions first; that is what they are for.
- Read the name to the last letters: DT means drive-through. A pickup named KFC Craiova Promenada DT is the drive-through, not the KFC counter inside the mall. Same brand, same address line, a different place to collect — easy to miss when you only read the first words.
PRO TIP · AT THE PICKUP COUNTER
Count the bags before you leave: ask, and have the staff confirm
Big orders often go out in more than one bag, and drinks, desserts or sauces are often packed apart from the food. Once you have ridden off, a bag left behind on the counter is your problem: the customer gets half an order, and the complaint lands on you, not on the kitchen.
One real case from October 2026: a large fast-food order, handed over as a single bag. For an order that size, one bag was hardly enough — most likely a second bag was still at the counter. Nobody had said a word about it.
- Ask every time: how many bags? In Romanian, Câte pungi sunt? Wait until the staff confirm the number — one, two or more — and check it against what you are holding.
- A big order in one bag: ask twice. The bigger the order, the more likely part of it is still behind the counter.
- Ask about drinks and extras separately. Cups and carriers are often kept apart and handed over last.
- If something turns out to be missing after you have left, report it in the app straight away, before the customer does.
AT THE DOOR
What the platform expects at drop-off
Bolt's own drop-off checklist, sent to riders by email, comes down to four things, in my words:
- Read the drop-off instructions first — hand it over in person, or leave it at the door.
- If the spot isn't specified, call the customer: up to three calls, three minutes apart, then contact support rather than deciding yourself.
- For a hand-over, make sure the customer actually has it before marking the order delivered.
- Watch the in-app inbox — that is where the platform puts changes.
PRO TIP · BLOCK INTERCOMS
Get the full block address before you arrive — the intercom will not help you guess
Most customers in Craiova live in apartment blocks, and the front door is locked behind a keypad intercom. You type the apartment number and the call goes through to the flat. Many of these keypads are worn, and some have a blue backlight that is hard to read in daylight — on some, the numbers are barely readable at all.
- Check the address has every part before you ride off: block (bl.), entrance (sc.), floor (et.) and apartment (ap.). A block has several entrances, each with its own door and its own intercom.
- If the apartment number is missing, ask the customer in the app chat while you are still on the way, not at the door.
- Can’t read the keys? Press by position. The number keys follow the usual phone layout: 1 2 3 on top, 0 in the middle of the bottom row. Watch the display to check what you typed.
- The call key differs from one make to the next. If nothing happens after the number, call the customer through the app rather than trying keys at random.
WHAT YOU FACE · BLOCK LIFTS
Old lifts: heavy steel doors, and the lift only moves when every door is shut
Inside the blocks, many lifts are decades old. On the landing you pull open a heavy hinged steel door by its handle; behind it there is often a second door on the cabin itself that you open and close by hand. A small display beside the door shows which floor the cabin is on.
- Close every door fully, or the lift will not go. If nothing happens after you press the floor, open the doors and close them again firmly until they latch — one door slightly open is enough to stop it.
- Keep the bag and your fingers out of the hinge side of the heavy door. It swings shut hard.
- Shut the doors behind you when you get out. A door left open blocks the lift for the whole entrance, including you on the way down.
- Lift out of order or very slow? Take the stairs, or for a high floor ask the customer in the app chat to meet you at the entrance.
WHEN THE WORK HAPPENS
Two thirds in daylight, a quarter in the dark
Each of the 343 deliveries was matched to the sun’s height over Craiova at the moment of the drop: 231 in daylight (67%), 23 in twilight, 89 in full night (25%).
Over the four weeks sunset moved from about 19:51 to 19:05. From 25 October, when the clocks go back, evenings are dark from about 17:30, so the dinner peak is ridden entirely in the dark. Lights, a reflective vest and a phone mount you can read at night stop being optional.
END OF THE DAY
After the shift
