What is it like for women working in the risk-taking, low-paid and male-dominated world of bicycle couriers?

What’s it like to be a woman in the male-dominated world of cycle couriers? To find out, I sought out the most courier-friendly bike I could find (an Eastway TR.1, a single-speed with arigid but light frame) and met up with 34-year-old Polish-born cycle courier Judy Ubych.

She arrived in London from Amsterdam five years ago with a degree in anthropology and is now one of a two-member team at courier company Byca Boy, working 10 until 7, Monday to Friday, covering more than 90 miles in a busy day.

“It’s not like I planned to do it for years, but it’s a better job than waitressing and it’s hard to find a professional role as a foreigner in London,” she explains.

Climbing on her fixed-gear bike – which she inherited through the biker network after a fellow courier broke his collarbone and never returned to riding – she offers her thoughts on why there are still “definitely more guys” in the job: “I think women tend to know what they want to do with their lives and this is probably the lowest paid job in London and doesn’t really have much of a future.”

Are female couriers treated differently? “I used to get annoyed when guys in postrooms were calling me ‘sweetie,’” she agrees, adding: “I’m not someone’s ‘darling’ – I deliver urgent packages for a living and I demand respect.”

We head off, leaving the trendy cyclist hangout and cafe Look Mum No Hands! to pick up our first package in St Paul’s.

“I like the freedom,” she yells over her shoulder 10 minutes later. “Not being stuck in an office, that’s the best part.”

So what’s the worse part? “Wind,” she replies, but that’s not something we have to worry about today, coasting over Southwark Bridge to complete our first job, the sun warming our backs.

Right now, freewheeling downhill towards Borough High Street with some of London’s best buildings in view, I can understand why people do it.

“When I first started, it was a subculture,” says Byca Boy founder, 33-year-old Sebastian Cherchi-Bersch: “You’d compete in courier races, drink the whole night through – but these days it doesn’t happen so much.”

One thing that does still happen, though, is the risk-taking. Ubych squeezes through a terrifyingly tight space between a bus and the curb.

By 11am, we’re on our way to Brick Lane, heading up Bishopsgate before turning right through Spitalfields, when I get a flat tyre. All those rumours about cycle couriers being bike-magicians are true. Ubych fixes it in under five minutes.

Next we arrive at a Brick Lane warehouse where we’re handed another tiny, nondescript package bound for Holborn. Along the way we stop at a red light, next to another bike upon which sits a woman in a Brooklyn courier cap and decked head to toe in international cycling gear.

“That’s Emily Chappell,” says Ubych conspiratorially. Chappell is an award-winning courier who travels around the world on a bike and blogs about it. She’s the British queen of cycle couriering, and an inspiration to women who want to earn a crust from bike-riding.

The minute the lights go green, Chappell is gone for dust and soon enough we’re weaving through traffic near Green Park. Our next pick-up is a photographer’s lens which is to be delivered back to Holborn.

“The three most common things we deliver are theatre tickets, clothing and legal documents,” says Cherchi-Bersch . “But, I’ve had some odd ones, like delivering a woman’s personal stuff back to her in a plastic bag, from her boyfriend who’d just broken up with her. I picked up an engagement ring once too.”

Despite the wind, the risk of punctures and the odd sexist comment, Ubych clearly enjoys the job: “I still can’t believe that someone pays me to ride my bike,” she says.