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What is the most unusual/bulky/awkward object/load that you've ever carried on your bike?
Excluding people.

Going to work at Brough one morning found a jack russel dog wandering along the road in Leven (20 miles away), it looked lost and cold so put it in my top box. I was late by then as usual so had to hurry up. Dog was fine when I got there. In its coller found piece of paper with address & telephone number on it. Rang them up expecting they would be pleased to get the dog back but they just said they didn't want it. Luckily someone at work liked it so he took it.

My cat in the tankbag - vet measured her pulse at 200bpm! I put her in a taxi for the journey home...

I normally carry my cricket gear in a large bag to and from matches and I've only lost one bat in 15 seasons.

My wee Jack Russel terrier .

Years ago we never had a car, only a bike, so when the dog had to go for his boosters to the vet,the bike was the only means of transport, as we lived in a cottage in the countryside with no bus route.

The dog sat between myself and the wife,with her holding him. He was a daft wee bugger though, when we did eventually get a car he jumped out of the open window twice,thankfully uninjured.

A full firestorm exhaust system, including OE heavy cans, strapped across a tankbag with a LOT of bungees.
It was a sumwhat interesting ride home with several stops to rearrange things.

Beer and cider on the Storm but on the old Gixxer I carried a bread making machine once. Held on with a cargo net and willpower!

A car bumper, wrapped in brown paper.
About 10 years ago, when I was despatching on a VT500 Ascot.
It was meant to be a van job, but they sent me by mistake. Managed to bungie it to me and the bike, and take it across London.

A large bush, it was wrapped in a bin liner which split so when it arrived it short of a few leaves

26" tv, old big type one, years ago when i was a despatch rider in london.

Lots of bungees, but got there ok.

Oh, and fifty still-warm recently killed mice when I had a pet barn owl. Stuffed down front of my bike jacket, one was only stunned and after a little run around my jacket jumped off and leapt for freedom.....

a radio controlled glider
on my KE100 all was well till i arrived and on the drive the rear wings snapped off -_-

Great! So it’s not just former and current couriers who know how to load up eh? Fishing gear, pets (ouch) and warm pet food, cold beer (all the time), bumpers (me too, a Capri one from Midnight Motors), bushes, bike bits, TV's (that one is particularly impressive Tone!) and gliders! (wings folded?). Awesome.

And with a car unavailable/being used, do we really do such things because we have no other choice? Or do we impatiently and impulsively get on with it thinking "I'll get that on OK"?

Appreciated that former couriers are likely more frequently presented with challenging loads so without trumpeting and on the subject; I've despatched a suitcase full of cash (I didn't know at the time!) and goodness knows what else in blue/green bags for Amex, a Saudi Prince's passport to the Dorchester (got a £50 tip!), press stuff from Time Mag to John McVicars flat (he opened a solid door with about seven heavy duty chains on it, gingerly I might add), Robert Maxwell's shoes (might have been flippers), a bag of fetish masks/uniforms/stuff to a posh Chelsea basement (I didn't see anyone called Max), countless organs to Path labs and op theatres, dragged out of bed at midnight to courier news tapes of the Finchley Road bombings for Sky, an effects pedal to some Pinkie Floyd's river boat, an open envelope containing slides of a naked Cindy Crawford on the beach to News Int’ls press office, Pearce Brosnan's portfolio shaken not stirred to Shepperton, iffy looking packets to the city (felt/weighed like flour!), and spun an American banker from E14 to Heathrow in (very quick) minutes – curiously on time and quite stirred.

Funniest of all, a box of live crabs to a city resto where en route I hit a monster pothole on Upper Thames Street when, despite holding it together, two of the six bungees sprang loose and my settling mirrors filled with half of these clawed delicacies as they scattered across the road behind me. What a sight trying to dodge traffic and catch those that didn't get squished! And no one helped! And I saw others endure the same! Imagine that nowadays, everyone phones out filming.

I've also carried a 2x3' rustic coffee table on a VT500 from Camden Market to N3 on Christmas Eve (fifteen bungees and four cargo nets - no rear view but solid as a rock), a Marshall amp head up to Bletchley for servicing (dear ole Mr. Marshall was so impressed he gave me four ECC83 valves for free and a tour of the factory - top fella) and the odd bass (strapped to back, banging my lid and pulling me backwards at speed) to a marquee gig. Recently on the Storm, a model Saturn V kit (a high drag affair and hard to secure without damaging the kit), two packs of oak flooring and this past weekend a 600x600 paving slab (no scratches either) from Wickes for a couple of miles, the latter two events witnessed by two Traffic cops who nodded me by with a grin.

Yet the only time I was ever yanked for 'an unsecure load' was when some bike copper physically finger-prodded me in motion on the arm with, "You, pull over now" for having a wee packet of pancake mix well stuffed into my CBX750 fairing! Suffice to say I later suggested his methods were un-safe/sound and the whole matter was dropped. As were the pancakes, without touching the sides.

When I was a courier based in Bournemouth in the early nineties I had to take a uniform badge to Dover for the captain of a cross channel ferry as he refused to set sail until he got it!

Had to make a pick up in Southhampton going to Newcastle one year and it was a breech of a gun they needed for live firings near Hadrians Wall was very heavy too!!