In contrast, Mr. Jones showed up ready to talk about his pricing structure. “He approached us as a business person,” Mr. Gilles remembered. B-Line got the job, and now it makes up to 150 deliveries a day for more than a dozen clients, using a fleet of six trikes. The company is on track to have more than $400,000 in revenue this year, Mr. Jones says.

“Historically, bicycle-based companies have been a very informal sector,” says Jennifer Dederich, co-owner and manager of Portland Pedal Power, which specializes in business-to-consumer bicycle delivery — bringing large catered lunches to law firms, for instance. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge for Ms. Dederich and Mr. Jones, both of whom are now focused on expanding their companies.

“A lot of what we’re doing is convincing future investors that our model works and that we can formalize this sector of business,” Ms. Dederich says. Mr. Jones, too, is looking to attract investors in order to bring B-Line to other cities.

One strategy that both B-Line and Portland Pedal Power have devised is plastering the sides of their cargo boxes with advertisements. A majority of B-Line’s delivery customers spend extra to have their company logo displayed on the cases while their goods are weaving through town, and some clients, including Google and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, have used B-Line expressly for advertising.

Pedal Power offers a similar advertising model, along with social media marketing for its clients. And Ms. Dederich makes it a priority to hire cyclists with other skills that can be used in the business — like photography, videography and Web design.

THOUGH B-Line’s cargo trikes are nimble and efficient, its delivery service isn’t necessarily less expensive than the alternatives. In an e-mail, Yalmaz Siddiqui, the senior director of environmental strategy for Office Depot, for which B-Line has delivered 20,000 cartons of supplies so far this year, listed the boons to working with B-Line. The list did not include a cost benefit.

In fact, Mr. Siddiqui wrote that “on a per-delivery basis, B-Line is a more expensive option.” But he added that customers “love the fact that their office supplies are coming by bike,” and that Office Depot enjoys “the idea of big green companies like ours supporting small green companies like theirs.” He says these factors help Office Depot make a financial case for using B-Line. Most of the half-dozen B-Line customers interviewed for this article mentioned a similar emotional motivation. “It feels good psychologically knowing that our delicious fresh bread is in that cargo box,” says Claire Randall, a co-owner and general manager of Grand Central Bakery, a B-Line customer. For her and her partners, it’s even a personal point of pride. “It killed us that all of our deliveries were in a van,” Ms. Randall adds. “We’re all avid bikers.”