Veteran bike messenger has ring side
seat for city circus
Kevin Bolger refers to the 16 years he's spent
as a bicycle messenger in Manhattan as "16 winters," because the cold
months are when work is abundant and the weather takes its toll.
Bike Bondage! Check out our installation of art bikes beautifully bound
in rope in the shibari tradition. Artfully done by Lord Morpheous. (http://www.lordmorpheous.com/)
Bike films, visuals and sexy surprises to come!
Celebrate Navid's birthday with a race and a drink! See how fast you
can race! Dance your ass off! Do it at the same time!!!!
5$ at door
Free admission if you are dressed like a
bicycle! :)
see you there!
Radio
Interview with Kurt Boone - March 24, 2008
Veteran New York messenger,
author, poet, Kurt Boone will be interviwed today (March 24,
2008) at 8:30pm (EDT) with ScreamingWoman.com.
This may come as old news to some, but H&C received phoned
confirmation today from Canada Revenue Agency superviser Rick Wilson,
that the daily rate for active transport (foot, bike, transit)
messengers has been raised from $15 to $17 /day worked.
Again, the information is slow in reaching us as this change took
effect at the beginning of 2006 !!!
We've been advised that those who have already filed will have to
refile to see any rebate.
As the CRA readily admitted to me, they have had a tough time finding
this information in their system. I've been talking with them for the
better part of a week. They now will try to make this sort of info more
accessable, in the future.
When written confirmation arrives, we will forward it.
-Wayne Scott
PS - And a round of thanks to Steve Beiko for the tip,
eh?
New York City's best messenger service Cycle Hawk Messengers
is
presenting its third annual Velo City Tour
where the fastest
track racing messengers and city bikers compete for prizes including RETURN AIRFARE TO TORONTO for the
16th annual Cycle Messenger
World Championships.
Last year's winner Peter Bradshaw of Boston went on to win the 2007
Cycle Messenger World Championships in Dublin, Ireland.
It's a new year and that means it's time for the annual end of bike
messengers article.
The media is obsessed
with promoting the myth that bike messengers are
disappearing. They have been predicting the demise since at least
1991. Messenger numbers go up and down with the economy. The
effect of the internet on the messenger industry was felt almost 10
years ago yet journalists make it sound like it just happened. In
1999 we had the dot.com bump which temporarily increased the number of
messengers. It's not just messengers everything in America was
healthier before the selection of George W. Bush in 2000.
There was an AP story about the Internet ruining the messenger
industry in at least 75 publications in May 2005. It was also on
the front page of Yahoo as one of the top stories. The article is
basically the same with different headlines like "Bike messengers
fading fast", "Bike messengers ride into sunset", "Message is bad for
bike couriers", and "Bye-bye to bicycles"
The USA is about to go
into a recession so expect more artilces like this when it does.
Fortunately for messengers it's print journalism that's likely to
disappear long before bike messengers do.
Number
of messengers in the US: according to the US department
of Labour
The bike
messengers of Montreal would like to invite you to their city for three
days and nights of bike rides and parties on the weekend before the
16th Annual Cycle Messenger World Championships, held in Toronto,
Canada, June 13 to 16, 2008.
The 2008 version of Toronto’s
annual Ice Race will take place at 6:00 pm on February 16 in DufferinGrovePark.
Toronto’s Ice Race has been a yearly tradition since
1996 when the annual St. Valentine’s Day Massacre alleycat moved to the
TorontoIslands
for a figure-eight ice race on LakeOntario.
Bikes on Ice –
You Tube Video of the 2005-2006 races
This is an excellent video about New York City
Bike Polo. It's one of the fastest growing urban sports in the world
with more tournaments in 2008 than any year before.Catch the world's
best harcourt bike polo players at the 2008 Cycle Messenger World
Championship Bike Polo Tournament in Toronto, June 13-16.
The Messenger Courier Association of the
Americas (MCAA) is doing "whatever we can" to preserve courier
companies'
ability to misclassify employees as independent contractors without
consequences.
"Whatever we can" may include bribing members of congress to support
its pet cause.The MCAA is searching for a "champion" to support their
misclassification of employees and the courier company owners
have pre-determined that they will have to
pay their "champion" a fee of about $10,000 to support them. They can't
move forward unless they have pledges for this persuasive
fee in advance.
The MCAA is asking for donations not for the event, but to the campaign
of whatever member of congress can be bought for $10K. Later it will
tell those who pledged whose campaign they must donate to.
We will
be asking that attendees
to the congressional reception
consider making a campaign donation and we have a goal of raising
$10,000 for the event. For us to move forward with this we need to know
if we stand a reasonably good chance to obtaining our financial goal.
Any donations to a congressional campaign must be done by individuals
not companies and the limit is $2,300 per individual.
Please email MCAA Executive Director, Bob DeCaprio, at
bdecaprio@kellencompany.com if you can contribute directly to the
congressional campaign of our identified champion.
Daune Fraser's story is as fine an example of ambition and enterprise
as any that you are likely to find among young women anywhere in
Guyana. Each week, from Monday to Friday, the lithe, engaging 26
year-old pedals her bicycle through the streets of Georgetown and its
environs for as many as 8 hours a day, delivering mail and packages for
the bicycle courier service which she has owned and operated since
April last year.
From Fedex's Quarterly Report:
"On December 20, 2007, the Internal Revenue Service informed us that
its audit team had concluded an audit for the 2002 calendar year
regarding the classification of owner-operators at FedEx Ground. The
IRS has tentatively concluded, subject to further discussion with us,
that FedEx Ground's pick-up-and-delivery owner-operators should be
reclassified as employees for federal employment tax purposes. The IRS has indicated that it anticipates
assessing tax and penalties of $319 million plus interest for 2002.
Similar issues are
under audit by the IRS for calendar years 2004 through 2006."
Over the last few
years FedEx has lost many court decisions, labor board determinations
and state agency rulings which have repeatedly found it to be
misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors. Recently,
the California Supreme Court refused to review a California Court of
Appeal ruling that found employee drivers to be misclassified as
independent contractors.
In December, Massachusetts attorney general fined FedEx Corp.'s ground
delivery unit more than $190,000 Wednesday, alleging the company
illegally classified 13 drivers as independent contractors rather than
employees.
Strong, brave, fast and free. No wonder we
admire messengers and their style
For years
civilians have watched and immitated the functional fashion of bike
messengers. From bags to clothing to accessories the bike messenger's
influence on urban lifestyle continues to grow. Why?
Jeffrey Kidder's paper in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, "Style and Action: A Decoding of Bike
Messenger Symbols" concludes that "messenger style is intertwined
with messenger practice." The marriage of style of and function lends
an authenticity to messenger style. And it's a piece of this
authenticity that civilians seek in their immitation of messengers.
In the introduction to the photography book, "Messengers Style", Valerie Steele,
Chief Curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology,
notes that "when high fashion draws on street style, it’s not only
because there is something special about the clothes. It is the
lifestyle and attitude associated with subcultural clothing styles
which attracts attention. Sometimes straight people want to live the
life."
Everywhere you look the media is hyping some new aspect of messenger
culture as the next big thing. And they may be right. Messenger culture
and its youth oriented styles, street edge and outlaw image has been
making inroads into the mainstream since the first Cycle
Messenger World Championships (CMWC) in 1993 in Berlin Germany.
Since then messenger bags have become the accessory of choice for
office workers and students.
And now recently many urban cyclists have started trading in their city
mountain bikes for the fixed gear bikes associated with bike
messengers. They even refer to messenger events as part of their “fixed
gear culture.” Stylist John Steinberg describes messengers
as being “ahead of their
time.” He says “They’ve got that edge. You see something on a courier.
Maybe in a year later it will hit the mainstream. They’re slick.
They’re cool. For want of a better word, they’re cool. The real world
for them is cool.” More....
A driver has been jailed for nine months after
deliberately knocking a cyclist from his bike in a road rage attack.
Tahir Chaudhry, 34, swerved his van at the bike after clashing with the
cycle courier at traffic lights. The father-of-two then drove off after
the collision leaving the concussed victim behind.
Chaudhry, the manager of a family-run store
business, was originally charged with attempting to murder Mr
Walker. But the Crown accepted his guilty plea to an alternative
charge of driving dangerously and causing a collision which left the
victim unconscious and severely injured.
A skilled and
speedy cyclist rounds the corner of Enterprise Road and Funzi Road in
Nairobi's industrial area.
His style, his speed and his pride on the bike show that he is a
professional cyclist. He enters the gate to the Jamii Bora headquarters
and parks his bike. With ease he detaches his crutches from the bike.
It is only then you will realize that Dedan Ireri only has one leg as
his right leg was amputated at the hip.
"How can you bike with only one leg and with such elegance and speed?"
you ask him. His story is like a fairy tale.
Dedan was a street beggar as a child and teenager. But a car ran over
him when he was still a young child begging in the streets and his
right leg had to be amputated. Dedan then had to learn to survive in
the streets with only one leg.
Dedan became what is likely the only one-legged bicycle messenger in
Nairobi and possibly worldwide. Dedan is now a skilled, reliable and
fast messenger as well as a proud and charming member of the Jamii Bora
staff.
This has been a year long project with his
family La Carrera , Stash, Futura 2000 and Ernesto Colnago. There will
be an exhibit of Stash and Futura's works of art at the event, as well
as the Track frames that they all have worked so hard for
the last year.
And now the best part: Red Bull is sponsoring
the races on November 17 to to
give the biggest race purse ever
$3,000 for the messenger race (The Bull Run) and $500 for sprints
-WINNER
TAKES ALL!!! CASH MONEY.
Rgistration is $20. Look Ma party
begins at La Carrera cycles 106 Harbord st,
Toronto, Ont., Canada. The race is open to everyone on all types of
bikes.
Sprints
start at 9:00 am on Unwin St.
The Bull Run Alleycat (3 hour and 90 km) starts at 5:00pm at 106
Harbord St.
Sydney's Bike Riders
- CMWC 2006
Nice video from the 2006 Cycle Messenger World Championships in
Sydney, Australia
On Friday, November 2,
a cyclist was involved in a road rage
altercation with a motorist in downtown Toronto. After exchanging words
it is alleged that the cyclist stabbed the motorist in the neck and
face two or three times with some kind of tool. The cyclist then fled
the scene on foot, leaving his bike behind.
The media ignored the
police investigation and declared the alleged assailant a bike courier
because the police happened to mention that the cyclist
wore a
"satchel." Even some local cycling advocacy blogs jumped on the
courier bashing
bandwagon by repeating the unfounded accusations, giving credence to
the irresponsible media reports
Why
some twentysomethings won’t buy health
insurance — even though it means they’ll be breaking the law
And this much is also true: being a bike
messenger is an insanely dangerous job. According to a 2002 Harvard
School of Public Health study titled “Occupational Injuries Among
Boston Bicycle Messengers,” a sample of 113 couriers found that 70
percent had suffered at least one injury leading to lost work days, and
55 percent had accidents that landed them in a doctor’s office or
hospital. Car doors swing open unexpectedly. Pedestrians stand stodgily
on the sidewalk. Cars swerve around corners. Fractures, dislocations,
and sprains! “Twenty-four percent of messengers reported wearing a
helmet on a regular basis,” the study noted, “and 32 percent have
health insurance.”
Bad weather sets the stage for the heroic aspects of messengering
In
Natural History magazine in the 1970's anthropologist, Jack Kugelmass wrote "bad weather sets the
stage for the heroic aspects of messengering,"
The first ever hardcore-track bike-only
Halloween alleycat race in Toronto was postponed due to a weather
forecast of "overcast with light rain showers." Apparently it has
been moved to a retirement community in Florida, as long as the weather
cooperates. Normally, out-of-towners would be out of luck but it
was assumed that no one from out of town would be "crazy" enough to
venture out in the light rain and drive to Toronto. Organizers were
also concerned that some of the prizes, such as the Chinese-made
Crumpler messenger-style bags , would disintegrate in the rain.
Information is sketchy right now but we're hearing that a few racers
weren't informed of the emergency cancellation in time. Word is they're
suffering from a little dampness, with rumours of at least one case of
full-blown soaking wetness . We presume these unlucky souls are now
recovering in hospital. Our thoughts are with them.
Organizers have been informed that under UCI rules any alleycat race
that is cancelled due to weather must now be referred to as a
"pussy-cat race."
However here at messmedia, we do recognize and respect anyone in the
community who makes the effort to organize any race.
