Beryl Fine is a photographer based in San Francisco, who strives to
find beauty in the unconventional; her photos are bold, yet they expose
a frailty that is so inherent in human nature. For this project, she
photographed 23 bike messengers, men and women, who are all represented
in the book.
Known as urban street messengers, today the modern bike messenger
stands synonymous with their predecessors, the pony express, but rather
than a horse or pony their trusted steed rides between their legs on
two wheels. They’re gritty. Foul mouthed, rough and tough street
couriers.
Glamour aside, these men and women have an unforgiving job keeping them
outside in sun and sleet, rain or shine, riding for good or bad. They
remain lurkers of the urban streets wheeling between buses, semi
trucks, taxis and oblivious street pedestrians, delivering the valuable
documents that keep the wheels of progress turning.
This is a trailer for an
independent documentary film. This documentary shows the process of
designing a bicycle for and with Ugandan bicycle couriers, known as
Boda-boda. Filmed primarily in Uganda, it shows the realities of
current day East Africa, from the chaotic streets of Kampala to the
inside of gritty mud-thatched homes in rural Hoima. In Uganda many
residents use cheap, clunky bicycles for their primary means of
transportation. Through a unique collaboration between an American
designer and Ugandan couriers, a new bicycle design was conceived and a
prototype was
made. I then traveled to Uganda to meet the couriers and to have the
bike tested and critiqued. The completed doc was awarded best
documentary short at the Northwest Projections Film Festival 2009.
Global Gutz is the
worlwide alleycat race. Cities around the world organize a local
alleycat and race simultaneously against every other city. This year's
winners will receive a ticket to the Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWC) in Tokyo,
Japan this September.
A reincarnation of the original “human
powered rollercoaster”, a
figure-8 bike racing track featuring an “over-under”. The Guatemalan
version will be made of clay with a wooden bridge. It will be a
featured attraction at CMWC 2010 and serve as the primary pre-event.
Jed Lazar
doesn’t ride an average bike. Then again, he’s not riding it for
average reasons. Although many of us don a helmet and mount our cycles
in order to get to work, pick up groceries or just spend an afternoon
outside, Lazar’s reason for cycling is all business. Co-founder of
Soupcycle, Lazar rides his bike around the streets of Portland
delivering handmade, organic soup. But because of a multitude of
reasons, Lazar’s business isn’t the only one that’s harnessing the
power of pedaling.
Last year brought a spike in gas prices teamed with an increased
national conscience with regard to both our personal health and that of
the environment; in its wake came a heightened love for cycling.
Born in
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and raised in Cambria Heights, Queens,
where he lives today, Kurt Boone is a writer at heart and a messenger
by trade.
For 13 years, Mr. Boone, 49, has delivered his packages not by bicycle
but the old-fashioned way — by foot and by subway. And with the help of
Fastback Creative Books, a company with offices in the Flatiron
district, he has self-published his poetry and essays.
The other day, sitting in the Fastback office and wearing a black
hooded sweatshirt that displays the letters and numbers of the city’s
subways, he spoke about life as a foot messenger and about the city as
muse.
Bank of Ireland Business Banking announces,
today, Tuesday 24 March 2009, the four finalists selected to the take
part in the Dublin final of its 'Bright Ideas Challenge' which takes
place on Wednesday 25 March from 4.00-9.30pm in the Stillorgan Park
Hotel in Dublin. The four selected companies for the Dublin final of
the competition are ASimil8, which is based at NovaUCD, iFoods, Trezur
and Velocity Couriers who will present to a panel of judges and a
public audience on the day. The final will form part of the Bank's
first Business Advice Show during the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Enterprise
Week.
Held in conjunction with the City & County Enterprise Boards the
'Bright Ideas Challenge' aims to encourage and support both innovation
and enterprise in business start-ups, SMEs and individuals who are in
the beginning of early stages of development. The chosen winner will
receive a cash prize of €5,000, along with a mentoring and training
package from the associated County Enterprise Board valued at €5,000.
They will also go forward to the national final of the Bright Ideas
Challenge in early 2010 with the opportunity to win another attractive
investment package.
Couriers pointed to a unique vulnerability due to exposure to both the
ground-level ozone and particulate matter present in smog and to
exposure to
peek levels of pollution together with long-term exposure to non peak
levels.
“Bicycle couriers work all day, year round in the midst of smog. Our
lungs have minimal opportunity to recover from the effects of polluted
air. We are chronically exposed to high doses of dangerously polluted
air for long term, extended periods of time.”
The athletic nature of the profession requires messengers to “spend
more time outdoors, breathe faster and engage in vigorous physical
activity.”
This danger to couriers is exacerbated by the location of the athletic
activity which means that a bike courier’s “lungs are not more than
about 10 feet from an exhaust pipe for most of the day.”
Since the release of “Choking us to death,” many studies have confirmed
couriers’ concerns.
February 21,
2009 9:00 pm at Dufferin Grove Park, presented by The Bike
Joint
Icycle 09 Ice bike race is ready to roll
again. Come for the action,
stay for the rubber race. thrills, spills and definitely Chills. After
party at the Bike Pirates @ 1292 Bloor West
Bike
Portland's three-part story on Portland's bike messengers
As Portland’s reputation as a green business boomtown gains momentum,
bike-centric ventures emerge as quickly and viably as organic brewpubs
and cafes. While a new era of entrepreneurs seeks to capitalize on this
evolving economy, one of the oldest bike-based businesses, bicycle
messenger services, faces challenges that impact workers and business
owners alike.
The danger-to-compensation ratio of bike messenger work starkly
contrasts with that of other jobs that require constant exposure to
hazardous elements. For example, construction workers typically receive
relatively higher pay rates and are protected by workman’s compensation
laws, if employed by law-abiding companies. Food and beverage service
workers in Oregon are granted an hourly wage by law, plus workman’s
compensation protection and - in some cases - options to purchase into
group health plans. Despite the injury-rich nature of their work, bike
messengers typically do not. More....
If you believe the FedEx spin doctors, the
only reason their employer decided to fork over $27 million - after
nearly 10 years of litigation and in the worst economy since the
Depression - to settle the Estrada case is that it just wanted to "put
the matter behind us." They claim that their decision to call it a
decade in the biggest FedEx labor and employment case ever had nothing
to do with the merits of the driver-misclassification case.
What's more, FedEx said that the agreement in the landmark case "has no
bearing" on any other pending legal case, such as the huge Federal
misclassification litigation on behalf of 27,000 drivers working its
way through U.S. District Court in Indiana.
Is FedEx to be believed in its post-judgment rhetoric? No! As anyone
who has been following the FedEx follies knows, the company has long
lived in a state of fantasy and denial when it comes to trying to
defend in court and then publicly rationalize its sham, independent
contractor model. Even in the face of a $27 million, final stipulated
judgment in California, it continues to misrepresent what has occurred.
Free of any sugar-coating or spinning, here are the facts behind the
Estrada judgment:
The 203 drivers will receive a total of
more than $14 million in documented damages, which comes out to about
$70,000 on average per plaintiff. The minimum reimbursement is $2,000
and the maximum is about $280,000. Part of the drivers'
recovery is pre-judgment interest from the date the drivers paid for
FedEx's operating expenses.
Those reimbursement amounts were
determined after the Court-appointed retired judge painstakingly
reviewed thousands of pages of records, including expense receipts for
everything from the purchase of insurance, fuel for trucks, tires and
oil. These were all business expenses that the drivers should not have
had to pay, and would not have paid for if they had been properly
classified as employees.
The legal fees that FedEx likes to focus
on are being paid by FedEx, not the drivers, for work by counsel during
nearly ten years of litigation. The company conveniently fails to
mention that no driver ever paid out-of-pocket for their legal
services, and that all attorneys fees were reviewed and preliminarily
approved by the Court, who commended the Plaintiffs' lawyers for
ensuring the drivers got the full measure of their damages without
reduction for legal fees.
The relevance of Estrada to the Federal
class action will not be determined by the FedEx PR department but by
the U.S. District Court Judge overseeing the huge, multi-district case
in his Indiana court, where single work area and multiple work area
drivers are included in the certified class and are challenging - right
now - FedEx's business model.
The Plaintiffs have asked the Court to
rely on the Estrada judgment in determining the drivers' employment
status, so FedEx's claim that the California case is irrelevant is
wishful thinking. Ultimately, FedEx faces an exposure in the
billions - not millions - for its misclassification practices across
America.
FedEx has once again tried to sidestep the
real issue -- how it treats its drivers like employees, refused to pay
taxes and provide benefits that all employers are required to provide.
Clearly, this strategy failed in Estrada and we believe it will fail at
the Federal level, as well as before the IRS when that agency completes
its full tax audit for the years under scrutiny.
In
September 2007 then-Senator Barack Obama introduced legislation that
would close the
safe harbor
loophole that the messenger industry relies upon to exploit labour
laws. The
messenger courier industry was a pioneer in misusing
independent contractor status to exploit child labour in the late 19th
and early 20th century.
Now
that Obama will be president on January 20th there will be a renewed
focus on the misclassificaltion of employees as independent contractors.
Here is the information once again on Obama's bill:
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) introduced the "Independent Contractor
Proper Classification Act of 2007 (S. 2044)," which addresses the issue
of classifying employees v. independent contractors.
Behind the introduction of the legislation is Obama's belief that
employers misclassify workers as independent contractors rather than as
employees to avoid compensating for minimum wage, overtime pay and
benefits.
His legislation closes a perceived loophole in the tax code that occurs
if an employer has been consistently reporting workers as independent
contractors to the IRS and if the employer can verify its
decision-making based on reasonableness in that the employer relied on
the advice of an attorney or accountant's interpretation of the
statute.
Sponors include Senators Durbin, Kennedy, and Murray. The bill
introduced on September 12, 2007 addresses what the sponsors view as
weaknesses in the current laws regarding independent contractors. The
bill would:
allow
the IRS to require employers to reclassify workers misclassified
as independent contractors;
authorize
the IRS to issue regulations and revenue rulings establishing
standards for properly classifying workers as independent contractors;
eliminate
the ability of employers to rely on industry practices
as a reasonable basis for classifying workers as independent
contractors;
require
the IRS to develop a procedure by which employees could
challenge their classification as independent contractors;
provide
protections against retaliation for workers who take
advantage of the challenge procedure;
require
IRS audit of employers that have misclassified workers
and require misclassifications to be reported to the Department of
Labor;
require
DOL to investigate industries that are revealed by IRS
data to have high rates of misclassifications;
require
the DOL's FLSA poster to inform workers of their right to
challenge their classification as independent contractors;
require
employers to notify independent contractors of their federal
tax obligations, of their right to obtain a determination of their
independent contractor status from the IRS, and of the labor and
employment law protections that apply only to employees; and
require
employers to keep certain records relating to independent
contractors for three years.
From the 1960s to the '90s, CBS News
correspondent Charles Kuralt was "On the Road," looking for stories and
people where no one else was looking. Kuralt died in 1997, and many of
the people he discovered are gone as well. But the stories haven't
ended. That's why we sent CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman to
follow Kuralt's trail, "On the Road … Again."
In a city known for crazy drivers, he may have been the craziest. He
was a guy who cheats death by sometimes just a fraction of an inch …
just like he did when Charles Kuralt met him 23 years ago.
Back then, Kuralt asked David Leopold, a New York City bike messenger:
"You don't stop for red lights?"
"I don't stop for red lights," Leopold said.
"You don't stop for pedestrians," Kuralt replied.
"I go against traffic. People go, "gasp gasp," he said. "All day long I
hear that."
As Kuralt said in his original report: "At 24, David Leopold is an
outlaw legend - the fastest and the flashiest of Manhattan Island's
last romantic adventures - the bicycle messenger. He passes trucks, he
passes busses, he passes mounted policemen as if they were standing
still - and all taxi cabs."
“IT’S Russian
roulette every day,” said Cassandra Castillo, a tough, tattooed
26-year-old who is one of the city’s handful of female bike messengers.
“Every day we’re two paychecks away from disaster.”
Each morning, Ms. Castillo removes her bike from its hook on the
ceiling of her apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, pulls her short dark
hair into a ponytail, checks Weather.com (“Messengers live by
Weather.com,” she said) and hopes that the day’s hustle will treat her
well.
According to the New York Bike Messenger Association, of the city’s
approximately 2,000 bike messengers, 50 to 100 are women. The
messengers, however, say they know of only about 30 women, and Ms.
Castillo estimates that a mere dozen of them work full time.
Many of them know one another, if only by the color of their bikes or
the type of bags they carry. Carmen Burkart, a slight, tight-bodied
43-year-old who smokes and drinks only hot coffee for hydration, even
in the summer, can think of only five women who ride full time.
The International Federation of Bicycle Messenger Associations (IFBMA)
is pleased to announce that Copenhagen messenger Martin “Banana” Larsen
has been awarded the 2008 Markus Cook Award. The Cook Award is
presented annually to “to the courier who inspires and empowers the
wider messenger community, the messenger that puts all of us before
themselves.”
The MCA was conceived as a way for the international messenger
community to thank it's most dedicated workers. Nominations are sought
from the messenger community for those individuals who have done most
for us.
Martin is a veteran messenger who as IFBMA president, Andy Duncan,
notes “is “known for tireless hard work, organizing messenger races and
pulling people together.” Messenger championships all over the world
have benefited from his sacrifice and dedication. From Copenhagen, Oslo
and New York City to Sydney, Dublin and Toronto, Martin’s influence is
not only upon the Championships but also the messenger community.
Through his leadership in the IFBMA, the Copenhagen Bike Messengers
Association and the Toronto Bike Messenger Association, Martin has
fought to improve living and working conditions for all messengers.
At much personal and financial sacrifice, he spent much of the past
year in Toronto helping to organize the 2008 Cycle Messenger World
Championships. His experience, his diligent efforts and most of all his
example were a gift to the city, its cycling community and its
messengers. Before Martin left six months later he laid the ground work
to unite the struggling community and rebuild the city’s Bike Messenger
Association.
2006 Markus Cooke winner, Kevin “Squid” Bolger lauds Martin’s work at
the 2002 CMWC. “I was blown away with dedication and attention to
detail that he exhibited in producing the main event. I asked him to
show me how it worked and he gave me his completed notes and
instructions in a leather binder.” He also “helped enormously with the
main event. His ideas and execution were invaluable.”
Squid echoes the entire messenger community when he says “I am happy
and proud to be a part of awarding the Markus Cooke Award to Martin
'Banana' Larsen!!
October 9th is
Messenger Appreciation Day! Let's congratulate all bike couriers
on the benefits they bring to our cities:
a solution to the problems of pollution,
congestion and gridlock faced by large urban centres
reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the
downtown core
take up less space on the road and do
less damage to the roads than cars resulting in better conditions and
streets for all road users
increase the safety of pedestrians
compared to cars.
provide a value added service that
continuously improving firms seek out as a means to reduce costs and
improve efficiency
are ambassadors of goodwill for the city
year round cyclists who promote the
bicycle as a viable form of transportation and economic development
The
mayor of Toronto proclaimed Messenger Appreciation Day every year
from 1997 through 2007.
This is the first time in 11 years the city has not proclaimed it. Other
Messenger Appreciation Day celebrations in New
York City, Chicago
(proclamation)
and San Francisco.
Bicycles offer a healthy, hassle-free
alternative for entrepreneurs to deliver their products.
When Daniel Corno opened his Pita Pit
franchise five years ago in the heart of Washington, DC, he knew
deliveries would provide an important revenue stream. The only question
was: How to get hot food to customers' doors in a dense, urban
neighborhood with snarled traffic and few parking spaces?
Pinched by both logistics and expenses, Corno shifted gears, settling
on the lowly bicycle as the best way to pedal his pitas. His riders are
a common sight on the streets and sidewalks of the Foggy Bottom
neighborhood, and teaming up with DCSnacks, another bicycle-based
delivery service, helped boost his sales by $2,000 a week.
Besides more timely deliveries and fewer parking tickets, Corno found
there were definite economic advantages to the low-tech distribution
method. First, salary expenses went down because he didn't have to
build the cost of gas into his drivers' wages. Secondly, with no
motorized vehicles to worry about, his liability insurance plummeted.
And finally, much to Corno's surprise, turnover decreased.
"A lot of drivers think the money looks good until they get their gas
bill, do the math, and decide they're not making enough," he explains.
With gas
prices hovering around $4 a gallon, Corno is glad he made the decision
to park the delivery van, and it seems other entrepreneurs are jumping
on the two-wheeled bandwagon, as well. Courier services from coast to
coast are adding newfangled bikes to their fleets and touting the cost
savings of going gas-free.
Most of the tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan who have lost
legs to land mines have no way to make a living other than begging.
But one group of "mine survivors," as the United Nations calls them,
has come up with another way to feed its families. It operates a
bicycle messenger service in Kabul.
On a recent morning, Afghan bicycle messenger Amin Zaki hands out
documents to be delivered from a Kabul park that he calls his office.
Fellow messenger Abdel Sabur tells his colleagues where they'll be
working.
Normally, the messengers would also divide up pizza delivery duty. But
as it's the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the work on this day is
limited to documents.
A few minutes later, the messengers get up off the grass and walk to
their bikes. One is on crutches and the others are limping.
Each of the men has only one leg. But they don't see the loss of the
other one as a problem in their line of work.
The transportation of goods and children through an urban landscape is
a universal need. In Copenhagen many our of citizens choose the
self-propelled transport option and cycle to work, school and on
errands.
On any given day you'll see people moving things about on their bikes.
A ladder, a newly-purchased bean bag for the living room, heavy bags of
groceries dangling from the handlebars. It's what we do.
In Copenhagen, however, we have our own version of the SUV. We call it
'ladcyklen' or 'the cargo bike'. Often there are goods too large or
cumbersome for convenient bicycle transport and if you have a child or
two or three, they have places to go and things to do and you are the
one who has to get them there.
In Denmark the three-wheeled cargo bike is the vehicle of choice for
moving things about and the cargo bike market here continues to enjoy
steady growth. A cargo bike is a generic term for any bicycle that is
designed to carry 'stuff,' whether it has two wheels or three.
The necessity for cargo bikes is as old as bike culture itself. Since
the early part of the last century, cargo bikes have moved things
around the city. A little sub-cultural group formed rather quickly in
cities, namely 'svejerne'. They muscled their heavily-laden cargo bikes
through the streets and were known for their rowdy tone and for
whistling at girls. Half a century before the modern bike messengers.
Indoctrination into the cut-throat bicycle
messenger world, where time
is money and money comes per delivery, can be daunting.
Lindsey Welsh lucked out, and she knows why.
"I'm the new kid on the block," said Welsh, 29, of the South Side, who
six months ago became the only full-time female bicycle messenger in
Pittsburgh. "I get treated very well, because I'm the only girl. I
didn't get the normal rookie treatment; they had to be nice to me."
About 15 riders work full time for Pittsburgh's four bicycle messenger
companies: Steel City Delivery, where Welsh works, Jet Messenger, Quick
Messenger and Stat Courier.
Brad Quartuccio, editor of Bloomfield-based cycling magazine Urban
Velo, said Pittsburgh's messenger scene is like those in most other
cities.
"Messengering has always been a male-dominated thing," said Quartuccio,
27. "It's a boys' club that tends to be jockish."
It’s midday, and I’m sitting with a group of bike messengers at the
Beach – a hangout known by most passersby only as a cement bench near
Place Ville Marie. At the moment I’m speaking to Papa, who, at 47, is
one of the older messengers in the group. He’s standing a few feet away
holding his bike and a joint, and telling me how he quit his job at a
rubber factory to become a messenger.
“At this job, you’re outside; you have central control over what you
are doing,” he says. “Me, I can smoke my joint a couple of times a day,
and no one bothers me. I can smoke it all day long, that’s it. Couriers
aren’t in boxes.”
The bike messenger business is changing. Electronic document transfer —
especially for legal documents — has cut into the business. But now,
high gas prices and new bikes that can carry bigger loads mean that
bike messengers are branching into bigger deliveries.
New York City’s bike messengers remain a fixture on the streets, having
weathered the advent of the fax machine and, of course, e-mail. Now,
with the cost of gas pummeling courier companies that rely on motorized
vehicles, a few enterprising cyclists are using the opportunity to
generate more business.
A small but growing number of pedal-powered messengers are outfitting
their bicycles and, in some cases, tricycles, with boxes and flatbeds
on which they can load hundreds of pounds of cargo.
“Eighty percent of the jobs done in a van I can do,” said Hodari
Depalm, the owner of Checker Courier, a cargo messenger company in
Manhattan that says it can move up to 200 pounds of documents by bike.
Mr. Depalm said his two-man messenger business had increased by 20
percent within the last year.
Auckland
City Harbour News, Friday, 15 August 2008
2008 Cycle Messenger World Champion Jenna
Makgill
The St Lukes resident was the best woman rider in the Cycle Messenger
World Championships held in Toronto during June. The 22-year-old, who
works for Urgent Couriers, says she wasn’t expecting to come away a
winner. But riding around the hilly streets of Auckland gave her the
edge on the competition.
"Auckland is one of the hardest cities to courier in. Here couriers are
more aggressive and people aren’t used to having bikes around," she
says.
The competition involved riding a set course for three hours dropping
off and picking up packages at different checkpoints, while locking up
her bike in-between deliveries. And just to make things that little bit
more difficult, Jenna had to deal with unpredictable weather.
Atlanta's bike messengers count about 10 of
their kind on the roads.
They ride Downtown to Midtown sometimes a dozen times a day to deliver
documents with the urgency of e-mail and the gravity of paper. Some
couriers say they expect business to go up to keep gas costs low. Some
say their workload will shrink as more businesses and government
agencies figure out how to do their work online.
For now, this is their job security: cars can handle the long haul and
fragile cargo, but in Atlanta traffic, a bike gets there faster.
Ottawa's 2ndNorth Side
Polo Inviational (NSPI) takes
place August 2 - 4, 2008. Here is the Gobal National
story
on Bike Polo featuring Ottawa's Mallets of Mayhem
and Los Marcos.
Ten years ago
on July 23, 1998, Toronto messenger Wayne Scott made tax law history.
For the first time a court decision made it possible for bike and foot
messengers to deduct their extra food expenses as a business expense
equivalent to "fuel". After a lengthy 18-year battle, the court
ultimately agreed with Wayne's argument that the extra food required
by messengers to perform their jobs was similar to the gas required by
car couriers to perform their jobs.
The orginal court decision allowed couriers to deduct $11 per day as a
fuel expense for food. As of 2008 the current deduction permitted is
$17 per day. The automatic deduction is based on the number of days
worked and it is not necessary to submit supporting receipts unless the
courier attempts to deduct an amount greater than the daily limit.
Revenue Canada underestimated Wayne's grit and determination. After
losing early battles in the Tax Court, he appealed to the Federal Court
of Canada where he was finally successful.
The current limit amounts to a tax deduction for food of about $4,250
every year
for every bike and foot messenger in Canada.
Two lines of four people square off across the parking lot, each
balancing on their fixed-gear bikes with only the heads of their polo
mallets resting on the ground.
This is urban bike polo, a game that's hijacking empty lots, basketball
courts and sometimes parking garages across the country and world. Here
in Sacramento, it's played twice a week in the parking lots beneath the
freeway on X Street.
Here is a great pitch
reel for New York City's
CycleHawk
Messengers . This is a demo reel for a proposed TV series about the
world of a New York City based bike messenger company. Produced by
Steinway Productions.
The few, the proud, the otherwise unemployable. Welcome to the chaotic
world of bike couriers on the rugged streets of Toronto . See the
cumulative effects upon this invisible minority after years of working
too hard for so little. Experience the desperation, the humanity, the
fear and the dreams of Silver and Stinky. These two characters view
society from down in the underground economy. It is not always a
pleasant viewpoint, but still, they find ways to have fun. Watch as
they wrestle with issues, both personal and world-changing. Silver and
Stinky are veteran bike couriers. Theirs is a nine-to-five job for
misfits. This play marks the first time actors Kelly Fanson and Greg
Dunham have worked together.
Ottawa police
are stopping outlaw cyclists after an elderly man was knocked down by
one who was riding illegally on a Pretoria Bridge sidewalk last week.
Constables Steven Lewis and David Zackrias were downtown yesterday
handing out warnings, fines and information pamphlets to cyclists
breaking a myriad of rules.
CMWC 2008 was the longest weekend of my life - almost 2 years. It was a
roller coaster ride of hope and optimism that caused me to witness some
of the most inspiring and some of the most disappointing behavior
during my life in the messenger community.
But now that it's over I can't help but think about the best and worst
of CMWC. The best part of CMWC is always the people. Messengers from
all over the planet carry the party from country to country every year
inspiring more of the same to join the trek. People like
Switzerland's Luk Keller and Porno Steve whose positive attitudes and
infectious smiles spread not only throughout CMWC but around the world
too. It's no wonder they both seem to look younger every time I see
them. And people like Martin Banan who showed up three months
early to help, just in time.
But for everything that has a best there's also a worst and CMWC is no
exception.
The moment the fresh batch of competitors
walked their bikes to the starting line, spectators could tell that
this group of cyclists were not quite the professional bikers who were
racing earlier in the day. These riders had tattoos of pirates and
skeletons covering the length of their arms. Some wore cut-off shorts
instead of spandex. And all of them had canvas work bags slung over
their shoulders as they clutched their handlebars, ready for their race
to begin.
When they are not busy delivering packages, most of these New York bike
messengers see the city streets as their unofficial playground, and at
times, their illegal racetrack, facing-off in street contests they call
"alley cat races." But on June 15, they participated in a different
kind of race — one that did not involve dodging pedestrians or weaving
through rush-hour traffic at 25 miles-per-hour. There are differences
between the messengers and the pros. The street riders' pre-race diet
is often beer instead of energy drinks. It was also alien locale. The
race, part of this year's Harlem Rocks 35th Annual Skyscraper Cycling
Classic, was held in Marcus Garvey Park, up by Fifth Avenue and 120th
Street. Many bike messengers rarely travel above 100th Street since
most of their business keeps them downtown. Still, says James "Speedy"
Hines, a Harlem resident and a bike messenger for two decades: "It
feels phenomenal, man. Just to be racing amongst the pros — I feel like
a pro biker."
Toronto's bike couriers have ganged up to give
themselves a smoother ride on the job.
You might've seen Cheryl Douglas, 57, weaving in and out of the city's
busy intersections before, but she's doing it with health benefits and
better wages now that she's a part of Courier Co-op Toronto.
"We did the math and said 'this is ridiculous,' these guys work hard
for just a few dollars," Douglas said yesterday while at the Cycle
Messengers World Championships on Toronto Island's Hanlan's Point.
Officials with the co-op, with just five members and in its seventh
week, were busy promoting themselves yesterday amidst other bike
messengers competing in races and bike polo competitions.
"(Bike couriers) make under minimum wage as it is and we wanted to
change that," said Shane Murphy, 39, a courier for the last 16 years.
"We want the courier to feel he's making what he's worth."
Harlem Rocks with messenger racing as part of the 35th Annual
Skyscraper Cycling Classic on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 15th, at
Marcus Garvey Park in New York City. Four-rider teams will compete in a
“package pass” relay race on a specially modified racecourse. The race
kicks off at 3:30 pm, just before the professional men’s start at 4:10.
Squid, the iconic New York City messenger and owner of Cyclehawks
Messengers stated: “This is a great opportunity for messengers to show
their positive impact on the city and to get a chance to share the
stage with the pros.”
The messenger teams
will compete for a $1,000 prize list and a track frame offered by
Affinity Cycles, technical advisors on the messenger event. For
registration information please contact: jay@jaypeg.net
Live coverage of
Harlem Rocks will be available for free on WCSN TV and to a worldwide
audience via WCSN’s broadband network www.wcsn.com.
Spectators will enjoy the live coverage on a jumbotron positioned just
beyond the start/finish line on West Mt. Morris Avenue and 121st Street.
A bicycle messenger who had recently started his own delivery business
was killed Wednesday when he was hit by a pickup next to Alamo Square,
San Francisco police said.
Kirk Janes, 35, was killed at 10:55 a.m. at Fulton and Steiner streets
at the northeast corner of the square. Janes had recently co-founded
the business American Flyer and was also known as an artist, filmmaker,
photographer and fencing enthusiast.
Janes was heading east on Fulton toward downtown in a bike lane when
the pickup driver, headed north on Steiner, struck him in the
intersection. Police Department spokesman Sgt. Wilfred Williams said it
is unclear who had the right of way at the intersection, which is
controlled by signal lights.
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.
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?
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 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.
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 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.
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.”
This is article confrims
the dangers of particulate matter for athletes that couriers warned
cities about in 1999. Here is the key medical piece of advice from the
article:
"Still, virtually every
expert interviewed said that Americans should not stop exercising
outdoors. Rather they suggested that exercisers should keep their
distance from exhaust-spewing cars and check air-quality forecasts
before venturing out."
Messenger
boys (and girls) were the poster children for child labor in North
America. Western Union alone was the single largest employer of child
labour in America. Messenger companies shamefully exerted a tremendous
level of control over these young boys and girls yet they still were
able to claim them as independent contractors.
In response to the exploitation of children by messenger companies and
others, the National Child Labor Committee was organized in 1904 and
was chartered by Congress in 1907. Photographer Louis Hine documented
many violations of child labour laws in the messenger industry. As a
result of his pictures the many states passed laws banning the
employment of under age children culminating in the Fair Labor
Standards Act, (aka the Federal Wage and Hour Law). Companies fought
the law all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the law and
declared the Act constitutional in 1941.
