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."
The 16th annual Cycle Messenger World Championships
are taking place June 13-16 in Toronto. In addition to all the official events for registered
participants there are many unofficial and underground events
happening that are free and open to everyone's participation.
Saturday, June 14th
8pm - Navid Presents: Goldsprints Finals and Block Party. Qualifiers at
8pm, Finals at 10pm. Maple Syrup giveaway! Prizes! 625 Richmond Street,
back alley, See
Map
Sunday, June 15th
12-3pm - Bike Union Social Bike ride: Meet at Little Norway Park (End
of Bathurst St., South of Lakeshore) See
Map
Evening- Island Social - Bring your own Firewood. Contact Navid for
details. See Map
for ferry boat. The dock is at the bottom of Bay St. Schedule
Monday, June 16th,
8pm- Navid Presents: Ken Stanek and Luke Styles' collection of NY Short
Films. Cine Cycle - 129 Spadina Avenue. Coach house behind 401 Richmond
st. After party and BBQ!, See
Map
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 $1,000 prize list and a track frame offered by
Affinity Cycles, technical advisors on the messenger event. For
registration information please contact: jay@jaypeg.net
Live coverage of
Harlem Rocks will be available for free on WCSN TV and to a worldwide
audience via WCSN’s broadband network www.wcsn.com.
Spectators will enjoy the live coverage on a jumbotron positioned just
beyond the start/finish line on West Mt. Morris Avenue and 121st Street.
A bicycle messenger who had recently started his own delivery business
was killed Wednesday when he was hit by a pickup next to Alamo Square,
San Francisco police said.
Kirk Janes, 35, was killed at 10:55 a.m. at Fulton and Steiner streets
at the northeast corner of the square. Janes had recently co-founded
the business American Flyer and was also known as an artist, filmmaker,
photographer and fencing enthusiast.
Janes was heading east on Fulton toward downtown in a bike lane when
the pickup driver, headed north on Steiner, struck him in the
intersection. Police Department spokesman Sgt. Wilfred Williams said it
is unclear who had the right of way at the intersection, which is
controlled by signal lights.
Veteran bike messenger has ring side
seat for city circus
Kevin Bolger refers to the 16 years he's spent
as a bicycle messenger in Manhattan as "16 winters," because the cold
months are when work is abundant and the weather takes its toll.
Bike Bondage! Check out our installation of art bikes beautifully bound
in rope in the shibari tradition. Artfully done by Lord Morpheous. (http://www.lordmorpheous.com/)
Bike films, visuals and sexy surprises to come!
Celebrate Navid's birthday with a race and a drink! See how fast you
can race! Dance your ass off! Do it at the same time!!!!
5$ 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.
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....
