Bicycle couriers leave the streets for international indoor race
By Christopher Hume - Toronto Star Entertainment Reporter
April 10, 1997
The cities of the world today are filled with two kinds of people, bike couriers and everyone else: Those who spend their lives trying to avoid danger and those who actively devote theirs to seeking it out. Those who pedal and those who drive. Or worse still, walk.
Couriers aren't alone in their dedication to living on the edge, but risking life and limb - theirs and ours - to deliver a parcel?
Maybe in the beginning they were a bunch of pedestrian-hating, car-eating psychos, but couriers have flourished in the pandemonium of postmodernity. Surfing the city and its traffic instead of waves, they are uniquely adapted to the discontinuity and chaos of the urban landscape..
So perhaps it isn't surprising that corporate culture has discovered courier culture; outlaws and bandits, each using the other for its own purposes..
In this case that means the Dunhill Alley-Cats Scramble, a winner-take-all bike race that will be run tomorrow and Saturday at 1401 Yonge St., on a figure-eight track designed and constructed especially for the occasion.
But the Scramble is more than just a race - it's the most visible and best financed celebration of courier culture ever held in Toronto. In addition to the main event, there will be a lineup of messenger bands - see Club Crawl column, below - and what organizers affectionately call ``the Mini-Nightmare Trade Show.'''
``Bikes, bands and beer,'' declares Alley-Cats founder and driving force, former courier and pastry chef, John Englar, 33. ``Plus, we have a cigarette sponsor. Can't get much worse than that. But really Dunhill's been f---ing great. They haven't bothered us at all.
``Of course, some people think we've sold out. We have. We're just trying to take this thing to the next level.''
In fact, Scrambles have been held in cities across Europe and North America for a decade. The difference is that most were illegal. But not this time. No racing through the streets, shooting the holes and running the lights. This time it'll be indoors, safely hidden from nervous middle-class eyes.. And stop signs..
From a messenger's point of view, this is a mixed blessing: ``Playing in traffic is what it's all about,''' Englar observes. ``Being a pro-floater. You don't follow any line of traffic. You shoot the diagonal.. That's the rush, going for the super-run. It can be very amusing and totally fun, or turn you into a complete mother------.'''
These days, however, Englar definitely seems to be having fun. Five years ago he opened the Jet Fuel Coffee Shop at 519 Parliament St., and the less aggressive existence suits him fine. Besides, his cafe is a gathering place for couriers, which means he can stay in touch with his buddies..
Being a messenger, one quickly realizes, is much more than a way of earning a living - it's a way of life, an attitude, ultimately a paradoxical mix of detachment and engagement. Like skateboarders,, couriers have not only learned to navigate through chaos, they have embraced it..
In this way, they are true creatures of the urban wilderness, better able to deal with the dangerous,, irrational but predictable conditions of the metropolis than its more conventional inhabitants. The courier deconstructs the potentially lethal breaks and warps in the downtown grid, and transforms them into opportunities to perform..
He or she understands that in a nonlinear environment, you must forget traditional assumptions about the quickest route between two points. But getting there isn't just half the fun - it's the only fun..
`Racing on the track is just as dangerous as on the street, except you're not gonna get hit by a bus or truck.'
Crissima Pearce is a perfect example. Not only does the 23-year-old British messenger make the rounds on a daily basis, but she's the defending women's world champion courier. Short, muscular and bursting with good will, Pearce won the most recent Alley-Cats Scramble, held last year in Vancouver.
Pearce is well on her way to legendhood. Born in Brighton, she couriered first in England, then in Munich for four years before Dunhill flew her to B.C. in August, '95. After her win there, Dunhill offered to bring her here and she accepted. At the end of the month, she'll be taking off for Amsterdam, on Dunhill's tab, and after that, Barcelona for the fifth world championships. ``I like it,'' she says in a heavily accented voice. ``It's a good community. You get to ride around all day and meet people from all over the world.'''
As Pearce's career makes clear, courier culture has grown into an international phenomenon. This weekend, 35 of the 150 participating messengers come from out of town, some from acrosss Canada, others from as far away as Spain, Germany, the U.S. and the U.K..
What's happening to this tribe is contrary to all standard notions not just of couriers but of individuality and the group. Outsiders - i.e. non-couriers - see this community as a formless and disparate. They recognize only that bike messengers are The Other..
Yet as couriers' growing internationalism and self-consciousness proves, their ideology is ideally suited to allow maximum individuality within the framework of the larger group. Though they operate beyond the limits of ordinary society, they have now gained corporate sponsorship and entered into the mainstream..
``Couriers tend to be free-thinking, artistic, don't-tell-me-what-to-do kind of people,'' explains veteran Toronto messenger, Collin Slack, 27. ``We're a small community, 300 or so in Toronto, but tight.'''
Slack, who will also participate in the Scramble, rates it as one of the highlights of the courier's calendar. ``The figure-eight race is a finesse thing, it's not just about speed. You need to use stealth.'''
Toronto landscape architect John Consolati, who designed the track with Englar, says the intention was to create a course that allows couriers ``to use their streetsmarts, cunning and agility. The track is 16 feet wide and 410 feet long from start to finish. It's a small, tight space. The speed doesn't get that excessive, but still they're doing laps in 12 to 15 seconds. It's quite exciting to watch them jockeying for position.'''
When the track was set up in Vancouver last September, organizers invited members of Canada's national cycling team to test it with them. ``We shut them down completely,'' Englar recalls. ``If you don't know how to wrangle your bike or counter-steer your way out of a corner, you're not competitive. Racing on the track is just as dangerous as on the street except you're not gonna get hit by a bus or a car.
''No one's been killed yet,'' says Englar, in a tone that indicates it may only be a matter of time.As long as it's not this weekend, he won't mind.
The racing starts at 6 p.m. Friday and resumes Saturday at 10 a.m.
Admission is $5.
Contents copyright © 1997, The Toronto Star.
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