SIX PHILADELPHIA BIKE MESSENGERS TRAVELED TO TORONTO FOR
A REAL WHEEL TEST. SOME SURPASSED THEIR EXPECTATIONS.

By Tanya Barrientos

Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 1995
 

The guy with the matching green buzz-cut and goatee made it to the final race, but the bald woman with goggles didn't.

Of course, a good number of the "cyborgs" - the square-jawed and chiseled-bodied German cyclists who were taking the event way too seriously - were at the starting line, too.

And so were three of the six Philadelphia bicycle messengers, who, on a whim, had decided to compete in this year's Cycle Messenger World Championships in Toronto.

It could have been called the Slacker Olympics, the Indy 500 of the two- wheeler set, or even the Lollapalooza of mountain bikes and 10-speeds. What it could never be called was a typical bike race. It was as far from the CoreStates road challenge as bike messengers are from executives.

A cloud of marijuana smoke lingered in the air, wafting up over the unbelievably clean streets of the warehouse district in the southwest corner of downtown.

Hundreds of couriers lined the streets, creating a little world where pierced body parts, psychedelic-colored hair, men in kilts, women in army boots, and speech patterns built around profanity seemed normal.

The Philly team members were decked out in skin-tight fluorescent green bike jerseys with the name of their company - Time Cycle - printed on the front.

They wore Oakley sunglasses that hid, behind the muted metallic shine of mirrored lenses, any anxiety that might be lodged in their eyes.

Still, there was no mistaking that they were wrestling with wacked-out emotions that swung from dazed disbelief at making it to the finals, to secret desires of winning it all.

What if it really happened? What if 24-year-old Kyle Knight, or his 23- year-old girlfriend, Sarah Williams, or even Matt Powell, the 29-year-old part-time substitute teacher, actually won?

Cool. Way cool.

If one of them took the 1995 title, that would mean they had beaten about 600 other bike couriers from 15 nations in a wild, woolly, completely disorganized but totally sincere race of rush deliveries.

It would mean winning the coveted rainbow courier bag, which probably wasn't worth much more than the $50-per-person entry fee, except for the patch sewn onto the front declaring the carrier THE WORLD CHAMPION of pick-ups and drop-offs.

IT'S WORTH THE EFFORT

Yes, they all agreed, it was totally worth the sweat and bruises, the gravel burns on tender skin, the punctured tires, the dehydration, and even the killer hangovers from the dusk-to-dawn drinking parties.

"I had a list of the other prizes but I threw it away. This race isn't about prizes," said Buffalo Bill, a courier from London who helped organize this year's race. He was wearing baggy shorts the color of traffic cones, a sedate T-shirt and a baseball cap with the word HERO on the brim.

"I'll tell you what this is about. It's the one time when hundreds of messenger braggarts are disproven, and one guy can honestly say he's the fastest," said Bill, his clipped British accent slicing the words short.

For Knight from Philly, it was about jangled nerves, and an upset stomach.

"I hate this competition stuff. I don't know why I do it, man," he said on the evening before the final race, nervously rubbing his hand over his very short, red hair.

"I feel bad the entire day when I do this. I'm already so tired, really drained. And, oh man, those Germans, man, I think they're paid racers. Their bikes cost like three grand. They breathe down your neck, man."

The Germans. They were on everyone's minds. The Philly team had nicknamed them "the cyborgs." No dreadlocks in their ranks. No baggy shorts or pierced nipples, or wasted, bleary-eyed riders carbo-loading on beer and Cheez Doodles.

Many of the couriers from Canada, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Ireland and every American urban outpost were, at some time during the weekend, drunk, high or naked.

SERIOUS CONTESTANTS

But not the Germans. They were serious pedaling machines who had crossed the Atlantic bent on winning. One-hundred-percent-muscle racers, keeping their actions and bodies pure for the challenge.

That made Knight nervous. Williams, one of only six women to make the finals, tried to calm her boyfriend, kissing him as she spoke.

"It's OK," she said, cooing that they should all just be happy that they got into the finals.

She was right. Qualifying wasn't easy. The elimination rounds were all-out sprints pitting nine groups of 60-plus riders against a wicked obstacle course, including a gravel alley rigged up with two treacherous wooden ramps pitched to flip bikes. Several package drop-off points required riders to zoom up curved embankments, or dismount and lock their bikes, then hustle up a set of rickety steps.

The riders had to do all that while trying to beat the clock, keep packages from getting bent, collect signatures for deliveries, and go around and around a one-way loop to hit seven package drop-off points. (If they missed a point, they had to go around the entire loop to make it up.)

Powell said he never thought he'd make the finals. And, to tell the truth, he was bummed about it.

"If I have to race I will," he said the night before the final race. He was sitting in the small dorm room that the entire team was sharing for 16 bucks per person, per night.

"I didn't plan to qualify," said Powell. "I planned to party. Stay up all night. And now I can't."

Jeff Appeltans, the 32-year-old bike racer who owns Time Cycle, would have taken Powell's place in a second. He loves racing and started Time Cycle with the notion that it would allow him to train and make money at the same time. He anguished over his elimination from the competition's final runs, and kept replaying his mistakes in his head, trying to figure out why he didn't win.

"Some guy at checkpoint two jabbed me in the knee with his pedal," Appeltans said, pointing to a swollen, red lump on his right leg.

The other two team members - Colin Trainer, 24, and Eric Lavalley, 25 - also reviewed their preliminary runs. Trainer nursed a nasty gash on his elbow, the result of tipping head-first over the killer ramps.

"I went over too fast. I kind of landed on my head and got clobbered real good," he said. "There was a cop there and he said, 'Oh, boy, it's about time somebody wiped out good.' "

All of the members of the Philly Time Cycle team are college educated, and bristle when people call them slackers. They work hard, they say. Harder than a lot of people sitting behind desks.

"The biggest problem isn't the traffic or the danger," said Lavalley. ''It's making money. You are being paid to be a stunt man, but you're being paid a Burger King salary."

Knight said he wouldn't ever apologize for working as a bike courier, even if people have little respect for the spoke-and-wheel vocation.

"I just graduated (from Temple University) in May," he said. "There's nothing I could do now with my college education where I could make me as much money as I do riding my bike."

Knight smiled when asked what sort of professional doors he thought his bachelor's degree in American Studies might open.

"I mean, it's kind of sick, when you think about it. I can make about $100 a day as a messenger" at Time Cycle, he said.

Sure, it's dangerous work.

Said Williams: "Yeah, I've been doored." Being doored is when a parked car swings a door open into a cyclist's path, which can send a speeding cyclist careening into the hard pavement.

But the contestants weren't thinking about any of that once the final race rolled around. The weather was clear and hot, the temperature hovering near 90 humid degrees.

Lars Urban, one of the cyborgs, was favored to win.

"You have 20 seconds to talk to me," Urban said. "I have to check out my bike again. Do I want to win? Ja. Am I ready? Ja."

He was wearing his lucky race jersey, a red lycra top with the letters CCCP on the front. He said it was a gift from a road racing champion from the former Soviet Union.

"But you know, this is all in fun," he said, unconvincingly. "If I win, I drink beer. If I don't win, I drink beer."

Other racers were warming up by riding around the track while chain-smoking cigarettes. The Philly team was double-checking its water supply, and trying to secure a place at the front of the pack, crowded against the starting line.

The final race was one of endurance and elimination.

There would be 56 riders at the start, and after picking up two packages and dropping them off, the slowest 10 riders would be eliminated. The rest would continue for a second round of drop-offs and pick-ups, and then 10 more would be eliminated. So it would go, until only two riders were left, and the first one over the finish line would win.

All three of the Philadelphia riders made it to the fourth round before elimination, but the Europeans, especially those cyborgs, dominated.

In the end, it came down to a race between two Germans - Lars Urban from Bremen and Thomas Sauerwein of Karlsruhe. Urban had taken the German courier crown only six weeks earlier.

After an hour and 10 minutes of grueling speed and skidding stops, Urban crossed the finish line first. He took his hands off the handlebars to raise his fists in victory.

Then he smashed into the crowd. The winner. The champ. The crumpled bike on the pavement.

The Philadelphia team was on the sidelines, already hoisting beer bottles in celebration. It was over and now the real drinking would begin.