By Larry McShane, Associated Press

Boston Globe, May 6, 1992
 

NEW YORK -- Once they were urban fixtures, document-lugging road warriors flashing through traffic on two wheels. Now, bicycle messengers are becoming scarce, unable to outrace technology, insurance and the economy.

"There's still a few daredevils out there, but not many," said Bill Goodman, director of the Association of Messenger Services.

More than 20 percent of New York City's 305 messenger companies have closed during the past two years, continuing a decline that began a few years ago with the fax machine explosion, he said.

In the heyday of the Spandex-clad bike messengers, they were as common as cabs in Manhattan, flitting in and out of traffic within inches of bumpers and door handles, terrorizing pedestrians and defying delivery trucks.

A movie glorified the life of the bicycle messenger -- "Quicksilver," in which corrupt options trader Kevin Bacon found redemption on a bicycle seat.

One messenger, Nelson Vails, went on to win a silver medal as a track cyclist in the 1984 Olympics.

But many of the messengers ride no more, left behind in the 1980s with leveraged buyouts and the rock group Duran Duran. Several services no longer use bicyclists at all -- Bullit Courier, which runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, uses folks on foot or in vans.

In 1987, there were an estimated 5,000 of them here. But the bad economy deflated a lot of bicycle tires. Sixty-five messenger companies have gone out of business since 1990; about 1,500 bicycle messengers still have steady employment, said Goodman.

The best and the boldest could pull in $1,000 a week by zipping through 40 deliveries a day. A $400 week is a good five days in 1992, said LeRoy Barker, a bicyclist for the Exodus Messenger Service.

"Lots of guys have just left it. There's no future in it," said Barker, a six-year veteran.

Hard economic times were not the only problem.

"It was an outlaw industry for a few years," said Bob Wyatt, owner of Orbit Light Speed. "But after a few" injury "payoffs, the insurance companies learned what's going on. And the politicians learned, and workmen's comp learned."

Politicians began enforcing a law requiring the bikers to become employees, rather than work as independent contractors. Insurance companies, suddenly aware their clients were whizzing down Seventh Avenue in mid-day traffic, jacked up the premiums.

Wyatt, who broke in as a bike messenger a decade ago, remembers paying $500 to insure all his riders when he opened shop in 1984. His cost for liability insurance this year: $150,000.

The fax machine was a killer, too. "They hurt us all the way down the line," said Goodman. "We use 'em ourselves. You can't stand in the way of technology."