Roadside fly.

Eric has been in the NYC messenger scene for while. He now works for
Cyclehawk, is super quick and has no room for new tattoos.

Almost time for some Vaca

It’s been months now. Months of clockwise and counter clockwise riding around the three boroughs of my home in Brooklyn, Queens and of course, the grand island of retarded real estate, Manhattan. All of them connected by a selection of arched and tethered bridges. Some of them are steep and some are full of gawking tourists that have no sense of direction. I don’t ride over the Brooklyn Bridge anymore and it’s not just because it reminds me of my first nightmare of a living situation. It’s just that I don’t really go that way anymore. I went over the other week for a pick-up. The route followed my old route home so I felt smooth and in control like a well tuned barista creating perfect crème on top of an espresso. I’m meeting people and showing up to some of the events. The community is much smaller and tighter than you may think in a city like this that from the outside seems so huge and chaotic. It’s that and it’s also a place people end up finding a home and routine that defines their lives. It’s like no other place I’ve ever been. Once you’re inside the walls, behind the toll booths and under the tunnels, you kind of get the feeling there is no other place on earth and everything one needs is here. It’s a tough place but has its flow. I’ve not been out outside the borders for months now. I’ve had one sick day and maybe a couple holiday weekdays off. I’ve moved once and ordered pizza a couple times. I’m not from around here and by that I mean those of you who say, “Yeah, welcome to the real world". The 9—5, 7 day a week grind that defines most lives. I’ve lived a charmed life I suppose, a life that’s been full of support and opportunity. Travel and chance, food and wine, massaged and catered to is what my life has been all about. What banter! I’m just flexing my ability to be cynical and write stuff about stuff. I bought some crazy Brooklyn Bagels yesterday morning and Mimi and I had more this morning. I can’t get over how much better these giant, hand-rolled and steam boiled bagels are than any other bagel I’ve ever sunk my fangs into. I mean, I admit I was combative and took offense to my old roommates attack on Mr. J’s Bagels in Harrisonburg. “These things are puny little emaciated bagel-shaped pieces of inferior crap!” he would say. Well, yes, I now stand thoroughly corrected.

59th St.

Snapped by xxx (Carlos) yesterday morning. I'm still encrusted in salt
from the storm the day before.

School ain't canceled "Tank".

A.M. Winter.

Extra-cycle

Squid on his way to deliver the living shit outa some packages!

Pass'm out.

Big release from one company sent us sprinting everywhere on Tuesday.

Cycle Hawk at News 12 The Bronx

Bloody, bloody nose.

I had a Bloody nose on Friday. Kid saw it then put the nix on my
midtown nightmare alleycat plans for that evening. In hindsight I'm
sure it was a last ditch effort of my upper handlers to save me for my
grand tour destiny. I went to the start after meeting Mimi at the top
of the 59th st bridge and riding 50 blocks down a cold, dark and
trafficy 2nd ave. Everyone was gathered at the north east corner of
Tomkins square park under the cover of night. Squid brought a bunch of
coffee from the 'Bucks courtesy of Chrome messenger bags, a sponsor of
Cyclehawk. Messengers were huddled around enjoying an after-work, pre-
race cup of steamy go juice. Most were there after a full day
shuttling packages around. I love the fact that since it's a messenger
race everyone races in full on messenger gear. Bags, chain locks wrapt
around their waists, radios etc... For the start everyone set their
bike up in jungle gym area and then piled into what reminded me of a
batting cage, tennis court, animal cage or something. It was a racer-
keeper that night and of course bottle necked during the LeMonds-
style start-the punk rock version. When Stoned Tone said go it looked
like roaches scatering in every direction after you turn the light on
in the kitchen at night. The racers poured into the street and into
traffic. Stop signs, lights, wrong way signs need not apply. To people
in cars it must have looked like they drove right into the path of a
charging stampede of cheetas with wheels. At the first check point
people arrived from every direction, throwing their bikes in a mass
pile, leaning them against parked cars and pushing through the crowd
to get the signature.
Best part is that most people road with out brakes. NYC! I didn't
stick around since it was too painful not racing. The finish was at a
bar in the east villiage. Big one called monster track in a couple
weeks. We'll see.

Wings

!

Ladies and Gentlemen

Stoned Tone, live, on the Williamsburg Bridge this morning.

WTF?

> The bikes people ride in this city... It was gone when I came back outside so I know it's being ridden. Wear your top-tube condoms, kids. This is what happens when you drag a steel chain over your top-tube
> one too many times. On the flipside, you get a good inch or so of
> suspension.
>

Street blogging test

Test test

In the Office.

I'm in the office and it's freezing outside again and the pedestrians all have twisted, tense faces from the icy wind. People are getting tired but it's far enough along in this bitter season that it's becoming routine. Good news is I got some sleep last night and I'm starting to enjoy my new place in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Just needed to cook some good food in the kitchen to get the place smelling more like my home. I'm only an 8 minute ride to the Williamsburg Bridge and 12 from the city proper. The route takes me right through the hippster central of Williamsburg and some nice street art with plenty of subversive cool stuff. It's like riding through someone's tattoo.

People are rolling through the door now at Cyclehawk. Bobby and Kid are warming up the generators and the nextel's are about to blow up. First Bobby will show us some new crazy shoes. "Where are the Gummies?", Says Kid. Bobby says you can't gett'm no more. I want gummies. Gummies? British walkers. Old school, back in the day Kicks. They don't make anymore. You can't get them anymore, he says. Clear. Gummies. Shoes. Kicks.

I drank Decaf this morning. I'm not to be trusted.

Take away the cookies

I've been eating a sleeve of cookies. Got then up the street at this strange little Polish Grocery store and they're half gone. I can't read the label so I feel like I'm eating exotic euro-cookies. A closer inspection reveals the stamp of KRAFT. I've got the week three of training camp metabolism going pretty strong, not that I've ever known anything different, so that means I get to eat cookies for dinner. Every night. After fantastic Veggie stir-fry. I'm working the dawn patrol shift at CycleHawk now. 5:55 AM is my new first thought of the day followed by coffee. Always with the coffee... February 13th, man, I'm doing my first Gritty NYC Allycat race. It'll be good to meet more of the people I see every single day on the streets but never get to talk to. I've had snippets of conversation with a few of them mostly while carving through gridlock traffic staring into mirrors and through windows. At this point I recognize most people I see if not because I know them or I just know their pedal stroke. Now Stoned Tone, I've run into this scene mainstay a few times and once literally the other day riding down Broadway at Wall st. I was rolling pretty fast and jumped through a hole in traffic to the right when I heard a loud "Whoa, son!" When I realized I cut off another rider I turned around to acknowledge the shitty move and it was Stoned Tone. He had on all his winter gear with his jacket hood pulled tight over his head, a loaded bag and puffing down a Joint the size of a mini bike pump. He was just cruising down broadway past the storm trooper NYPD check point for a downtown drop, blazing the whole time. We touched fists, he said to say hey to Kid, and I jumped back through traffic and dove down Exchange Street. The security down there, especially broad street, is absolutely retarded. It's likely to keep people from strangling one of those guys for absolutely screwing the world's economy and getting a bonus for it. Christophe Dupouey, famous doper MTB'er from back in the day, committed suicide today. After he retired from racing he transitioned from dirty athlete to drug ring organizer. And when he got caught and was slapped with a massive 3 month sentence, he became so despondent he ended him-self. It's sad even though he was a cheater. The fact is, regardless of good or bad, elite athletes should have access to post career psychiatric care. I know all to well how quickly darkness can descend when you're not able to be active. Even a rest week can be a devastating experience from all the chemical changes that take place during inactivity. RIP Dupouey.

I overheard this the other day in a fancy restaurant I was delivering to way up on 7th ave: They were two old ladies. One sitting and the other standing by the door starring out the window. The one sitting asks "How much longer are you planning on standing there?", the one standing answers, "All day if I have to. I'm telling you, Ida, I'm really in a lot of discomfort. The food's just sitting there". The one sitting chuckled and shook her head and the one standing uncomfortably just stood there looking out on 7th ave. I had mixed feelings about this strange sneak peak of future decrepitness that we're all headed for one way or another. I can't help but feel weird about even being near these seemingly "rich" people on their fine dining lunch break. My people are not in those places. You'll find us pulling out an awesome lunch from our bags anywhere we find hospitable heat and shelter.

Bolts and Real Estate

Out of the five bolts that hold my chainring to my cranks, only three remain. I guess it was almost to weeks ago now that I was riding up Avenue of the Americas and noticed my chain being way looser then normal. It was because all my chainring bolts were either missing or lose. I rearranged the bolt pattern to spread the load out among the remaining bolts. That worked great until yesterday when the bolts came lose again. I only managed to tighten one of them without the proper tool. It got the job done. The chain and chainring all stayed put and I made my rounds on schedule. Scraping by lean on the chainring bolts reminds me of a sketchy practice of a few pro mountain bikers I know where they'll use only 3 of 5 rotor brake rotor bolts to save weight. Ahem, JB...

After last night's epic last run the boys at Cyclehawk let me roll home at 5:30 today. I used the opportunity to check out City Bicycles Bike Shop and get some new stainless steel chainring bolts. This is the NYC Messengers bike shop of choice. Its long and narrow storefront is lined with the usual road/mtb gear suspects and a nice stash of cool messenger gear. I have to admit I find myself drooling over the sweet nylon radio holsters and messenger bags more than the fancy racer boy stuff. You get true function for your money and.... more money as the case may be if you actually use the gear for work. I also met the owner who is also a frame builder. He filled me in on all the major group rides North of the City. Unfortunately, riding a long distance is kind of the last thing I wanna do on the weekends at the moment. I got a call at 6:30 for some work to take me home. I was picking up a giant bundle of paychecks to take downtown for a real estate company. The package wasn't ready so I flipped through one of the many real estate capitalist magazines. It read more like a doomsday program than a "how to sell a happy new home and make a million dollars" journal. One article talked about how brokers are so desperate that they are starting to broker rental properties since no one is buying homes. Brokering rental properties is apparently considered "bottom of the barrel" and "only for losers".

When I was finished I took a high speed traffic wave down Delancey and over the Williamsburg Bridge to meet my punk rock buddy Zack for some burritos and Guitar lessons. I chose the late night ride through Brooklyn to my place in Cobble Hill instead of the train. I'm really trying to map this place out and it's cool to ride at night. I'm cashed.

Nighthawk.

Getting shut in elevator doors.
Bitter and irritated doormen.
Pissed off drivers of all sorts.
Buses.
Near misses.
Cold Toes and fingers.
Drinking a pretty large coffee in two minutes flat.
50 cent coffee "refills" at Starbucks. Same cup now for two weeks. Yep. "Get a card", they say, "and refills are free.". Oh? Maybe I will.


Today I went to what ended up being a wrong address. When I asked what floor the company was on the doorman muttered, "ain't here no more", too busy looking at an assortment of Porn DVD's to even look up. The salesman was standing there with his big bag of porn and asked me who I worked for as I talked to Kid over the radio. The dude was probably a messenger turned porn-pusher. A logical next step. Porn is one industry that likely survives a recession better than most. Funny thing about that wrong address is that the sender was in the same building as the receiver! Kid chimes over the radio and says, "you're not gonna believe this, but those guys are in the same building you just picked up from". I still had to ride but the folks who sent the package payed me to take it 16 floors up the elevator from their office.

Riding over the Brooklyn Bridge heading toward Brooklyn at night is, I think, more spectacular that riding toward the city in the day. You get a good spanning view of a lot of the bridges over the Hudson. Could also be the positivity generated from pointing in the direction of home.

Last runs of the day were wild tonight. I came downtown holding 2 packages with four pickups and they all had a deadline of 5:30 or 6. I ended up charging down through Wall st. and back up to the East Village to handoff a bunch of Chinese Herbs to Julio from Cyclehawk. I was sprinting through the night with my pack dodging people, cars and animals. Up Bowery and down Bowery to Grand and then Centre and finally 120 Chambers for the finale. I enjoy the evening rush. By 6pm everything is quiet.

We are the Meems and Pro.

Street meat.

The days are exhausting. The New York City way is all about being on the go, though, so I just “grab a slice”, fold it, and keep rolling. Cyclehawk begins taking pick-up calls at 8 A.M. about two and half hours after dispatchers Kid and Bobby leave the Bronx and enter the mass transit maze into the city. The subway delivers them about ten steps from 303 West 42nd Street, CycleHawk’s Times Square Headquarters. Meanwhile the riders, who are spread all over the Bronx, Harlem, Queens and Brooklyn, are gearing up for whatever the streets have in store for them. The Veteran riders are all on call in the City at 8 A.M. ready to go, long over the rookie drama that can hinder any casual workday. By rookie drama I mean, waking up to flat tires, dead radio batteries, dirty bikes, no clean shorts and sometimes just not waking up at all. Some of the vets even have families and 8 full hours of sleep under their belts! The Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges are loaded with messengers commuting to work in the morning hours. It’s easy to spot a messenger from the bike-commuting crowd. Even though the hipster trend these days closely emulates the messenger getup, the messengers will show a true bonded comfort level in utilitarian cycling gear and, depending on what the of the week and weather conditions, a haggard yet still pretty efficient, pedaling style. Lotta ins, lotta outs, really.

These holiday weekends make starting the work week very difficult. Last night I was in bed by one or so and I set my alarm for 7:30. This would leave plenty of time to go through a very bike racer-esque morning routine. One might even say it borders on ritualistic dependency. That alarm did not go off. Or, it went off and I didn’t hear it. Or, the computer that is my phone/alarm clock froze, like they do. Whatever it did, I didn’t hear it and slept until 8;45, 15 minutes before I should be at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. The Manhattan side! All I heard as I woke from my evening of restoration was the sound of my Nextel radio’s alert beep. Beep, beep, beep! Beep, beep, beep! I pressed the answer button and said, “good morning”, trying not to sound like I just woke up. Kid’s voice came over the radio and said, “ Pro, I need you in the city ASAP! Hurry up, ok, we’re busy and I’m short handed”. Ah, shit. “Ok”, I said and started gathering everything I needed, which in the winter is many layers, so many layers. I was still focusing on coming out of sleep completely while also trying not to forget things like gloves, pens, radio etc… And the basement I live in is so hot since it’s right by the boiler room. I end up putting all my gear on and immediately overheating from the heat and the dehydration of morning. It’s tough to judge what to wear sometimes. I’m always asking my self, “Do I really need this jacket?” Getting out of the house always leaves me overheating and winded after climbing two sets of narrow stairways with a huge courier bag, bike and faghetaboutit chain lock wrapped around my waist. I made it out a couple minutes after nine this morning after mainlining an Aloa Loa fizzing vitamin mix. No food. Hell, back in the day this was how the pro bike racers trained. It’s still the classic way to do a morning ride. It kick starts the metabolism and clears the liver! One of my first runs of the day was to 770 Broadway to pick up an offices mail and deliver it to the uptown office. The receptionist’s desk had a frickin’ bowl of candy on it the size of a bully’s candy bag after a night of beating up little kids for their candy on Halloween. The bowl was blooming with little individually wrapped, toxic, diabetes-bites. I had nothing in my stomach at this point. Nothing! The health-buzz from the Aloa Loa had long warn off and left me with that clean, anxious feeling of having earned something… Something bad. Just one. No! I can’t, I won’t, I… have no control. The guy behind the desk had to go in a back room to get the package and left me all alone with fake chocolate and other terribly crunchy and sweet things. I found my self putting piece by piece in my pocket like I was saving it for when things got really bad. The rest I just ate on the spot, justify every poisonous gluttonous bite. It goes right inline with my theory on donuts. They are best are best allotted occasionally in modest amounts rather than avoided entirely because once a dog tastes blood it goes insane! Only bad things come from this. Mimi knows. I’m still learning, always with the learning. My stomach was not happy when I left that place. Later in the day when I was back I noticed starbursts had appeared in the jar, so I had a serving of fruit. There is this public health service ad in the subway that reads: “When you don’t eat breakfast, you’re not all there”. Usually I would look at that and be like, “Oh, for the love, like people haven’t figured that out! “.

For Lunch I had a Halal chicken sandwich at one of those street food carts in the city. So good! It’s crazy how those guys pile these huge piles of meat in the corner the grill in prep for the lunch hour rush. It’s kind of creepy. “Careful you don’t get sick. They don’t call it street meat for nothin’!”, say’s Squid.

My bike is a pile right now and that’s pretty normal for this time of year. I always have ambitions of being one of those people who keep their stuff nice. I think I just ride harder than everyone else. The fixed gear is a beautiful thing when it’s snowy and icy on the streets. Not having a brake in that stuff actually makes sense since ‘gearing down with your legs is the best way to have any traction at all. Avoiding drainage grates and sewer covers is a general must. They are slicker than god even when dry. Speaking of NYC sewers, they are so key to the aesthetic of this city. Their steamy exhaust makes riding through any cross street into a cool scene from batman.

Coffee Cake toaster @ Cyclehawk.

Slow

The city must have had a big night out last night. I'm back in the starbucks at tompkins square after only one delivery in the last two hours. Rough. Now, I know I'm still paying my proverbial "dues" as a rookie messenger but everyone else I've been talking to in traffic or at the b side east villiage bar seems to be in the same boat. Maybe the people who would normally call a messenger are kicking off their new year saving a buck and using the delivery as an excuse to leave their own slow office. I've made some friends though with all this time to stop and chat. First thing they ask is "how many you had today?". Sigh. Nod. I bought a patch kit today at bicycle habitat. Recession patch party at my house tonight!