Spandex, Spokes, and a Lotta Nerve (Story)
U.S. News & World Report, 09/18/2000

Highlight: The strange and wondrous life of couriers
Section: Science & Ideas

Full Text: (Philadelphia) PHILADELPHIA--There were sleek titanium road bikes with razor-thin tires, fixed-gear track bikes with no brakes, battered mountain bikes, and cargo bikes capable of hauling 200 pounds. On a grassy wedge of the city's sprawling Fairmount Park, a cold can of beer in hand, Matt Rowley surveyed their owners: bike messengers from across North America and from as far away as Zurich, Tokyo, and Budapest clad in bike cleats and ragged shorts, sporting mint-green hair and dreadlocks, lip rings and elaborate tattoos, and all gathered for a single purpose. This is why Rowley became a bike courier. "How many jobs actually have a community?" he asks. "Go to a dentists' convention and I guarantee you it won't look like this."

Rowley and about 500 other couriers spent Labor Day weekend in Philadelphia competing in the eighth annual Cycle Messenger World Championships, which bring couriers from around the globe to vie for the title of "Fastest Messenger in the World." The race course includes mock offices, making the contest one of organization as well as speed as couriers try to pick up and drop off the most packages. But the meeting is also a chance to trade stories (about strange deliveries, like human organs and multimillion-dollar checks, for instance) and complaints, such as the need for better pay and basic benefits for a job that is one of the riskiest out there.

"One out of 20 people I train will last more than a month. Either the riding's too much, the pay's too little, or they just get scared," says San Francisco messenger John Thompson, who has been "messing" for six years. Couriers in the United States make an average of $21,600, by one estimate. Meanwhile, oblivious or angry drivers are a constant threat, as is the risk of getting "doored": being brought to a violent halt by a car door opening unexpectedly. Most rookies wash out in the winter, when rain, snow, and ice turn each day into an endurance contest and each delivery into a potential disaster.

Bike couriers have been around for at least a century, with messengers in California riding a Pony Express-like relay route as early as 1894. Telegrams and packages were delivered by bicycle at the end of the 19th century, though delivery vans and motorcycles supplanted bikes by the 1930s. Not until the urban traffic and tight deadlines of the 1970s did the bike messenger return. By the 1980s, they were a fixture of urban life. A hardworking New York courier could make $40,000 a year, and the industry spread to other cities--despite such threats as the fax machine, overnight mail, and E-mail. Today, couriers are crucial to Internet Web sites looking to satisfy customers with one-hour delivery of videos and groceries. "When I started I had old-fogy guys telling me this business was going to be gone in five years," says Rebecca "Lambchop" Reilly, author of Nerves of Steel: Bike Messengers in the United States and an eight-year courier veteran. "Bike messengers are still really needed. The bike messenger is paid to be in your face. A fax . . . doesn't stand up and say, `Hello, I need a signature.' "

High times. While couriers are on the rise (Reilly estimates that there are about 6,000 couriers in the United States and 12,000 worldwide), their image and calculated disregard for traffic laws have caused a backlash in some cities. When a courier collided with a prominent Bostonian in 1997, putting him in a coma--couriers say he was jaywalking--the city cracked down, requiring messengers to buy licenses and insurance and making them liable for fines up to $300.

A greater collision may be the culture clash between couriers and the offices they serve. "We're definitely viewed as second-class citizens" by white-collar workers, Rowley says. But he thinks their derision only masks something else: "They're jealous." So much so that dressing like couriers has become accepted fashion over the past decade: The courier's characteristic shoulder bag is a must-have for dot-com and traditional execs alike.

And when money is on the line, messengers say the usual snubs are quickly laid aside. Says Dylan Canfield, a soft-spoken Seattle messenger: "You're definitely everybody's best friend when you deliver a package in 15 minutes that nobody thought could be done."