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Swap meet, party, raise money for local
bike group
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The
Charm City Bike Messenger Association held a swap meet with vendors,
grilled foods and hosted live music Saturday at Velocipede on West
Lanvale Street in Baltimore City.
By Ron Cassie
The Baltimore Examiner, October 16, 2006
First fax machines, then e-mail and now Internet court filings have cut
hard into the bike messenger business.
More than ever, the couriers say, they need to stick together as the
industry tightens and making a living becomes a greater challenge.
A number of the couriers formed the Charm City Bicycle Messenger
Association late this summer, and the unincorporated nonprofit held its
first official fundraiser Saturday.
The event consisted of a flea market and sprint contest, followed by a
raging nightlong concert and soiree.
They are bike messengers, after all.
“It’s a swap meet, a race and then a party,” said Beth Wacks, a founder
of the Velocipede Bike Project, which hosted the event at its workshop
on West Lanvale Street in lower Charles Village.
There are five messenger companies in Baltimore — VMW, Laser, Rapid,
Quick and Magic Messengers — and together they keep roughly 25 to 30
bike messengers pedaling each day.
The couriers, however, are not company employees. They’re independent
contractors and do not receive benefits. They don’t have input into the
type of insurance plan they are required to pay, the rates they’re paid
or working conditions in general.
“There are unions in some cities, like New York and San Francisco, and
in Chicago, one company recently hired bike messengers on as employees,
but we’re a small city, and it’s harder to pull a significant group
together,” said Bryan Bartsch, a messenger association leader.
Aaron Platt, another seasoned bike courier, said the company he’s hired
through recently switched its payroll and insurance plan for its
independent contractors to a firm that has been found guilty of
insurance fraud.
“Right now, that’s the biggest issue everyone is concerned about,”
Platt said.
“Rain pay, taxes, rates are things that maybe we can address down the
road.”
The messenger association, however, is not just about the Monday
through Friday, 9 to 5.
They want to update the association’s new Web site at charmcitybma.org
with a calendar of events, add a section for posts and blogs, get the
word out on local concert and artistic endeavors, organize their
infamous Alley Cat races, and coordinate other activities, like trips
to the annual North American and World Bicycle Messenger Championships.
“We need the group adhesion,” Platt said. “And we want to maintain the
bike culture in this city. We’re hoping someday to bring the North
American Championships [held in Philadelphia this summer], here, too.”
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