By: Jodie Sinnema
Calgary Herald, July 8, 2001

EDMONTON-- They are a scuffed, scratched-up crowd, but they wear the bandages on their elbows and the scrapes on their legs like badges of honour.

They are bike couriers and they are wheeling their way around Edmonton this weekend for the North American Cycle Courier Championships.

``There will be lots of crashes, lots of carnage,'' said Calgary courier Jarvis Nicolas, 23, sporting a scab under his nose from a kiss with the concrete.

He and nearly 300 other couriers from as far away as Anchorage, Alaska and Houston will be whizzing through the University of Alberta campus during a race that simulates a downtown speed zone.

Armed with office envelopes in dire need of speedy delivery, the cyclists will be squeezing through one-metre pathways, bouncing down stairs and over curbs and zipping past pedestrians during a five-km qualifying race.

During the final event, they will make 114 stops and will have to guard against bad-boy biker bullies along the route who will steal bikes left without locks.