D.C. BICYCLE COURIERS BRAVE THE STREETS TO DELIVER WITH FLAIR
By Liz Spayd
Washington Post, September 2, 1991
Connecticut Avenue, southbound, as the morning rush hour winds down:
A heavy rain has turned the streets to a glaze, and car engines roarfrom behind. Peril abounds, but the mission is clear. A package from MCI's19th Street NW headquarters must be delivered to a company on Capitol Hill.
For his 22-minute cross-town trek, Derrick Brown will risk life andlimb, and be paid $4.40.
Brown is one of about 700 bicycle messengers who ply the streets ofthe District, vilified by pedestrians and envied by those who dream ofclimbing into Lycra shorts for a day's work. To the messengers, the jobis more than mere work -- it's a lifestyle, a sport even, where the streetsare the racetrack and survival the prize.
There are no bosses to pamper, no meetings to attend, no reports tofile and no phones to answer. The workplace is a world of packages andpotholes, of raw nerve and sheer speed, where success is measured not justby how much you make, but how good you look.
"It's all a big ego trip," said Brown, 23, fashionably cladin faded black bike shorts, $110 sunglasses and a crimson T-shirt bearinghis company's logo. "Part of the thrill is seeing how much you canmake in a day."
On a recent day, Brown got about $80 for delivering 23 parcels. Whennot encumbered by a reporter, he and veteran riders like him can bringin paychecks averaging $700 a week, or roughly $35,000 a year.
All the messengers are independent contractors, which means they arehired to do work for a company but have no guarantee of a steady paychecknor such benefits as health insurance. Typically, messengers get abouthalf of what customers are charged for a delivery, which can range from$3 to about $8, depending on how far the package is going and how quicklyit needs to get there.
The business is cutthroat, as the 50 to 60 courier companies that usebicycle messengers in the District constantly try to undercut each other'sprices. The amount of revenue generated by the mini-industry is a closelyguarded secret, although several companies said that the recession andthe advent of the facsimile machine have reduced its size by as much asa third from five years ago.
Still, in a city where paper is king, there will always be a marketfor getting important, original documents across town quickly.
"If you're a lobbying firm, you're not going to be sending congressmenand senators a bunch of faxes," said Kevin Gilead, president of AppleCourier Inc. and head of the Washington Metropolitan Delivery Association."A fax just doesn't have the same effect as a hand-delivered originaldocument on nice stationery."
The competition is no less intense for the messengers, who say theynot only have to pedal at breakneck pace, but also maintain a flexibledefinition of what constitutes a red light.
The trick is to collect as many packages going one way as possible,which requires nearly constant telephone contact with the dispatcher, thegiver and taker of all assignments.
"Yo! What else you got coming?" Brown asks the dispatcherat every stop.
Being a bicycle messenger, though, is not just about relaying look-alikeparcels between nameless office workers. It is more like a cult with amagnetic lure that pulls in whites, blacks, rich, poor, the college-educatedand high school dropouts. Their common bond is an obsession with the bicycleand a disdain for the strictures that their desk-bound customers have cometo accept.
They know an arcane side of Washington: which water fountains are thecoldest, which office buildings keep their bathrooms unlocked and whichsecretaries are the most willing to part with their phone.
"Where else can I get paid to ride my bike all day?" said38-year-old Wayne Haynes, who with eight years of experience has one ofthe longest messenger careers going. "I haven't driven a car in 13years."
In fact, few of the hard-core messengers even have driver's licenses.Many live in group houses around Adams-Morgan and Columbia Heights, andseveral are bike racers who use the day job to stay in shape. That's relativelyeasy because a messenger rides at least 30 miles in a typical day.
Most every courier has a good physique, muscular legs and a lean build,and most have a multi-thousand-dollar collection of neon jerseys, Lycratights, water-resistant shoes and Pearlizumi jackets.
And almost all have nicknames or trademarks for the show on the street.
Downtown office workers may well have seen "The Bartman,"modeled, naturally, after the Bart Simpson TV character. His three-inch-longblond hair is a perfect copy of the animated star's coiffure, and he oftencan be seen with the stuffed head of a Bart Simpson doll secured to hishandlebars.
But Bart, known to his parents as Donald Bury, is most proud of theSony car stereo and 100-watt speakers he has connected to his bike. Lastweek, he rigged up an alarm that lets loose a piercing scream at the merejiggle of his bike.
For the most part, veteran riders have little interest in cozying upto the "rookies," a derogatory label attached to college studentswho show up in the summer and take away work when business is already slow.
It is the college hot shots, the amateurs, who veterans say give messengersa bad name among pedestrians and motorists.
"They're the ones flying down the sidewalks and barreling throughred lights," said Haynes, whose street name is "Wally."
"We may run a light, but only when it's clean," Haynes added,referring to the lights that turn red with no cars in an intersection.Haynes said he has struck only one pedestrian in his biking career.
Determining just how many pedestrians are hit by messengers in any givenyear is difficult. District police say they do not keep statistics on accidentsinvolving bike messengers, though they regard such incidences as a continuingproblem. The messengers say the emphasis is in the wrong place.
"You always hear about the poor pedestrians," said "Beaver"Moore, a messenger of four years. "But it's a lot more common fora car to hit one of us than for us to hit a pedestrian."
Nearly all messengers claim to have been hit by at least one car. Sometimesthe accident can be a career-ender, but usually the victims just hop backon their bikes. Haynes cracked three ribs a few years ago when a cab veeredinto him, and was back on the road within a week. Brown has been in threeaccidents, none serious enough to make him consider a desk job.
Tales about those and other close calls are traded almost nightly inDupont Circle, where messengers gather by the dozens at the end of theday. A few unwind with drugs, but most make do with a six-pack of beer.One Dupont Circle regular is a homeless man known affectionately by themessengers as "The Mayor." They give him food and sometimes money.
The messengers say they love their work, largely because it offers asort of rebel lifestyle that few jobs do. But there are pitfalls, theyadmit -- constantly racing around, hazards on the streets and the realizationthat there's no bright career path in what they do. Although some havestuck to it for years, most last no more than four.
"People see us on the elevator in our flashy clothes and skin tightsand want to be like us," Brown said. "The truth is, there's alot of freedom, but it gets old. If I quit tomorrow, I wouldn't miss fora minute pedaling my butt off to deliver someone else's envelope."
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