BICYCLE COURIERS TURN ON THE HEAT AT COMPETITION PUTTING PEDAL TOTHE METTLE BICYCLE COURIERS FLOCK TO TORONTO FOR COMPETITION
By Anne Swardson
Washington, August 14, 1995
TORONTO, AUG. 13 -- TORONTO, AUG. 13 -- The most they usually get fromus is a grunt and a signature. But this weekend, the world's bicycle messengersgot their very own world championship competition.
They came 600 strong, from 15 countries. There were couriers with tattoos,couriers with green hair, couriers with dreadlocks, bald couriers, courierswith British accents, couriers with no clothes on, couriers who speak Danish,couriers smoking cigarettes and couriers smoking pot. Nearly all were lean,tall and hairy, and all, during this weekend when Toronto's climate resembledWashington's, were very sweaty.
The competition attempted to replicate the conditions under which acourier works. So in an industrial district west of downtown Toronto, couriersriding in heats of 60 competitors had to deliver three packages to presetlocations, pick up three more and deliver them too. No cars were presentin the closed-off competition area, but to keep things realistic, the couriersdid have to lock their bikes. And apparently, as in real life, the addresseswere hard to see, as Washington courier Andy Zalan found when he misseda delivery point. That put him out of competition for the final round.
Some 20 couriers had come up from Washington with high hopes. This isthe third year of the competition, which was held in London last year andBerlin the year before that. Both were won by Germany's Andy Schneider.
The iron-thighed Germans swept the event again this year, with LarsUrban of Bremen coming in first and Thomas Sauerwein of Karlsruhe second.Ivonne Kraft, also of Karlsruhe, a part-time courier and part-time trampolineteacher, won the women's division.
Urban, who aced the title of German national champion courier in a competitionsix weeks ago, said he had whipped himself into shape by bicycling, witha group of competitors, from New York to Toronto in five days. Some 100couriers from Germany competed in the event, the largest delegation fromany country. Urban explained the secret of his success as "a combinationbetween the legs and the brains."
The top finisher from Washington was Urk the Commander, he of the greenhair and no other name, who placed somewhere around 20th. Urk, who hasbeen a courier for 13 years, said he dyed his hair because "I justlike green. It's like the driving range and the putting green." Hestopped doing courier work six months ago because "Washington, D.C.,is a very angry city. I got beat up by 10 street vendors one time."
Bad luck hit the members of the Washington delegation even before theyarrived: One group got in a car accident on the way up, damaging severalbicycles. A courier named Cisco bent his frame back into shape, but wasskeptical it would last long. "A $2,000 frame, and now it's worth50 cents," he said.
Zalan said he usually rides nine hours a day in Washington, with 20minutes for lunch if he's lucky. It's not a bad job, he said: You get inshape, and you can pull down $100 a day. More for big jobs, like deliveringboxes of candy to every member of Congress. "I've delivered cigarettes,candy, mugs, all kinds of bribes. Wine bottles are a pain in the {expletive}, and big architectural rolls are annoying," said Zalan, 23. "Generallyyou're pretty much ignored. But what are you going to say to a courier?"
To Ben Stewart, 25, being a courier "is really capitalism in itspurest form. If you work hard, you make money." For him, that meansbicycle deliveries to National Airport or to Maryland; astonishingly, hesaid, some couriers turn down such opportunities.
The weekend was a chance for couriers to commune, to share their loveof bicycles and dislike for authority. Fretting at a delay in the startof one heat, a courier shouted, "Waiting time don't pay!" Respondedthe race official: "Have a mental beer. Chill out, man."
Courier styles differ from city to city as well. Stewart noted thatGerman couriers run six or seven deliveries a day, Washington couriers30 to 40. Toronto couriers, not surprisingly, obey the law, as Canadiansusually do.
"We run red lights. We're intersection artists," said Stewart."They don't here. Of course, if they do, they get a $200 ticket."
Among the countries represented were Germany, Denmark, Norway, Britain,Japan and, reportedly, Afghanistan. At a local courier hangout called theStandby Cafe, participants partied extensively, which may explain why oneWashington courier vomited at the finish line. About 40 of them also tooka nude bicycle ride around downtown Toronto sometime in the wee hours ofthis morning.
The final round of competition was a grueling marathon, in which couriersjust kept going until all but the fastest were eliminated. That meant thatby the time Urban crossed the finish line, he had been sprinting, stopping,locking, delivering, picking up and unlocking for an hour and 10 minutes.He must have wanted to keep going too: At the finish line, he failed toput on his brakes in time and crashed into the waiting crowd of photographers,knocking several over. Then Sauerwein collapsed as he got off his bicycleand had to be revived by the many German team assistants.
For the Washington group, it was a chance to show the flag, literally.A courier named Wally cycled up from Washington, roughly a 12-hour driveby car, in 13 days carrying a District flag, which at the competition wasproudly displayed with a Canadian flag.
There was some dissatisfaction at the considerable level of disorganizationof the race officials, but also a recognition that disorganization is anoccupational hazard. As Stewart put it, "Anything we do that we don'tget paid for is going to be pretty disorganized."
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