Messengers: They clock hundreds of miles a week, weaving throughcity streets. A select few have no brakes on their bikes. They don't needthem.

By Carl Schoettler
Baltimore Sun , June 22,1999
 

Among the bicycle messengers who flash through downtown Baltimore trafficlike urban cowboys through a motorized stampede, there's a hard-body, hard-pedalingavant-garde who ride track bikes, single-speed, fixed gear velodrome racingbicycles -- with no brakes.

They don't care to stop much, anyway. These guys make their money onthe number of packages they deliver and the speed at which they deliverthem. Track bikes are sleek, simple and fast, and on the kicky edge ofmessenger machismo.

"You want to maintain a constant spin," says Jason Kehayias, a tall,tanned, 24-year-old messenger who wears stainless steel wraparound shadesand close-cropped hair.

"You want to be thinking in circles," Chris Bishop says, somewhat mystically.His black beard outlines his chin and jaw like a "W."

"What you really want is to get a full circle. You want to be pushingforward, down, pulling back, up. Your foot's just floating inside yourshoe."

The track bikes that messengers use derive from indoor bicycle races,where braking invites a crash, like chain-reaction rear-enders on a foggyexpressway.

"They were first called safety bikes," says Bishop, 24. Maybe in a velodrome.In traffic, the occasional stop seems prudent.

"You have to build up muscles to resist the force so you can slow down,"Bishop explains. You have to backpedal, in effect. "It's almost like downshiftingon a car. But you're using your muscles to do it."

They corner a bit like vintage sports cars.

"You've got to skid around turns," Bishop says. "You cut your turnsquicker. When you're skidding around town, it's short skids. You reallydon't want to skid very far. You want to stop as gently as possible. Ifyou need to stop real fast, you can just lock up your wheel altogether."

So what happens then?

"You slide."

Bishop is the North American sliding champion. He won the skid contesta couple of weeks ago at the North American Cycle Courier Championshipsin Toronto.

"What you want to do," he says, "is to get your weight all over yourfront wheel and knock your back wheel up."

Which also sounds like a formula for skidding on your nose.

"The goal is to slide as far as possible," Bishop says. He made it abouta block and won the contest.

Some other courier contests included delivering as many packages aspossible within a time limit, racing up and down ramps in a parking garage,standing upright on the bike for as long as possible, and tossing a bicyclelock at a driver in a car, "every messenger's dream hee hee hee hee," inthe words of the contest program.

A half-dozen Baltimore messengers went to Toronto, including Bishopand Kehayias. They're planning to go to the cycle messenger world championshipsin Zurich, Switzerland, next month.

In Baltimore, about 25 "regular" cycle messengers ride year-round inall kinds of weather. Another 25 or 30 are fair weather "sunshine riders."

All are young men, these days. Mary Vivian Pearce, an actress in JohnWaters films since "Pink Flamingos" and a longtime -- and senior -- messenger("I love it"), is taking a sabbatical. And a young woman remembered onlyas "Christy" has left town.

Not all, or even most, ride track bikes. Reggie Howie, who inspiresawe with his weekly mileage totals, rides a Cannondale Cyclocross, a sortof combination street and mountain bike

"He's the man," Bishop says. At 31, Howie routinely clocks 400 to 500miles a week.

He specializes in the long rides to Mount Washington, Towson and Timonium,often making two trips a day.

"They treat me like an automobile," says Howie, who has a bachelor'sdegree in broadcasting from the University of Maryland. He makes $300 to$440 a week delivering packages for Magic Messengers Inc., the oldest andprobably the biggest of the courier services.

"I love riding," he says. "It keeps me healthy."

No question about that. He's all muscle, gristle and veins, with notan ounce of body fat.

"I've done many, many centuries," he says. That's 100 miles in a day.After he clocks about 300 miles during the week, he rides a couple centurieson the weekend. He rides to Washington or Gaithersburg or into Pennsylvania.

"I don't really stop. There's no need, really. I stop when I get backhome, where I recover," he says.

Michael "Big Dog" Wright, who claims to be the big moneymaker amongthe messengers, doesn't ride a track bike, either. But then he doesn'tmake his money riding. He's a kind of bike-borne paralegal who researchesdocuments at the state Department of Assessments and Taxation.

"What I do is pick the package up on my bike," says Wright, 31. "Bikeup to the state department, look everything
up, do the work they require me to do, then rush it back downtown."

He figures he makes as much as $900 a week. He also says he's deliveredphotos from Camden Yards to The Sun on
North Calvert Street, which is maybe two miles as the bike rolls, inthree minutes.

Bishop and Kehayias and another courier, Wayne Roberts, have formeda company, Marathon Express Inc., which they promise will be biker-friendly.Their rates range from $3 for a standard downtown delivery to what theycall round-trip direct to Canton, which costs $13.50. Bikers get 60 percentand aren't worried about being being replaced by Internet or computer technologies.
 

"Technology's saving us," Kehayias says. "Technology's letting peopledo more volume of work. You have people working harder, I believe. Whichmeans more work for us. Our clients are mainly architectural firms, lawyersand ad agencies. Anything that needs a signature or can't be bent, it'sin the courier's bag."

In Baltimore, messengers seem to get along with police and don't seemto have or cause serious accidents.

"You don't really hear bad, bad, bad things happening to people in Baltimore,"Kehayias says.

The one hazard they hate is the great plume of black smoke that burstsfrom a transit bus pulling from the curb.
"When you're riding behind and you get hit by that, it's like solidparticles," Bishop says. "It's not just hot air."

On Friday nights, most of the couriers congregate in the downstairsbar at the Brewer's Art on North Charles Street for rest and recreation.Their favorite drink is Resurrection Ale.