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Critical Class
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Bike messengers sport cool clothes as they
wend their way through city streets
By Damon Poeter,
San Francisco Chronicle, December 31, 2006
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here for sound and slide show
Taking a break from her courier duties for First Legal, 24-year-old
bike messenger Miriam Hinds sits in Yerba Buena Gardens eating a
prepackaged sandwich and discussing the state of bike messenger fashion.
"Nowadays, everybody wants to look like a messenger," says the Brooklyn
transplant, with her short red dreads poking out from under a
camouflage cap. "But they don't ride your bike for eight hours a day,
dodging traffic."
"You see a lot of hipsters at art openings,'' Hinds adds. "You see all
these snazzy, nonmessenger track bikes out front. And on Mission
Street. Go down there on a Friday night and you'll see all kinds of
hipsters."
"But the hipster today is the hippie of yesterday," she says, trying to
pin down the derogatory label flung about so loosely these days -- on
the letters page of S.F. Weekly, over drinks at the House of Shields on
New Montgomery, and in casual conversation with just about any young
city resident with a pulse and a social life.
Form has followed function in the evolution of the courier's fashion
and gear, Hinds believes. "The style is what's practical, comfortable.
We all feed off each other. Somebody figures out something that works,
then it becomes a style. The practical becomes the fashion."
The bicycle messenger's identity begins, unsurprisingly, with the bike.
And no bicycle is more emblematic of the devil-may-care lifestyle of
couriers than the brakeless, fixed-gear track bike. Legal messengers
like Hinds, who operate almost entirely on flat terrain, have practical
reasons for riding them. But taken purely as a fashion accessory, the
track bike must rank somewhere between cigarettes and high heels as a
health hazard to its operator.
"They're dangerous," says Larry Morris of nonmessenger -- or
"fakengers," as he calls them -- track bikes. Morris, 38, rides a
largely self-built 9-speed Bridgestone mountain bike on the job for
Western Messenger. His routes take him up and down the city's brutal
hills, making a fixed-gear bike impractical.
Morris has an insider's take on the evolution of bike messenger style.
The Sacramento-area native started riding in his 20s, took some time
off and is in his second five-year stint as a courier. His wife, Diana
Stoen-Morris, also works for Western.
In the 1980s, Morris recalls, messengers wore a simple combo of jeans,
work shirts and sneakers. They rode "clunky Schwinn single-speed
cruisers with coaster brakes and a big basket in front."
"The style sort of blew up after Puck," he says. David "Puck" Rainey
was a cast member on MTV's "The Real World: San Francisco" in 1994.
Though Rainey said he was a bike messenger, few in the courier
community remember him. Morris thinks Rainey may have worked for one of
the courier companies "for a few days."
There's no disputing, however, that Rainey's antics on "Real World''
made him the public face of bike messenger culture, introducing a
generation of kids to a freewheeling lifestyle defined as much by
Puck's obnoxiousness as his supposed feats of derring-do.
"Puck was a real tool," says Morris.
If Rainey made bike messengers look bad to a mainstream audience,
courier bag designers are making them look good. Timbuk2 may be the
trendiest bag maker among the noncourier public, but messengers say
they prefer side slings made by designers who have been messengers
themselves.
"You hardly see anybody with Timbuk2," says John "Ducky" Williams, 20,
a messenger for King Courier. "They're not the most durable bags out
there. And I want to support bag companies owned by former messengers."
Williams carries a messenger bag by R.E.Load, a company started in 1998
by a pair of Philadelphia bike couriers. Morris sports a side sling by
Travis Poh's Freight Baggage. Poh, who still works as a messenger in
San Francisco, sells off-the-rack and custom-made bags at the Freewheel
Bike Shop, with one location on Valencia street and another on Hayes
Street.
"It's the best bag I've ever had," says Morris.
Messenger bags, built to be durable and waterproof, are a hit with the
nonmessengering public as well.
"We probably sell more to nonmessengers than messengers," says Poh of
Freight Baggage.
Hinds admits that when it comes to bags, for her at least, fashion has
trumped functionality.
"I don't like having stuff everybody else has, but I finally break down
and get it," she says, nodding to her Freight bag. "I actually prefer a
backpack to a side sling, because of better weight distribution, but
..."
Williams, a student at the Academy of Art, says his look is a mix of
form and function. The scrunchy key chain he keeps on his arm, his
fingerless gloves, stiff sneakers and hip pouch are necessary for the
job. But his earring and the patches on his courier bag -- bearing the
logo of Mouthpiece, a straightedge band from New Jersey -- tell a more
specific story about who he is.
Hinds, who attended the North American Cycle Courier Championships in
Philadelphia earlier this year, says there are subtle differences in
fashion on the East Coast and West Coast -- especially among female
riders.
"In Philly and in D.C., girl messengers wear knee-high socks with
shorts," Hinds says. "Here, it's more skirts with leggings. Guys wear
tighter shorts back East."
She's quick to point out that for an up-close and personal look at bike
messenger fashion, people ought to come to next year's NACCC, to be
held May 25-28 in San Francisco. But while the public is free to watch
the various races and trick competitions at the event, Hinds hastens to
add, "No hipsters allowed in the events."
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