I remembered something today.

I haven't thought about this for a while but on the short cold ride home from the shop tonight something hit me. I remembered the turbulent times when I had to get out of the biz. I realized that the crucial issue came down to the fact that I worked for a fat lazy dispatcher.

I'd put him at about 260 pounds and believe me he took in more calories than I ever did. Maybe it would be like someone trying to coach me in cycling(or any other sport) who had never ridden a bike let alone been physically active. Insulting somehow...

No problems with the boss, or the previous dispatchers, just that guy in particular. He was a car dispatcher, and he wanted to treat me like a car. His laziness offended me when I would have to do that one last round trip ten mile run for 3$ that wasn't worth the pint I'd have to down that night to forget so that I could get back in the morning and not want to swing on him.

This isn't something that most people understand. It's not like working in a stable and secure job where when the boss or supervisor wants you to clean up the shop or do inventory before closing. This is for another hour on a day where you have only made twenty and knowing that your weekly check will only be 3$ greater, and you're wet. Knowing that this slob won't apologize when there isn't any work the next day coming in and knowing that you could loose your job("self employed"/"independent contractor"). And in the end after it's all over knowing that he will never ever back you up when the shit comes down.

Luckily I feel secure in what I am doing now, and in all likelihood won't have to go back and if I wanted to the work(in Atlanta) wasn't there to begin with and won't be any more in the future.

But the thought came to me... One day I could have to go back.... if that were to happen I wouldn't work under a fat lazy dispatcher.

Some of the best bicycles that roll out the door of any bike shop are not the ones you see reviewed in magazines, or linked between many of the velo blogs. They are the bikes that bring people(and whatever else you can fit on them, or on you while riding them) to their destination in a healthy, environmentally conscious, sometimes quicker, less stressful.........the list goes on..... way. More importantly(at least to me), these bikes give people a better understanding of their environment and perhaps along the way a better understanding of themselves and those around them. Obviously the whole peace and love via biking thing could be a stretch and is certainly a bit nauseating at times. Sill while few would call me the optimist I imagine some sense of solidarity with my fellow cyclist and have made many fast friends, a few worthy rivalries, and only the occasional nemesis.

If a bike is to do any of this, the least it must do is work. If it is even possible for a bike to do all of this, then it must be a bicycle that you want to ride. Obviously the bike we all want to ride is different from person to person, and sometimes different from day to day(me thinking about the next project before the current one even has wheels on it). Whether the thing you need and let us not importantly forget want... be brightly collered parts that you don't need but definitely want, or a front rack that you need to bring home groceries(and a 6...make it 12 pack), a custom built frame, or even despite our namesake a brake, we not only make it our business to hunt the parts down and put it together, well we also enjoy it.

Alyson's bike is a prime example. And the rickshaw I am still working on is another but I don't even have a picture of it.



What started out as a "art bike" from sopo that was the bike that Alyson wanted to ride, soon made it to our doors in the form of a frame and a fork and some other parts haphazardly assembled to it.
The fork steer tube was and still is too short, the bb needed retapping, the rear triangle was and still is bent, her original headset was missing the bottom bearings which was the only way for the "artist" or "mechanic" to cover up the real problem that the fork was too short, the quill of the quill stem was dysfunctional......at the begining and the middle and the end it was apparent that a new bike could and would have been cheaper, which is either the testament or the fallacy of french threaded peugoets and conversions everywhere.
Either way she is riding the bike she wanted to ride.

Procrastination post naccc's

It's been more than a few months since we went to chicago for NACCC's and I finally have pictures up so an article can now follow.


Erin, Bobby, Mariana, Kyle and I loaded all of the bikes and gear up into the van and got on our way to Chicago. On the way up we saw this awesome picture inside a Pilot truckstop above the beverage coolers of some arctic track bike pilot jersey wearing rider with a future helmet.




After many hours we reached our destination and proceeded to fill our faces with Chicago's fine food, this didn't stop for the remainder of our stay. Bloody Mary's, Pizza, Open Faced Deli Sandwiches, Way too spicy Burritos, lots of good stuff. Sadly we didn't get to try this awesome cake that looked like a hamburger

Registration was held at possibly the worlds weirdest sports bar downtownish. And we soon recieved our registration numbers, this year printed on cordura type fabric so as to last longer and look better pinned to a messenger bag. This was my bag/number.

We passed out that night after beers all around town on the bike and then back at our abode. We woke up early for quallifiers. Bobby and Kyle didn't know quite what was in store but I had given them some idea. I believe Kyle and I started on the same heat and Bobby on the one after so we were all out on the course at some point together.

This was my third Naccc's so I had tried to inform my "teammates" with as much of the previous knowledge I had gleaned from the previous events so that they wouldn't be stuck wondering what to do in the middle of the course once they were handed their manifests. The intricacies of the manifest, being able to drop in any order but having to pick up in order, no going backwards, being polite so as to get through checkpoints quicker(not something everyone learns their first lap around the course), stops having both a name and a number(such as a business having both an address and a business name), carrying those fed ex tubes in your mouth if it comes down to it, being ready for any type of ridiculous situation at checkpoints, and all of the other usual little quirks that the NACCC's entail.

The first deviation from my past experience was that this was in reality a cyclocross course. Calling it anything else really doesn't do it justice. This is not a negative thing, but just a fact. Sure there were paved sections, but there were also wood chips, bariers, dismounting, grass, gravel, roots, drop offs, and sand. The two flats I had that day were both a result of wood chips going straight through my tire. So while wishing we had brought some knobbies with us we set off. Kyle and I racing on the second or third heat of ten riders, and Bobby racing in the next behind us.

The "Team"

The second change was one we encountered half way through the race. In years previous you were judged on your best of two shots at a qualifying manifest. Ex. complete manifest one. Rest. Decide if you wish to better your time. And then potentially go again. Half way through the first manifest(which I and many others assumed to be my last) I heard wispers that we were going to have to do two in a row to qualify. This was unbelieveable to me in my state of exhaustion, but in fact turned out to be true. This double manifest situation was the result in Bobby looking like this.

Exhausted Bobby.

Which isn't to say that I wasn't exhausted.

I ended up having alot of fun on the course. Despite it's physical and temporal challenges I accomplished what I had set out to do as my personal pass fail requirements by qualifying under everyone from Atlanta but not qualifying. In this our party was lucky as we were spared the pain of having to get up the next day and race again, and we all took the opportunity to see the amazing sights of Chicago on our last day during the main race.

Erin and I cute and touristy!

They had alot of cool parks and they are making a bid for the olympics. I hope they make it , and I hope we can make it back.

Just so I don't loose this.

1 ounce silver rum
1 ounce dark rum
1.5 ounces pineapple juice
.5 ounces lime juice
.25grenadine
.25 of orange curacao
1 cup crushed ice
1 fruit stick for garnish
1 sprig mint for garnish

combine all except garnish and pulse blend for a few seconds.
Happy birthday while we're out Calu, and I think I figured out my favorite tiki drink.

NACCC's

Leaving friday morning. Chicago here we come.

Perhaps

I went a bit too hard. But to the reserves coming in behind shoes as big as BoBo's you had better hit it hard or move back in with your mom.

Been out of the game

For some time now. Been working as a wrench at a scooter shop on top of the usual wrenching for the bikeshop. Pedaling into work learning to enjoy riding for ridings sake again. Not looking at the bike as a paycheck. I can still come out and drop some packages on Mondays, however the week is usually so busy that I've got little left in me to make it worth even coming out. Plus it's summer so it's not even really worth coming out. And then you realize there is a few nipples that need tweaking(lame joke) and I don't make it out. Well I'm going to try and make it out tommorow, it'll be good for me and good for these fucking rookies to catch some shit. By the time I get annoyed at them and I don't even have to see them, then you know they need to get yelled at or something.
Speaking of rookies, now I am one in another field. While self evaluation always leads to self flattery. I would hope that I don't profess to be the scooter wrenching master after only a short while dealing with the horribly designed beasts for only a short time. Would I open up a scooter shop knowing only having a shallow understanding of the industry. Now then why would two rookies both with less than a year of experience want to start a courier collective? Doesn't that seem a bit cocky. Well thats what is happening, and to top it off the least experienced of the two has snaked work out from under Justin who has worked out there ten times as long as this particular rookie.
Well maybe bad ideas have a way of sorting themselves out and I should stop caring about it, it's not my business(pun) anymore.

heaven forbid

that you specialize in something and do it well. you want walmart you drive down the highway and get it. you have a need for a specific niche then you go to a specialty shop. when the shop isn't walmart you get mad? makes no sense to me. we do what we do well because it is what we know and love. we never professed to be sources of anything else, and when you ask for knowledge and services outside of our mission and even our very namesake... how could you be surprised when we tell you thats not our department?

I've been

Reading about a lot of people bitching on internet forums lately. About how much it sucks when a bike shop charges them for anything, and that the people who own or run the shops are bad people for charging.
As far as products go, I know for a fact you are much more likely to get a deal if you have something in return to exchange, such as beer, or tattoo's or food. But otherwise there is little reason we should devalue our goods on account that you feel like cool enough of a dude to get a discount. So when expecting for some crazy reason a free or discounted tube or something ask yourself if you have given these people anything free from your small business lately? Or hooked them up with goods from your place of employment? Or do I race for their team? If you have had to ask yourself these questions then the answer is likely no, because if the answer was yes, the percentage would all ready be taken out of your receipt. Oh and the only thing more awkward than asking for a discount you don't deserve is someone having to tell you you don't deserve it to your face.
There are also a few tricks that don't work so go ahead and stop using them. The I can get tubes cheaper somewhere else trick. You know what if you can then you wouldn't be coming to my shop to buy tubes so thats a lie. And if you really can get cheap tubes elsewhere then that must mean you have to get a tube right now because you are flat and at my shop, so there is little reason for me to give in and charge you "the 2$ that the other place charges you,"because you don't really want to walk the six miles to the other shop.
As far as labor goes. Hey my sink is broken you wanna come over and fix it for free, no you don't, it's not going to happen. Everywhere I go people charge me for drinks, food, tattoo's, gasoline, or doing my taxes. It's shitty I'm the first one to admit but we live in a capitalist society, and I don't know where inside my store it says that I am running it for charity, if you can point that sign out I've been meaning to take it down for some time now. So I am going to charge you to do pretty much anything to your bike. And I'm not going to let you borrow a specialized tools. I bought them by working and you feel entitled to them by your own folly.Next time you walk in and somebody charges you for doing something to your bike that you don't have the knowledge, tools or both to do, you shouldn't be any more surprised than to see a bill at the end of a dinner at olive garden. It's true that somebody a long time ago lied to cyclists and told them that bikes were cheap. This has never been the case. I am sorry you and I were both lied to.

Wheels.

Made more money this week building them than riding them. Slow time for packages this summer, fast season for the spoke wrench.

Dispatchers

Now that I have a well intentioned dispatcher it is a little bit harder for me to draw upon the anger present in the normal courier/dispatch relationship. I have to draw upon long forgotten wounds. My current dispatcher rides into work which is a pleasant change of pace. Instead of a fat slob pushing me harder and harder on a rainy day. I now get to smile knowing that he is about to get his. In factor should really be a requirement for anyone whom dispatches cyclists to ride in A couple days a week.
And don't forget that no matter how many times you help them out of a jam that when the axe falls they will let it fall down to you.

First day back

After a long trip, the first day back is always a little strange. Your tires allways seem a bit too low and slow. Or maybe your chain is too tight. Soon you fall back in the rhythm and everything clicks back in.
Pretty soon you feel right at home with oncoming traffic taking lefts into you. Pouring sweat pushing into elevators with perfect perfumed suits.
Receptionist, "Is it hot out there," well honey it ain't raining, and you're not the one getting me wet.
Which brings me to another little known fact. Bicycle couriers are also amateur meteorologists. Even in the digital age nobody trusts a weatherman if he isn't on the street so people come straight to the source. Usually with startling stupidity. Couriers worldwide come into offices pushing soaking manifests toward receptionists, lawyers, doctors, and every type of people far too educated don't catch such a subtle nuance as the trail that soggy vans leave on expensive carpet. Clever answers include things that you would never say like, "No It's not raining took a swim with all my shit including your package before I rushed your package over." Who knows how I would explain away the snow in my hood if I worked in a colder city, and maybe my lack of tolerance for dealing with,"Is it snowing?" is half the reason other than just not enjoying it.
The thing you have to remember though is that these people are presumably more educated and certainly make more money than we do. All the while they can't remember to put an address on a package, or bother to look out their windows with beautiful views. No, we check the weather for ourselves, because we have to deal with it. Before we head to work, at the office, and on those nifty weather updates they've got on the elevators now, it matters to us. Slipping out an hour early before the downpour means one more day you can wake up and put on a dry bag, and thus one more day before you go ahead and do something worthwhile with your time. So if you ask nicely we'll clue you in, and quite likely we've got a better chance at predicting correctly than Al Roker.

Feedback

Someone today said that the day of the hook is over. If that is true than the day of the bike courier is at an end as well. That or the rates have to go up.

Two and a half years.

Yami and I always joke about how when he quits I'll have to work for another five years so we can say that we've both worked the same amount of time. There are many things you can accomplish in five years and working for the same company I started at as a rookie would only be justified in the pursuit of other goals.
Getting canned over the phone was a bit of a surprise. I've seen quite a few cyclists(and ten fold more drivers) get washed through the company. Some lasted a day, well usually it would be a winter day with 20 mile winds and oh I'd say 8 hours of 33degree rain sometime the week before Christmas. Or a week, in the middle of June and the dehydration and exhaustion sent them home for the weekend that turned into a week, and then turned in their radios for the paycheck. A select few however enjoy(or tolerate it) and can show up consistently and even make something more of it than a paycheck to paycheck existence.
My problem say the vets, was trying to turn a company reliant on the rookies inexperience and resulting pliability, into a consistent source of fair income and honest work. Companies who want to keep your checks low to keep you coming out and always working harder for bigger checks that never come. Knowing that when you burn out there will be someone else willing, or even begging to take your place. Hopefully even a rider living with their parents to whom pay is secondary to the all important social capital of courier cred. But at the back of my mind was always the looming reality that there were only so many companies in town, and a couple of burned bridges would leave me without anywhere else to go, so I stayed on. Until they forced my hand.
So luckily I got my foot in at the elite company in town(thanks BoBo, and Larry). And the last few weeks have me convinced that a change was needed.

The split.

This is something that all couriers must deal with but it is even more annoying in Atlanta, not only because I have to deal with it," but because of our geography. Years ago most of the work was centralized around the courts downtown with legal clients situated along peachtree no more than two blocks or so to the east or west. Before I came out clients started moving north, meaning that our job now consists mainly of traversing this 4 mile north south corridor with only two blocks or so of variation east or west. While making it fairly easy for the rookies to learn all the addresses, it enables heartless dispatchers to ruin(or try to) your day.
Example. 1070-to base, i'm clear downtown. Dispatch-come to midtown to pick a round trip headed down to courts.
Now not only am I being dead headed(making 0$ for the four miles up to midtown), but I'm going to be coming right back to where I currently am. At which point in all likelihood the same thing is going to happen again. One of my former dispatchers liked to call it yo-yo. I liked it when he quit.
1070-to base, thats a lot of riding for 8 bucks with nothing else hooked in. Dispatch-silence.....this is the game they play. They want you to feel bad for not being a team player or some such bullshit. They forget a couple of things.
-They get payed to dispatch efficiently which dogging me out for days on end by having me somehow be the only chance for a package on the other side of town.
-I don't exist in two places at once no matter how hard they try to believe this.
-I've been doing this long enough not to be scared of one idle afternoon.
-I rarely refuse packages.
-I save their asses repeatedly.
-I don't complain(to them anyways).
1070-to base I've got downtown covered. Dispatch.....silence
Low and behold 30 minutes later they found runs within three miles of my last drop.

Now I've heard all the bullshit about how I we can't see the whole picture, and how actually we'd make much more money if we jumped blindly at every run like it was the last lap of the scratch. If this was the case it would only take two seconds to explain that to me. Dispatch-to biker, hey I've got 50 bucks worth of tickets set up on a loop starting in midtown. 1070-to base sent me the pages i'm on my way. See how simple that would be. That could be communicated in maybe what ten seconds. Or simply... Dispatch-to biker, hey you're my only hope on this one but I'll hook it up later. 1070-to base, no problem page it. Wasn't that easy, i don't even have to be the last chance on it but if you lie at least i won't view the situation in a negative light, I'll cringe and bear it knowing if even falsely that in the end it will mean a favorable run, or a morning to sleep in a little later.

....Ahh the glory days of going down with 20 court runs and making 100 bucks in an hour on one loop.

Why?

The idea of all this comes from a few places. The urge to write strikes me very once in a while, and some people have said that I should put something out there that perhaps people would enjoy. Recently I've been writing a post or two for NO BRAKES . In that format there is only so much that I'm capable of, things have to keep people positively interested in our services, products and events. If I am to write more I realized it had to be in an independent forum.
Recently I've been reading Dispatch 101 and that was a secondary and not all positive motivation for this(no personal animosity intended). Dispatchers and couriers have always had a love hate relationship, and a testament to the skill of the authors abilities he communicates it in such a familiar way that I can almost imagine that my own dispatcher is behind it. I have to resist writing nasty things on his comment board the same way I have to resist coming back on the radio with a 10-4uck-you!

The bicycle courier has had many cartoonish nemesis' in our sordid history, dispatchers, drug dealers trying to run Kevin Bacon over, and the elvators at 600 are just a few. But coming in near the top of the list, and particularly relevant for the last week is the car courier.. Whom we couriers simply call "some driver". Ex. I'm waiting on "some driver" to pick up his package that was all ready late when i got the page. Typical responses upon chirping a driver consist of, what?, where is peachtree?, something spoken in a foreign dialect, I don't know anything about it, where dat?, dead silence, and I'm busy right now. Now I can't fault somebody for being an idiot, or speaking one more language than I can, but your job as a courier is not to be lost, and we are both quite likely busy at any given moment on a monday through friday 9-5 so spare me the attitude. I can also guarantee that I didn't ask to do your job for you. If it was up to me I would never circumvent you as a car driver dealing with all the traffic between you and your destination. Believe me when I say me even talking to you is 100percent at the request of our mutual employers. Not only am I performing my job and on these particular two weeks the job of my fellow bike messenger(he covered for me when I got married so the least I can do is return the favor, congrats matt and valerie!)but now I am also picking up slack for you and your fellow drivers, doing multiple peoples jobs with little hope of actually making any more money(the pitfalls of the guarantee to be covered in later posts). The grumpiness and sloth exhibited by a driver when you pick a package up for them seems even more extreme when in contrast with the speed and urgency of a driver unloading all of their 20 pound packages on you at once with their children in the back and girlfriend/wife/older daughter in the seat next to them. However "inaccessible" a location you were at while trying to get them to come pick up the 50 pound box you grabed for them the day before, they can find you within a minute flat when they need to throw every one of their packages on you and head for the hills to either produce more children or have a nice family dinner at chilli's depending again upon how old that woman in the passenger seat is. They can find you anywhere and instantly make you realize that the whole being lost thing is only a ruse. Occasionally a driver will come along who is competent and can communicate with fluency and ease. A week or so will pass, then dispatch learns of this and makes sure that you are never allowed to speak with them ever again.