Still sleepy rom the night train from Freiburg I sauntered into a cafe
in Paris at 8 am and asked for a phonebook. There were things I neeeded
like a bike box for my flight home but paramount in my mind was finding
the mythical couriers of Paris.
In 96 this French journalist came to SF before the CMWC to do a feature
on SF couriers. We asked if there were couriers in Paris and he gave
a scornful reply: Paris has only scooters! As if we should've
known that Paris would never stoop to having bike couriers.
Every year at the CMWC there had been speculation then the inevitable
agreement that Paris messengers couldn't possibly exist. Finally
3 came to Zurich in 1999, but their presence was lost in the throngs.
So I was determined to find them. In the yellow pages there were
possiblities, but nothing I could be sure had bikes. I was contemplating
using the force, which had helped me find couriers in Denver, LA and Houston.
That's when you just ride a city aimlessly, feel around for a good messenger
intersection, check out the poles in the areas for the telltale scars and
when you finally see something that resembles a courier, you take off like
a cheetah after a gazelle.
Finally, in the white pages I found Breakaway. I had heard while
working in NY, that Breakaway NY was talking about setting up offices in
Paris...
I went to 18 rue Charlot. It was well labelled. I figured they
would be opening around 9, but then this was the month of August.
In August, the whole nation of France goes on vacation for a month.
It was past nine, I was getting a little nervous. Then this lady came up.
She instantly smiled at me and invited me in. She knew she was looking
at a courier. So I followed her in and looked around the office while
she opened up and answered some phone calls. I stared at a Lightening
T-shirt on the wall from SF. "I worked in SF for 4 years." Sophie
told me, it explained her easy hospitality and the coffee she offered to
make for me, a complete stranger.
Only open a year and not even in the yellow pages, Breakaway Paris
is kicking ass. Already they are faster than their 3 year old cmpetitior
and are beginning to pick up their competitor's clients. "I don't
know what the hell they are doing, they had a great start but they turn
down jobs and they're slower than us. They should be dominating the
market by this point but they aren't, we will dominate Paris, of this I'm
sure." Apparantly the other company hires only from bike clubs, not
a typical messenger breeding ground. She would know having served
at Silver Bullet and Lightening in SF.
"Our guys go all over Paris. At the most we have 6 or 7 and they
cross Paris many times a day going to places that aren't on the map."
It sounded so much like stories I had heard of Berlin. Paris messengers
cover that midrange distance between car and bike that US messengers usually
cover on motorcycle. The equivalent would be Midtown to Bayside,
Queens; Capital Hill to Betesda, Maryland; The Avenues to Candlestick;
Little India to the Loop to name a few.
In a short year Br8kaway Paris has attracted messengers from Australia
to Chile, NY to London. Their latest star is Pablo who is an absolute
madman in traffic. Sophie worries about him incessantly and Patrick has
been known to yell at him, "Pablo, assis-toi, ne bouge pas! Marche,
ne courit pas!" - "Pablo, sit there, don't move! Walk, don't run!"
Pablo easily puts in 100km a day and races on the weekends.
100 km's in Paris are no joke. Being a congested old world city,
where most of the people in France live, it resembles NY thrown in a blender
and then poured onto a map. It's as twisted as Boston, but 25 times
larger, and the only place that really makes since is the Place d'Etoile,
the site of the Arc de Triomphe. That isn't much of a consolation
because from the center of this traffic circle to the outer rim is wide
enough to accomadate 6 cars and a bus driving abreast. Being in the
Place d'Etoile is like riding through a heard of rabid Cape Buffalo.
The Br8kaway crew is a tough bunch. After participating in the
CMWC 99 Sbastian Laurent, the boss of the company, aspires to host CMWC
2001. Paris it turns out, is becoming receptive to green causes,
not unlike Berlin in 1993. Critical Mass has become a city wide holiday
every Sunday along with a rollerblade mass every Friday night. Bike
lanes are assertively placed on major thouroughfares, with concrete blocks
as an outline instead of mere white painted lines. Paris appears
to be seriously changing its attitudes about bike use.
Br8kaway's Sophie, Sebastien, William, Pablo, Alexandre, and Phillip
are a part of that, doing any job no matter how awful and stunning clients
into submission. Alrready the Parisian media has been charmed by
their new pioneers. For those who don't want to do a CMWC America
2 years in a row, Paris is becoming a real option.
One can't help but recognize the efforts of the Paris crew. Sophie
tackles the impossible daily. While I was there I watched her dispatch
37 jobs most of which were motorcycle tags to a crew of 3 messengers.
Her eyes were bugging out looking at the screen and the phone was ringing
insistently. Unflappable she looked at me and smiled and explained
how she had a beautiful line up for one of the guys. I could see
her reasoning I aso saw how the courier would be crossing no fewer than
4 arrondissements. That would be like crossing one and 1/2 Boston
cores.
The most amazing part about my visit is that I felt welcome to come
back and hang out everyday. Br8kaway's office has become an embryonic
Wall of sorts with visitors coming from all over giving their respects.
I had been thinking of trading to get a Br8kaway jersey. I wanted
proof that they existed for my return to the states. Sophie beat
me to it. "I have something for you." This after a kid snuck
into the office and stole a bunch of cell phones. After she ran down
the street and caught the kid and got 2 of them back. She unlocked
the cupboard and pulled out a Br8kaway T-shirt. She was disappointed
that it didn't have Paris written on it. So what. With that
I gave her a DC courier shirt to add to her
collection on the wall.
