| | 9/12/00 |
| | 5:51:00 |
| | Subject |
| | U.S. News and World Report Article |
| | Body |
| | Here's the story from U.S. News |
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| | http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/000918/couriers.htm |
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| | Ross #34 |
| | Houston |
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| | I took the liberty to cut and past the story here!! |
| | Jean Andre |
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| | Spandex, spokes, and a lotta nerve |
| | The strange and wondrous life of couriers |
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| | By Andrew Curry |
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| | PHILADELPHIA–There were sleek titanium road bikes with razor-thin tires, fixed-gear track bikes with no |
| | brakes, battered mountain bikes, and cargo bikes capable of hauling 200 pounds. On a grassy wedge of the |
| | city's sprawling Fairmount Park, a cold can of beer in hand, Matt Rowley surveyed their owners: bike |
| | messengers from across North America and from as far away as Zurich, Tokyo, and Budapest clad in bike |
| | cleats and ragged shorts, sporting mint-green hair and dreadlocks, lip rings and elaborate tattoos, and all |
| | gathered for a single purpose. This is why Rowley became a bike courier. "How many jobs actually have a |
| | community?" he asks. "Go to a dentists' convention and I guarantee you it won't look like this." |
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| | Rowley and about 500 other couriers spent Labor Day weekend in Philadelphia competing in the eighth annual |
| | Cycle Messenger World Championships, which bring couriers from around the globe to vie for the title of |
| | "Fastest Messenger in the World." The race course includes mock offices, making the contest one of |
| | organization as well as speed as couriers try to pick up and drop off the most packages. But the meeting is |
| | also a chance to trade stories (about strange deliveries, like human organs and multimillion-dollar checks, for |
| | instance) and complaints, such as the need for better pay and basic benefits for a job that is one of the riskiest |
| | out there. |
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| | "One out of 20 people I train will last more than a month. Either the riding's too much, the pay's too little, or they |
| | just get scared," says San Francisco messenger John Thompson, who has been "messing" for six years. |
| | Couriers in the United States make an average of $21,600, by one estimate. Meanwhile, oblivious or angry |
| | drivers are a constant threat, as is the risk of getting "doored": being brought to a violent halt by a car door |
| | opening unexpectedly. Most rookies wash out in the winter, when rain, snow, and ice turn each day into an |
| | endurance contest and each delivery into a potential disaster. |
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| | Bike couriers have been around for at least a century, with messengers in California riding a Pony Express-like |
| | relay route as early as 1894. Telegrams and packages were delivered by bicycle at the end of the 19th century, |
| | though delivery vans and motorcycles supplanted bikes by the 1930s. Not until the urban traffic and tight |
| | deadlines of the 1970s did the bike messenger return. By the 1980s, they were a fixture of urban life. A |
| | hardworking New York courier could make $40,000 a year, and the industry spread to other cities–despite such |
| | threats as the fax machine, overnight mail, and E-mail. Today, couriers are crucial to Internet Web sites looking |
| | to satisfy customers with one-hour delivery of videos and groceries. "When I started I had old-fogy guys telling |
| | me this business was going to be gone in five years," says Rebecca "Lambchop" Reilly, author of Nerves of |