LupinIII

if i was a messenger I'd be riding an 80's steel trek with downtube shifters. If I felt like splurging, I'd find an old Ti frame and put downtube shifters on that.

who the **** buys a custom built fixed gear for the street? I like fixed as a recreational thing, but if I had a job where I would be on a bike all day and speed was my primary concern then no way would I be wasting time and energy riding some brakeless fixed gear. though it doesn't sound like she's very fast anyways.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqTxNgEtL4I

ain't no one gonna beat skeletor on his kickass steel mountain bike. these guys should take notes.

wroomwroomoops

ok.

xavier853

Skeletor is INSANE

Yo!

She looks like she just graduated from college.

I wonder if her sweatpants have a KKG sorority logo on them.

All of her friends talk ab how she's weird bc she defected to being a bike messenger as opposed to working for her father's investment banking group.

AEO

PedallingATX

what kind of frame was that? I couldn't make out what it said on the downtube. I saw that it was a lugged track frame, though.

I just bought this helmet last night from a guy on CL. Pretty stoked about it. I needed something that would actually keep me from overheating in these TX summers

Plus it looks cool and, let's be honest, I'm much more likely to actually wear it if I don't feel like a doofus.

day1si

Quick to judge are we...

Yo!

It's all in good fun. Hopefully if she's on BFSSFG she'll have a sense of humor.

BassNotBass

Ahhhh! A peloton of morel mushrooms!!

cc700

Nah, never.

We're really openminded here on BF.

TRaffic Jammer

I would have starved to death doing 8-15 calls a day back when I was messin'.

WoundedKnee

pedallingatx: Looks good. Helmets are rebellious dood.

LupinIII

squarebuilt. iirc some newer custom builder in nyc.

bleedingapple

another thing to consider is that she is part of a co-op and they may be new... and since accounts may be tight in NYC that might be all she gets... that and if she does ride as slow as she seems to 8 a day sounds right...

cardboardhut

Ahh bike couriering: the only job I've ever had where everyone apparently had a better idea than I did of how to do my job. This forum reminds me of that so much.

robertv

I am getting really sick of people who come up with right tools for the right job speeches on this forum. Yes a geared bike allows you to be faster. But being faster is not what being a messenger is about. Sometimes you do go fast, but a 9 hour day, of getting on the bike, off the bike, riding 10 minutes, spending 10 minutes in a building, then riding then minutes, then waiting for 15, then riding ten minutes, then being inside a building, then riding again will wreck your legs really fast. I might ride 4 actual hours in a 9 hour day. If I just went out for a 4 hour ride I'd probably keep a much higher average speed. When I'm working I am not particularly fast. I just try to keep moving forward all the time. A lot of the guy's I work with ride either fixed or singlespeed. It means less fuss with things breaking down. You don't know how much I worry everytime my rear derailleur starts acting up.(Im not the best with fixing things) A geared bike is not necessarily the best tool for the job. People need to quit saying that. The best tool for the job is whatever bike you think you can do 80 km a day on, everyday, can be knocked around a whole lot, will stop in the rain etc... etc... Cheap to repair helps too. I just bought a my first fixie in like 2 years, it probably wont be my work bike for a while. I do a lot of longer distance runs cause I'm new at the company, for me I do think a geared bike is the best right now. Yet most of the guys who are better than me have fixies or singlespeeds. Some have hybrids, some have old road bikes, some have mountain bikes, some are rigid some have shocks. Some ride platforms, some ride clips, etc etc.... Everyone has a different preference. Some guys even had disc brakes.
I can still remember when I did my shadow run how I was feeling very confident for the first two hours, I thought the guy moved pretty slow. By the end of the day he was still moving the exact same speed and I was having trouble keeping up. What really makes a messenger fast is not having a fast bike or even moving fast, it's knowing the light patterns, knowing which streets move fastest, knowing where on which street each address is and managing things like hills effectively. I can ride as fast as most of my coworkers do. I certainly maintain a similar average speed all day but they have been at it longer and are much better at their job.

wroomwroomoops

So, are you against or for brakes?

AEO

^ might help the eyes if you broke it up into some paragraphs.

ADSR

They lost me at "collective." Hippies.

robertv

I have a tendency to forget paragraphs when I'm typing things up into the little text window thing.

And I'm not for or against brakes. It really depends. I'm for brakes for anyone who needs them, which is most people. I had a brakeless bike when I lived in Amsterdam, but Amsterdam is so flat that it really didn't matter. I didn't even have foot retention for a bit and it made no difference. When I lived in Madrid which is pretty damn hilly I appreciated having a brake. I don't have a fixed gear right now, but I've got one on the way. It will have a brake.
If anything I consider brakes to be useful for readjusting the position of the pedals.(Hold front brake, lift back end and rotate)
I know guys who are ten times the rider I am that still have a front brake. Also I like to defend my rights and I am somewhat worried that if I got into an accident being brakeless would be held against me even if it had nothing to do with the accident.

AEO

you don't have rights, these are privileges that are earned.
to operate a vehicle, including bikes, they have to be road worthy.

robertv

And just what do you mean by that?
All Im saying is that I don't want to have an accident that was caused by a drivers negligence blamed on my lack of brakes. I use a brake for other reasons as well, but I consider liability a pretty big reason. Also I'm insured for upto 10 million dollars public liability as long as I'm riding a "roadworthy" bike.

Also consider that legally speaking a capable rider who rides a brakeless bike is less "roadworthy" than a soccermom on a walmart special. I think that's a bit BS.

I've even heard of people being found at fault in accidents because they had removed the reflectors from their wheels. Again legal BS.

TejanoTrackie 

Really? So what was the context for this? Maybe this happened at night and they were deemed not to be visible, resulting in an accident. There are laws for vehicles regarding visibility, and if you violate these rules you are indeed placing yourself at risk in a claim situation.

I think you might tone down your attitute towards other people with whom you share the road. It's not us .vs. them; we all share the same space on this planet, and need to be less selfish and more considerate of others.

robertv

What attitude towards other drivers on the road? How am I being selfish? I'm pretty sure I didn't say much about other road users. Or is it my soccermom comment? I'm just trying to illustrate that from a legal standpoint an inexperienced cyclist on a badly constructed poorly maintained wal-mart bike is better protected than an experienced cyclist on a well maintained brakeless fixed gear. I know how the rules work, im just pointing out that the rules are a bit unfair in some cases.

The story Im referring to, that I unfortunately cannot find the link to as I read it a while ago was not a situation of visibility. It was much more a situation of the drivers insurance company finding a way to get out of paying up to the cyclist. something down the lines of "the reflectors are for safety, you took them off, you made the bike less safe, so the fact that my client didn't see you in broad daylight is no longer his fault". I think the rider in question had front and rear reflectors and lights, just not the ones in the wheels. I don't want to say thats definitely what happened but I really do remember reading a story like that and being pretty amazed at the BS lawyers can spew.

shubonker

Got nothing on Dexter the bike messenger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOG83-TwIuM