Fucko and Dean

Another day on the job. A couple of months ago one sunny Saturday I was hailed by a fellow cyclist, lycra-clad astride a Cervelo, no less, who turned out to be an ex-messenger working at Cervelo. He had a flat tire and needed a pump, and I sorted him out.

As we rode off together we started into the inevitable courier vs off the road jobs debate.

"Couriering is the perfect job, you get paid to ride your bike", said Dave Lycraman, who quit only to "become a faster cyclist" as he was a young racer. (In fact I'd seen him dominate the messenger criterium race at Downsview in the fall of 2005.) I found the comment incredible when I heard it. Its the perfect job when a) the sun's shining b) hot calls are flowing your way, and c) you arrive at a six storey building on Spadina to deliver on the sixth floor to find an 'Out of Order' sign on the elevator door and twenty pounds of evelopes in your bag as you turn to run up the stairwell in your cloglike bike shoes, swearing a blue streak the whole way.

Yes, the perfect job except for the long hours, low pay, zero benefits or employment standards, and no infrastructure to support you in your work beyond pavement and elevators.

But today, as I hauled my track bike hither and yon along the east-west corridors, with and against the westerly wind, the words of Fucko (aka Dave Lycraman) rang in my brain. A powerful voice of positivity, shall we say, because if you can't enjoy the fact that you're riding then the whole thing is for naught, and the bike messenger only lives to suffer and die. And I was enjoying it, treating the whole experience as a privilege - I may not be a pro racer but I am certainly a professional cyclist and not so many can say that.

It all makes me think of Dean. Dean is a longtime messenger here in town, though I only met him this fall when both of us were on the road. The thing about Dean is his look. Another Lycraman, Dean never fails to astound me - does his brother own a high-end bike shop? How, on the salary (if we can call it that) of a bicycle messenger does Dean manage to dress like a sponsored pro, from the Gortex shoe covers to the Oakley sunglasses and everything in between? And not just dress the part. When I first talked to Dean in the good weather of September he rode a Time Machine, a full-carbon frame from France that complete-bike would run you a good oh, $8000 or so. Maybe he got it on sale. His bad weather bike was a Ridley cyclo-crosser, full-carbon as well. I remember asking him, as it was the season, if he was riding 'cross races. "Oh no, its enough eh?, Its enough eh?" he kept saying to me over his shoulder. Enough meaning the job. I agreed.

Still the issue of Dean continues to haunt me. His winter bike is a gleaming red Trek (carbon fork) track bike, that he cruises about on, shielded from the Arctic winds by an Assos vest. I've never seen the man with one normal piece of clothing yet. Maybe a tuque.

And here's the gossipy bit about Dean: he rides never faster than 20km/hr. Yes, that's right, this fiend of carbon fibre never in my dozens of sightings have I seen going fast or anything approaching fast. Dean just cruises about like a grazing llama of lycra, pedalling placidly forward.

It used to amaze me. I concluded that Dean (who was always amazed at my occasional B.O.B. trailer use - so unstreamlined) was a big poser - slow as snot, only looked fast. But now I see it, after months on the road, my thirtysomething body in perpetual neck muscle agony, the Epsom salt recovery baths every other night, the multiple applications of Deep Cold after and before work. Now I see it. Dean is really a Jedi master, a Yoda-taught disciple of the old saw 'Steady wins the race', which in fact was the first thing I ever learned when I fell into this game years back.

Instead of being all caught up like me in meeting urgent delivery times and the racy, breathless challenges they demand, Dean just cruises everywhere because he knows his thirtysomething body, and he knows that he's got the perfect job. Steady wins the race, the long, long race of time that is the only race a messenger ultimately is in.

So good for Dean, the lycra-machine.