Bike Messengering

Having now worked downtown for almost a year, I've become fascinated by bike messengers. While they undoubtedly think of themselves as misfits, iconoclasts and the ultimate outsiders, they are utterly dependent on the mainstream corporate world for their livelihood. A fascinating contradiction. Which is why I've just begun reading The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power by Travis Hugh Culley, a formerly-struggling artist who became a bike messenger to survive. Should be a very interesting read.

After reading just fifteen pages, I've already become more aware of the minefields that messengers face during their daily journeys. Particularly the foolish Saab driver who was stopped in the crosswalk at Madison and Clinton, too obnoxious to approach the intersection cautiously but too timid to run the red light. (Perhaps my general opinion of male BMW drivers can be expanded to other makes.) I regret to add that he's a fellow Illinois alumnus, or at least that's what his vanity license plate tells me. Actually, I'd prefer to think that it's his wife's car, and she married him out of pity.