Prepping for CMWC 2012

OK. I am not currently a bike messenger but I was from 1992 to 2000. I worked as a rider, dispatcher and for the last year, a business owner. I carried all sorts of crap, boxes, reams, legal papers and subpeonas. I met so many good people in foyers, elevators, mail rooms, and on the streets of Minneapolis and for a brief stint in the summer of 1997, New York. It was absolutely exhilerating! Racing through traffic feeling ownership of the streets that were all part of the open office. The community was tight and extended all over the world. I was lucky enough to race in two Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWC) in 1995 and 1996 held in Toronto and San Francisco respectively. I also raced in the North American Cycle Courier Championships (NACCC) in 1999 and 2000 held in Toronto and Minneapolis. Other races included alley cats in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and Philidelphia. Much fun was had!! Much beer was had!! Much sleeping on grimey floors that had not seen a vacuum for what seemed ever was had. The beer helped with that.

Toronto, 1995, was the first bike messenger race that us green couriers from Minneapolis had attended. There were five of us: Dan Carlson, John Swanson, Chad Selberg, Mike Rudnick and myself. We drove there and made it to town, parked the car, and got on the bikes to represent. We did not know what to really expect but Dan had a bit of insight from his days of messengering in D.C. so we got to meeting people and checking out the course. One of the first people we met was Squid form NYC. He took us on a tour of the course that included a bunch of ramps, a ride in the back door and out the front of a cafe, and a set of angled train tracks, which Chad hit and broke his finger on when racing...treacherous. We were fast on our hoopty bikes but did not qualify. Messenger racing is not a point A to B go as fast as you can type race. There are challenges and some planning and scheming involved with where to stop and what route to take. We did not get that at the time and it showed. We partied that night and lost Chad, found him the next day sans bike and vowed to do better next time around. SF was the next time around and we had a bunch of folks make it out. We got the manifests and climbed the hills but failed to qualify once again. The points and all that scheming failed us and we got to partying. This time Sam crashed that night and broke his skull. We were lucky he survived and happy that he pulled through. He made it out of the hospital after a while and chilled out but eventually returned to those evil messengering ways for a while after that. That story and other details tied to the other races may show up in furture posts but I can say that beginning in 1997 with a race in NYC, the Apocolips, Minneapolis started to show some colors and represented well.

Fast forward to 2012, the CMWC is in Chicago and I feel I have unfinished business. The race is close and I always was a bit discouraged that I never qualified for the main race in 1995 and 1996. I gotta try to put that monkey to bed and take on the pedalling youth of today. It is a bit of a shift in gears...not with respect to speeds on a bike, I still only roll a single on the street, but a shift in how to race. I have been concentrating on the endurance this year with gravel or XC centuries and 10 hour races. The ding to the confidence is how will the legs respond for the short qualifying heats. I think I am good at getting the jump on for the Le Mans start so keeping the cadence is where I am gonna focus for that race on Saturday. Pedal my ass off and make it to the longer final race on Sunday. Needlesstosay, it is gonna be a great time seeing some old heads, seeing Mpls heads, seeing those crazy Chi-town heads and meeting a bunch of new ones. I am hoping nobody ends up hurt like the previous CMWCs I have attended. I am definitely not partying as much as back in those days, I can only do it one night in a row now. I am also taking time with the wife so a better influence will keep me from being under the influence. Fun will be had and documented here.

What am I riding you say....well the fixie-converted Merckx has been retired because of a spied out crack. I am rolling an All-City Big Block brakeless with a 46x16...i think.