By John Greenfield
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At the Cyclists Annual Messenger Picnic last Saturday bike messengers from Houston, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and New York City joined Chicago couriers in a series of contests. The 50 people who showed up sprinted from “Mishwack,” courier-speak for the intersection of Michigan and Wacker, to Chinatown and back. They scrambled in the “alleycat” race to find the most efficient route between the Sears Tower, the Amoco Building, the Board of Trade, the Hancock Building, and other landmarks, picking up envelopes and mailing tubes along the way. They also competed in a bike limbo contest, a cargo race in which they stuffed 60 pounds of boxed bricks into their delivery sacks or balanced them on their handlebars and then charged up a hill, and a Shit Bike Toss, in which they hurled a department-store cruiser as far as possible.
Guenevere Nyderek complained that sexism was worse in Chicago than in other cities. “People like to comment on my gender, like it’s not a girl job or something. They say, ‘Wow, you’re the only woman I’ve ever seen as a messenger.’ Sometimes they say harassing things, commenting on my physical appearance.” But she also said that bike messengers generally don’t get much respect here. “Sometimes you get comments like ‘Why don’t you get a real job?’ or ‘Why don’t you contribute something to society?’ I think Chicago is just a much more aggressive place–people are more hostile to each other no matter what job they’re working.”
“Six minutes. Both hands off!”
