13th Annual Cycle Messenger World Championships, NYC
This event took place over 4th of July weekend in and around New York City (see CMWC's official sites at www.nybma.com and www.nybma.com/cmwc2005).
I think there were over 600 bike messengers registered. 31 countries represented. The New York Bicycle Messenger Association put on a great event, lots of love all around. It was like a huge family. Over 60% of the 150 bikes in the final stage of the main race were fixed. The winners of the sprints were both on fixed, and all the hundreds of skids and trackstand competitors were all on fixed. I'm trying to catch up with the info, so I'm not sure what the winners of the main race were riding.
The main race, the sprints, the skids, and the trackstands, were held by the waterfront in Jersey City. The area was clean and posh. But other than cyclists and lots of bikes, it was dead in an eerie way -- the the same way other busy financial centers like Wall Street are dead on the weekends. The streets were pretty clean and smooth with a few exceptions. The city actually had a row of porta-potties which they cleaned overnight. Prelims on Saturday, finals on Sunday, and after that, about a 15-mile ride northwards along the Jersey coast to the George Washington bridge to 105th St. and Riverside Drive, where there was a fund-raising alleycat race and a messenger film festival. Monday, there was track racing at Kissena and the official awards ceremony.
THE MAIN RACE
Beginning of main race.
VIDEO - Le Mans start to 13th annual world champion messenger race.
Squid, master of ceremonies.
Alfredo winning his heat.
There were some dangerous curves, gravel and raised man-hole covers.
Pot-holes too, but that one wasn't on the course. Welcome to New Joisey!
PEOPLE
Everyone was there.
The cops didn't hassle us too much; they actually helped in some cases.
Megan on her beautiful bike, a study in purple.
A study in pink, from Japan.
Redman, a true New Jersey messenger.
The two "fix-erins" -- Arone, the R-1 winner on a fix! And Erin Nicole, who rode across the U.S.A on a fix!
Robbie on a custom track, roasted every road bike in every sprint heat he was in. He even broke the Time clip on his shoe. He had a very good chance at the finals, but they took place at 8am Sunday morning, and he was waiting for bike shops to open and missed the finals. The sprint winner, Brooks, was on a fix.
BIKES
What messengers ride. Fuck yeah!
Trackbike alley!
The biggest most old-skool fix there.
Custom dropouts.
Vanilla Bikes dropouts.
Just say NO!
SPRINTS
Big Eddie marshalling the sprints.
Ceya, on the right, presiding over the sprints. The sprint prelims were on Saturday. Ceya was in the Marine Corps. He surprised everyone by having the sprint finals at "zero-8" on Sunday morning, so as not to conflict with the main race. Damn that's early, with all the partying the night before, but he had a good crowd even so.
SKIDS
Alex, officiating at the skids event. Alex, one of the co-owners of Trackstar, is no joke as a skidder himself, having won the skid comp at last week's Mermaid Day Parade Skids and Sprints at Coney Island.
How they mark the stopping points of the skids, with the competitor's racing number.
VIDEO - Gandy's skid - it was in the high 490's, breaking his own Philly CMWC record.
Gandy's impressive bruise. About eight days earlier, Gandy had a crash and fell on his side, hip-bone right on the lock. Gotta hurt! Props to Gandy for coming out and competing!
TRACKSTANDS
Mike Cobb from Berkeley, world champ. The trackstand competition had prelims and finals. It runs like this: 5 minutes with both hands and both feet; then take one hand off for 5 minutes. Then 5 minutes with no hands; then 5 minutes with one foot. Almost everyone falls sometime through the one-foot stage. But Mike blew everyone away in the finals, holding the one-foot for 5 minutes, and a no-foot for about 5 seconds. I'm talking about over a 20-minute trackstand. I think Gandy might have come in second, holding the one-foot for about 30 seconds (that monster bruise again). Later I asked Mike where he developed such good balance. He rides a unicycle, which he did when he used to work as a circus performer.
Rob from SF downed 4-5 beers during his trackstand.
Tad from Portland, Oregon - some drank, some smoked during their time sitting on the bike.
Charlotte from NYC during the one-foot phase - she won the trackstand at the Mermaid Sprints and Skids the week before.
Hugo and Charlotte and ?? on the right.
WINNERS
Ashira getting the winners' medals ready.
First, second and third place winners: (1) Karl Stransky, Basel, Switzerland;
(2) Rob, Eindoven, Netherlands; (3)Raphael Faiss, Switzerland
Johanna "Jojo" Reeder, Stockholm, Sweden, with Vince, OST photographer.
Squirrel of Houston and Gandy of NYC, current and former world-record holders in skids. Squirrel won last year as well in Edmonton.
Mike Cobb from Berkeley. His amazing trackstand lasted 20 minutes.
Arone of Bike Works in NYC. She came in 1st on the R1 race, Boston-to-NYC. On a fix, yeah!
Simone Charles, from Toronto, female sprint winner. On a fix!
Simone and Brooks Rapley, also from Toronto -- women's and men's spring winners with Vince.
On the right, winner of the cargo-bike race, NYC's Hodari ("Ho-Daddy") Depalm, with OST.
Here's what he won, the cargo trophy.
Hodari was revved to win. He called his wife right away and asked "Hey baby, how'd you
like to have sex with the world cargo bike champ!"
2nd place cargo, also from NYC, from Hodari's company.
AFTER
Amy on a crane preparing to take the CMWC group photograph. You can see it on the www.nybma.com site.
Critical Ass.
CMWC - a big event.