Why are bike messengers such fucking assholes?!

I enjoyed that very much. It was kind of relaxing. I didn't see much assholery going on. I didn't remember anyone having to slam on their brakes or people diving for cover.

Maybe half the messengers in that film were actually fixed ... and in general, a lot less messengers ride fixed than you'd think.

And come on, both you and I know there are a ton of fixie riders and CM attendants who are not doing it for the generally stated reasons.

as a former bike messenger (i must have quit with all of the other white guys ) i have to admit that you just get into a zone and start ignoring traffic laws. i actually used a bell but would stop for people who actually had the right of way.

as a pedestrian, generally its best to look both ways before you cross the street even if you have the signal.

i've only talked about fixie riders. i have yet to mention messengers because i'm not one. i don't see the relevance of saying that different people ride different bikes.

and about CM: what? there is only one stated purpose for critical mass, and by merely showing up and riding, people fulfill it.

Exactly why I used to pedal through Philadelphia.

Well, if I bicyuclist pedals in front of a car, the driver will probably steer out of the way, with a pretty good chance of diverting him/herself directly into another vehicle or otherwise dangerous target.

I crashed through a fence into a tree avoiding a dog. Pretzeled my unibody. So, even though the dog, had I hit him, wold likely ve done little more than bloody my car, a dog almost caused the totalling of my car and my life, had I not been buckled up, and possibly children, if school had been in session (it was summer).

Fortunately, the elderly couple who owned the dog witnessed it and thanked me and told the cops to have them billed for the school fence and tree.

I was still stuck with the damges to my car.

for a dog I risked my life. For a human I'd have done the same, so careless bicycling can wreak as much havoc as careless driving.

As the operato of bicycles, scoots AND cages (and my own two feet), I try to avoid doing anything too overtly stupd on the road.

Just to add to this, there are messenger deaths while riding for work, but the two most recent I can think of were guys on mountain bikes working no-name companies, which means they do not fit the hipster/bike messenger/bike punk stereotype featured in this short film.

Oh, because I thought in a thread about a film about a bike messenger race with complaints about those crazy aggro evil Satanist fixed gear bike messengers... messengers riding fixed gears might have the slightest relevance

People fulfill a lot of stated and unstated purposes by riding in CM, only one of them is CM's actual aim.

neeeeerd fiiiiiiiiiight!

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Boston is lousy with bike riders who travel on the sidewalk, mostly due to the fact that Bostonia is the least bike-friendly city in the word. Still that's no excuse for breaking traffic laws and then acting like the pedestrians are assholes for not diving out of the way in time. I have zero problem with knocking those assholes down.

As far as speeding through mid town like that, the only really asshole move was cutting through the crosswalks inches away from a pedestrian. For those of you who thought that wasn't too big a deal just think how badly it would hurt if something that weighed over 200lbs (bike and rider) hit you at 20+ miles an hour.

Thats all well and good, but they're clearly not bike messengers, so the outpouring of hate levied against bike messengers here is completely dippy.

No, I guess you don't. The fax machine put 8/10ths of messengers out of business. Now they're specialists. They do commercial art and critical legal documents and they get paid a shitload less. When that happened, the Kevin Bacon types abandoned the profession. If you tried to tell me that bunch of upper middle class bohemian transplants in Astoria were security guards or prep cooks I'd laugh at you, too.

No I'm saying that equating "rules" with "safe" in Manhattan traffic is absurd.

It can be, but frankly if that traffic is "oncoming" at seven miles an hour, not so much. It looks dramatic when you speed it up, but you'll notice those cars are not moving significantly faster than the pedestrians.

I don't know about that. I was talking about any cyclists who act like jerks by weaving in and out of crowds, not obeying traffic laws, blah blah blah. I never said anything about hating bike messengers. In fact I think I remember saying many times that I like bike messengers and that the ones in the video I might hate. But they're obviously not messengers sooo....

Maybe it's different where you live, but in my experience, people swerve out of the way to avoid hitting jackasses on bikes.

That late night/no traffic part is pretty darned important.

Well you guys would all hate me because with the exceptions of zipping through pedestrian zones and going the wrong way that is EXACTLY the way to ride in NYC, or Chicago.

Try biking in NY for a week and tell me who the jerks are.

Dude, no thanks, although i'd rather bike than drive I suppose.

The guys in the video are stillll jerks. Jerks who have speedy fun.

we do own the road.