Life Partners is a short essay series where Kinfolk employees, friends and family share whatever’s on their mind. This week we have an extra special collection of dispatches from Kinfolk Studios’ employee and Kinfolk sponsored rider Shawn Wolf, who writes about his trip to Seattle for the 2013 North American Cycle Courier Championships. You can read part 2 of his experience here.
Day 4 Saturday
Qualifiers. This would set the tone for the rest of the trip. It was the make or break moment. We rode to the location of the race event and saw the Aurora, a bridge in Seattle where quite a few people have gone to end it all. Some wild dudes actually went up their and left their mark after one visit. Stay SOBER kids.
The race course was confusing at first. I was in the 3rd round of qualifiers so I got more familiar as the heats went on. Without going into great detail of the qualifier rounds it was set up so you had 8 checkpoints and 8 pickups that you had to have stamed at another place before dropping them off at the delivery spot. A total of 24 stops. The top 60 to complete the manifest went on to the final race. I think I heard a little over 150 people raced the qualifiers. I got to watch Jake finish out after I ran my heat. I also met this young rider on a well loved VIVALO that was built by the same master builder of KINFOLK. It was as bright as it was worn but still just as lovely.
After everyone finished their qualifier an open forum took place. This years open forum proved to be one of the most productive to date. It covered topics like insurance and company logistics, payroll and many other aspects of small business invaluable to messengers in their respective cities. It’s also where Denver locked in the 2015 NACCC location. Minneapolis is hosting next years and discussed some of their plans for the 2014 NACCC event. It was an eventful conversation that ended in a group hug.
After the forum we headed to Gasworks. It was the location where the top 60 were announced. Everyone who was staying at the Ricker house made it to final race, Chas placing 1st, myself, 15th and Jake, 32nd. Some Swedes repping for the CMWC this year got naked and jumped in the lake. We left soon after to get some rest for the main race.
Day 5 Sunday: The Real Big Day
The morning of the big race most of the guys in the Ricker household had a full day ahead of us. With the normal pre-race banter and organizers seting up checkpoint volunteers there was excitement all around. It was set to be a three hour race. It started with the classic Le Mans start, racers lining up their bikes in order of qualification by rows of five, all locked up for safe keeping. The racers all piled up 50 feet behind the last row of bikes and with some last minute instructions, a manifest was placed on the bikes so racers couldn’t see the work to be done until the race began. This years NACCC had some high-tech advancements thanks to Doug Suriano and Matt Savoia. Normally there are a mess of manifests and checkpoint pages to keep track of to know who came in when and where, who delivered what or picked what up but this year they got smart and built an app! Yeah, messenger racing? Theres an app for that.
Things begin with a rush, as 60 people running to their bike is hectic to say the least. You get to your bike in a panic, open the manifest, unlock your bike only to stop for a minute and study the race. With riders already taking off I made a hasty decision to leave without knowing where I wanted to go. The manifest was 3 pages of work, some jobs you couldn’t pick up until a specific time and all had strict deadlines. The app made sure there were no unfair advantages in the case of lenient checkpoint workers giving their friends a break. When you get to a checkpoint you must announce your rider number to check in. Then you state your name and whether you are picking up or delivering. You give them the job number (from the list) and the app writes a 3 letter code to be written on the package. The jobs that were available only at a specific time brought a new element to the NACCC that hadn’t really been there before: LINES. People lined up at the checkpoint to pick up packages causing major delays, and for the impatient like me, a change in strategy. For some, it was time used to rehydrate like Brooklyn’s Lane Dell: Everytime I ran into him he was drinking a Ranier. Instead of waiting in line I tried to make a couple drops and pick-ups while a line died down. If I had it to do over again I would have waited. Before I knew it I was delivering late. If you delivered on time you were given points, more for rush jobs, less for normal jobs and even less for 3 hour jobs. When you deliver late you get no points. If you picked up a package and never delivered it you were deducted half of the point it was originally worth. So when I started to get behind I fell further behind quickly. It got to the point where I was better off not picking up packages at all, wasting the time to deliver them for no points.
At the two hour mark a bulk run was available for the first 20 riders to line up for it. With eight minutes to the deadline I rushed to headquarters to get the bulk. I pulled in and there was a big line: FUCK! I’m going to miss it, I thought! I hop in line and start counting. Seventeen, 18, 19…I made it! I was rider 20! We’re given a file box with 100 envelopes. They had to be sorted and delivered to their respective drop off points within an hour. No big deal, right? WRONG. I hop on my back and I have a flat! Luckily Hern, who was in the non-messenger race taking place later was right there. “Use my wheel!” says. I quickly swap back-wheels and hop on. He rides a Brooklyn Machine Works with a big 30C tire and an 18t cog. I took off spinning my legs a bit faster than the 15t I was used to. I tried to pick up where I left off with my normal deliveries but all that waiting, sorting and flat-changing made the runs I had late…ALL OF THEM. I focused on dropping off my bulk and realized I needed to pick up the last, bonus manifest.
The “Driver” manifest. It had four more pick-ups, four more deliveries and a little twist: On the course would be two guys riding with the rest of traffic called drivers. You had to stop the driver, pick up an envelope, get a stamp, track down the other driver and give him the envelope from driver one, THEN, get another stamp and pick up another envelope to deliver back to driver 1 and get another stamp… Most people did everything but were having trouble catching both drivers. I had everything done on the regular manifest except one delivery that was burning in my bag. It was late but I wanted to deliver it so I didn’t get negative points. I made my way out of a turn by check point 3 and look in my bag riding no hands to see where the delivery was going. Before I knew it, a gust of wind hit me like a wrecking ball and forced me into a course marking cone. I was sent to the ground over the bars, crashing to the roar of a bunch of onlookers. I smashed my hip, elbow and head, twisted my bars and set up a yard sale on the course. I collected my things as quickly as possible, straightened my bars and got back to work. In one sore lap I came back around to find the last driver I needed to finish the bonus manifest. Just in time too! As the organizers are yelling, “Five minutes left!” I made it to headquarters to turn in my manifest. But I totally forgot about the old package in my bag after the crash.
The race was wrapped up. Everyone was speculating who won, who did well, and who bombed it. I felt like I was part of that 3rd category. I don’t feel like I took the best approach, but I was honestly just happy to qualify. We all left and some of us headed to lake Union to cool off. With the race still fresh on everyone’s mind the water wasn’t enough to divert conversation from race strategy and the happenings of the day. Eventually, our group left the lake looking for food. We decided to eat before the final open forum and awards. Belltown Underground was the location for the awards. The open forum was already ending when we got there. Everyone was just hanging out and messing with the people who passed out in the empty lot outside. The awards ceremony was one of the more unorganized I’ve been to. When they announced the overall winner the place erupted with excitement and cheer… The overall NACCC 2013 winner is CHRISTINA PECK! This lady from So. Cal. living in Chicago for a few years and now in S.F. is no stranger to the NACCC podium having won at the Boston NACCC back in 2009. We were stoked to hear Christina had won, beating all the guys! AGAIN! Then the unbelievable happened. Second place went to LANE DELL, the most unassuming overall men’s winner. From Australia by way of Brooklyn he had done it! Not only was he the fastest male but he had done it totally wasted. Christina rode the course on her All-City road bike, while Lane was one of the few that rode a brake-less track bike, never scared of the hairy turns and loose gravel alleyways within the course. Quite an accomplishment against some very fast messengers on road bikes. It all goes to prove though, that you can be the fastest messenger in the world but if you cant wrap your head around pickups and deadlines you’ll never get the job done right.
Christina and Lane
For me, this NACCC week was a welcome escape from the hustle that is NYC. In the end, I really enjoyed my time in Seattle. I was lucky to see a bunch of old friends and meet some new ones. My perception of Seattle was definitely changed, though I think the beautiful weather may have swayed that a little. My hosts were the most gracious and I know the trip wouldn’t have been the same in different company. Congrats once again to Christina and Lane for showing everyone how to do it (and also how to do it wasted). Until next year in Minneapolis, I’ll be waiting (and riding, of course). I hope the Minne crew can pull off as well-organized a race as this years Iphone assisted Seattle championship.
In case you missed them, check out the build-up to the big day in Shawn’s previous installments, parts ONE and TWO.