Daydreaming about becoming a bicycle messenger

If I get the chance, I enjoy watching The Biggest Loser, a network show where seriously obese people are sent to a ranch to workout daily with a trainer and learn how to eat healthfully in an effort to lose the most weight and win the most dollars. Sometime during the first season I thought the reality TV gurus should develop a show entitled 'Ripped First' -- where average folks dreaming of losing the final five, ten or fifteen digits on the scale enjoy the same set-up as The Biggest Loser contestants to shed those last stubborn pounds, build muscle and get ripped. Likely won't happen.

Before the age of reality TV, I spent over ten years working in advertising agencies. Ever-heeding the client's wish for ads finished yesterday, we'd constantly summon urban bicycle messengers to deliver advertising scripts, tapes, B rolls, anything needed to finish commercials. After meeting a few sweaty, sinewy messengers darting in and out of the agency, I started daydreaming about becoming a bicycle messenger.

Now I didn't want this to be a permanent position, just a month stint where I'd do my 40-60 daily runs, burn several thousand calories a day, pay careful attention to calories consumed and jump off the bike and back into my cubicle a lean, mean riding machine. In desperate moments, I'd fleetingly consider looking into messengering for a couple weeks during vacation time. For me, it could be a money-generating, get-ripped-fast-on-wheels venture, if you will. What snapped me out of this daydream are the realities of urban bicycle messengering. This crew grinds it out all day long, weaving dangerously in and out of traffic with no metal armor and only a plastic helmet between them and several thousand pounds of automobile. Healthy eating? Other than tucking in a few energy bars, a bike messenger can't exactly carry along a turkey sandwich, apple and carrot sticks -- they're likely pedaling with one hand on the handlebars and a beef sandwich from the corner lunch truck in the other.

Here's a good bike blog -- it'll lead you to all sorts of info about the bike messenger culture.