“Oh, come back here,” he said.
He pulled down some secret shoe box filled with stickers sent by all the bike gear manufacturers. He handed me several then stopped on the last one. Like a gnome, his hands holding the oracle, he held up a white rectangular sticker printed with the words Grip Shift, a brand of gear shifters that work by rotating them on your handlebars.
“Just cut this here and here,” he said, pointing to the block of letters, “And then can you see what it says?”
Then he paused before he handed the sticker to me with a crooked smile.
“rip Shit.”
At Velo City, they kept track of all my expenditures, presumably so I could print out the record and deduct it on my income taxes. Of course, when it came time for income taxes, the kind lady at 1-800-IRSLOVESU said that bicycle repairs did not fall under any deductible sub-category. Still, I have the invoice record from Velo City, and it reads as an eerie shadow to my messenger days, with dates and times of repairs duly noted.
Brake pads, bolts, reflector clamps, installation, grips, a new saddle, a bell, the list reads like a bike messenger wish list. In total, I spent $524.24 at Velo City. Five-two-four, two-four. Wonder what the numerologists have to say about that one.
But by far the most common repair as a bike messenger was the flat tire. Karmic, my flats came in fits and starts. I learned very quickly always to carry tire irons, a spare tube, and a pump while I worked. Tubes were faster and easier than patch kits, mostly because I could never locate the puncture in order to patch it. But hardcore messengers could identify, according to local myth, the hole in the bike tube by rubbing spit onto it and then fixing it with a patch. I just used tubes, six bucks each, usually purchased from whatever bike shop was closest to my last puncture wound.
Glass on the streets everywhere, especially in dot-com world, South of Market, where construction was constant. The flat usually a slow realization, gets to the point where going over a stick you can feel every groove, so I’d pull over onto the sidewalk, turn the bike over onto its back, unscrew the tire clamps, undo the quick release and depending on whether it was front or back, finagle the tire out of the forks. Had the repair down to minutes, but I’d still inevitably nearly flatten the tire in my attempt to fill it up. One unfortunate day, got two flats in one afternoon. Felt like a real messenger, sweating on the sidewalk while leather uppers flip-flopped past me. Felt like a messenger in the truest sense, asking for no one’s help. Just me, concrete, and my bike.
For flats, I was on my own. But for everything else, I needed help. Like when on the second week on the job I was climbing a hill when suddenly I heard a crack, my tires jammed and I rolled a few feet backwards downhill. Tipped the bike and sort of hopped off, thankful that the wheels froze uphill not downhill, where I would have flown to my death.
Imagining that possibility, I examined my back tire. The nifty yellow reflector attached to the spokes of my back tire somehow wobbled loose, caught, bent my wheel, and tweaked my rear derailleur beyond repair. Luckily, I’m near Malcolm’s Bike Shack, so I walked my bike over for a new derailleur ($31.50), borrowed a loaner bike for the rest of the day, and lost an hour of messenger time.
Another time, my front wheel got stolen. Not going