Sponsored Rider

So I'm a bike courier now. 3 days a week. It's the coolest job ever. It's not even a job. I'm basically paid to race in NYC. It's making me fall in love with this city. I don't know if I will ever recover from her deep embrace. From my estimations, I'm doing somewhere from 25-35 miles a day. It's hardcore to say the least. I'm still a baby boy at the whole deal, street numbers are still fresh. I know 1270 Broadway is around 34th street and 500 5th Avenue is at 42nd street and that's it. I kid too much. It's been three weeks and I know a lot now. I go from top of midtown to downtown at least twice a day, sometimes four. I can get into almost any building. The view from the 49th floor of 30 Broad Street building is unbelievable: south tip of Manhattan and onward. I dart through traffic, shoot through cars on red lights, almost hit old ladies, get cursed at, and I get paid for it. I've wanted to write every day about it, because the occurrences are priceless. It's like the best movie ever. Yesterday was rough. Holiday season is starting to get heavy. Emotionally intense. The streets are seeping with it. 5th to 7th Avenues around Midtown at 5 PM was ridiculous. Cops had to tape off the sidewalks for every red light so pedestrians--blood still dripping from their holiday shopping bags--wouldn't just walk though the street without regards to the crossing signals. I see the same people over and over again. It's weird. You'd think the odds of repeated sightings would be low, but apparently not. Manhattan is quite small it seems. It is the center of the universe though so it's not so odd, I guess.

(Ian rides Trek mountain bikes, uses ONGUARD bike chains, BodyGlove Bags, TricoSports and Lowe Alpine gloves, and Triple-8 helmets. Clothing by Patagonia, Gap, Patagonia, G-Star Raw, Puma, and American Apparel.)