A brightly coloured fashion-forward tribe had invaded the streets of London. ‘Cycling has never held so much romance,’ the Observer claimed on 6 December 1987. ‘Stop to daydream on any street corner and a well-endowed messenger will cut across your path.’ But they weren’t just there to look good: this new breed of cycle couriers were ‘challenging the dominance of the greaseball motorbike dispatch trade’. Shot in their shiny finery with chamois-reinforced crotches ‘to protect the credentials’, it was time to meet the Lycra Lads.
‘Style and bravado are part of the job,’ said Swas. Riding was ‘the first time I’ve ever done any real work… You start to make money when you stop getting lost.’ He loved how messengers raced each other along routes: ‘As soon as you sling a courier bag over your shoulder you can bend the Highway Code and no one hoots at you.’
Zero used to work in adventure playgrounds; now the city was his: ‘I don’t notice the cold any more.’ He tested bikes for his column in Dispatch Rider magazine and was planning to move to Manhattan, where riders could earn $500 a week.
Business studies graduate David Nugent had started riding as ‘a good way to build up strength and earn money’. It was a solitary life and the companies he serviced made him feel expendable and anonymous (‘Your self-image takes a blow’), but he had no regrets and planned to keep riding ‘until my A-Z falls apart’.
For former art student Jim Hoskin, it was a way to finance his painting; he was one of a host of ‘arty and ex-art types’ drawn to it by views of Westminster Bridge and St Paul’s at sunset. The worst part was how ‘tempers fray’, doing 60 cold and wet miles a day in heavy traffic, pressed up against the flank of buses. ‘People yell out “You trendy git!”’ he said, but it was hard to keep your street cred carrying a 6ft inflatable banana.
