In Washington, a Two-Tire Industry Goes Flat

Marcia Vottero stops for a breather with fellow couriers Chris Soda, center, and Robert Moon, left. Washington bike messengers have been hit particularly hard because of the recent shrinkage in the government's document stream. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
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"You can fax something that fast, but is anyone going to actually look at it?" said Gross.

In their heyday, bike couriers reigned as a kind of sweat-soaked office avenger, helping secretaries avoid deadline catastrophes, facilitating billion-dollar contract negotiations and helping prescription refills and forgotten eyeglasses catch up with their VIP owners.

Gross once responded to a request to pick up a packet from a McGraw-Hill reporter on deadline. His assignment: take the package from the third floor of the National Press Building all the way to the fourth floor -- of the same building.

Couriers rode, and loafed, with impunity. Gatherings at Dupont sometimes topped 50 riders, Zalan said. And until neighborhood complaints finally led to a crackdown in the late 1990s, many riders displayed a famously casual attitude about public drinking, and more.

"We were openly drinking beer and smoking pot pretty much every day," Zalan said. "There was a kind of understanding. The police would roll through, everyone would put their beer down or whatever and he had done his bit and we had done ours."

Washington couriers managed to keep riding through the advent of the fax machine and the first several years of e-mail commerce. But the beginning of the end came with the security shocks of 2001, first the attacks and then anthrax. Messengers were relegated to alley entrances and basement mailrooms.

Veteran riders still find ways to get their rushes through; White House staffers, who aren't allowed to accept handoffs through the iron fence, have been known to meet couriers at nearby coffee shops. But gone are the lucrative days of blanketing Capitol Hill with hand-delivered packets. (Some companies have found new employment for their Capitol-savvy riders: sending them to stand in line on behalf of lobbyists who need seats at crowded hearings.)

But couriers who were holding on to messenger work felt the ground shift beneath them when the economy gave way last year. "Almost in one day, we were getting a lot fewer rush jobs," said Marcia Vottero, 28, a rider for Washington Express. She knew of 25 female riders when she started in 2000. Now, she says, she is one of two who ride regularly. Like a lot of messengers, she works a second job, as a bartender, to supplement her salary.

"I used to be able to make $1,500 a week, not even working long hours," said Vottero. "Now that's cut in half, and I've got to work all day."

Vottero, who has clearance to deliver inside the Department of Justice and the World Bank, is on the high side of earners. More typical now, according to several couriers, is $400 to $500 a week.

Almost all couriers work as contractors, without benefits or much job security. An independent, unruly bunch by nature, they have never been able to organize effectively, Zalan said, allowing companies to keep pay rates low.

Still, he and many of the dwindling number of hardcore messengers ride on, addicted to the adrenaline of the rush job, thrilling to the freedom of life on the roll.

At a party recently, someone noted his riding jersey and asked Zalan if he was a professional cyclist.

"And I thought, yeah, actually, I am," he said. "The bottom line, dude, you're making money riding a bike. It's the childhood dream."