Courier Has Busman's Holiday at Races

by Jim Kernaghan
London Free Press, August 17, 2001

As a guy who cycles daily on the wild side, who better to appreciate the slips and slides of yesterday's rainy Canada Games road races than Menno Bos?

Bos is a racer with London Wheelers who blasts through courses on his $5,000, 9.5-kilogram racer. He also is a courier who dodges traffic on his 14.5-kilogram mountain bike 140 kilometres a day year- round throughout London.

"You can hit 40-45 kilometres an hour on the flats and 70-75 kilometres an hour attacking down a hill, so when the pavement's wet it can get wild," Bos was saying as the women hummed by, their skinny tires tossing up tiny rooster-tails of water.

Things are different in the courier business. Besides water, there' s snow, ice and slush. Bos missed a day two winters ago, none last winter, in his business delivering light items such as computer chips.

Missing cars is his top priority. He failed twice.
"I've been hit two times," he said. "After I got into (bike courier work) in Vancouver a car turned in front of me at a green light. Another time, the same thing happened here. I didn't get a scratch. Thank goodness for helmets. Mine broke into about six pieces. But I got a new racer out of it."

There were no incidents of cars entering the course during the women's race, not that some drivers didn't want to.

Just before the race, a couple of cars had a minor head-on at a barrier near Griffith Street and Boler Road. And volunteer Debra Martin had to come up with a timely stop of a car trying to exit the Byron Village Centre. She stood in front of the car ("he backed up" ) just as the racers rounded the corner off Boler onto Commissioners Road in the first lap.

"There were no problems with anyone on the course at all, other than a couple of camera men," London cyclist Angela Mawdsley reported.

If the competitors' spirits weren't dampened by the rain, neither were the spectators'. Many sat in their driveways on lawnchairs down Boler, some under umbrellas, one group under a tent.

"I can cover this for The Free Press right from here," said Edith Davie, who had a front-row seat with grandchildren Alyssa Lalich, 11, and Justine and Michelle Tilemans, 11 and 10, who'd come from Whitehills to watch.

Toward the turn into Springbank Park, youngsters had set up a lemonade and iced tea stand with seven, count 'em, seven tiny salespeople on duty. Business might have been better there than in the mall, where a number of stores had shut for the day.

"Don't tell me the liquor store is closed," groaned one fellow, finding to his delight the automatic door swung open as he approached.

For a guy like Menno Bos, it was a busman's holiday. Besides his love for road racing, the 46-year-old courier had a rooting interest in this one.

Prince Edward Island's lone rider, Jodi Smith, had a wobble in her wheel when her bike arrived and he installed his on her machine.

It is, he said, part of the camaraderie of a sport in which the tightly bunched group looks out for one another off the course (his loaned wheel) and on it (shouted warnings of potholes). Life on his courier bike is different. The shouted warnings are different.

The uneasy coexistence of autos and bikes is not growing any narrower, he says, and the two-wheelers and four-wheelers might never find peace. But after three years battling traffic, he wouldn't change.

"I work stress off on the job," he says. "When a car driver does something stupid, I've forgotten about it by the next block."

Besides, he can look forward to getting on his racer. He says it's like getting out of a pickup truck and into a Porsche.