|
Rough road to ride for a bike messenger
|
|
Losing a leg was just one obstacle for a
Manhattan entrepreneur
By Justin Rocket Silverman
amNewYork, December 27, 2006
See
the video for this story on youtube
Riding through Manhattan's traffic-choked corridors as a bike messenger
is among the city's most daring professions, but to do the job with
only one leg is to defy death on a daily basis.
"People ask me, 'How can you ride a bike?' " says Dexter Benjamin, who
may well be the city's only one-legged bike messenger. "They ask, 'Why
aren't you in a wheelchair? Why don't you get government help and food
stamps?' Well, I tell them I don't need any of that. I can make it on
my own."
Benjamin, 44, lost his right leg 20 years ago in a bike accident in his
native Trinidad. Riding home from work, he swerved to push a child away
from an oncoming truck, Benjamin says. The child was fine, but Benjamin
was struck by the truck and woke up in the hospital.
"I was sent home a few days later and thought I could ride normally.
But I fell right over onto my stitches. That's when I actually realized
that I had lost my leg. I didn't ride again until I got to New York."
Benjamin first came here to run the New York City Marathon on crutches
(a feat he has accomplished six times), and liked the city so much that
he moved here in 1988.
After a brief stint panhandling, he managed to earn enough money to buy
a bicycle, and went to work as a messenger.
Now the owner of his own company, B&L Courier Service, Benjamin
navigates the city's concrete canyons and taxi drivers to pick up and
deliver packages from Wall Street to Harlem. He keeps a pair of
crutches strapped to the side of his bike, and goes from riding to
walking and back to riding in almost one fluid motion.
"I should be able to enter any city bus or building with this bike
because to me it's a wheelchair," he says. "But police yell at me for
riding it on subway platforms, and bus drivers won't let me on."
Benjamin also made headlines a few years back after fighting with a
300-pound transsexual on the subway. He was acquitted of hate crime
charges in the case and now lives on Roosevelt Island with his fiancee,
Charmaine Wright.
"He does all the housework and won't let me go to the grocery store
alone,"she said. "People look at him in awe."
Perhaps no one has more respect for Benjamin than other bike
messengers, who know that even with two legs, theirs is one of the most
dangerous jobs in New York City.
"If you think you have challenges, all you need is to see if him ride
by on his one-pedaled bike, and it's enough to put things into
perspective," said Roberta Lopez, a former messenger and avid cyclist.
"Dexter is a legend. He is my idol. Whenever I see him riding, I have
to stop and pay homage to him."
More on Dexter:
Bicyclist
Battles Odds To Do Job, Have Fun - Newsday, August 9, 1990
The
Messenger (Dexter Benjamin) - Bicycling, Mar 2000
The
Hard Math of Two Wheels and One Pedal - New York Times, May 14, 2005
Video on Youtube:
Fast
and Reliable
From
“Pedal”
|
|
