--pws
from Scott Brooks
Well, I waited a week, now I am going to out Peter Bradshaw. A recent cat 2 upgrade from the men's team, Peter went to Ireland earlier this month to compete in the World Bike Messenger Championships. From the snippets that I have heard, it was quite a competition. Please congratulate Peter with me, and prod him for a race report!!!
from http://thepedalwrench.blogspot.com/2007/08/cycle-messenger-world-championship-2007.html
You make it to Dublin this year for the Bicycle Messenger World Championship? Yea neither did I, so vicariously we have to experience the phase through pics and vids posted on the WWW. Look to Canada next year for the event followed by in 2009 moving the CMWC all the way to Tokyo.
Congrats to Peter Bradshaw of Boston and Jaimie Lusk of Denver as the new Male and Female WORLD CHAMPS! Yea that's right both Americans! Thank goodness it wasn't held in France or of course French scientist would have "found" EPO in Peter's and Jaimie's urine. Check out the vid below.
from http://www.nybma.com/
Peter Bradshaw, VeloCity Winner, is now your world Champion
Kym P. takes 2nd (plus other prizes); Austin disqualified!
The americans took home their first World Championship at this year's Cycle Messenger World Championships in Dublin, Ireland. It was controversial though. The top three finishers were disqualified for various reasons. Had those DQ's not happened, America STILL would've taken home the championship, and it would've gone to New York's Austin Horse. As it was, the rules were the rules, and Dublin's organizers stuck to their decision. It's not NYBMA.com's place to speculate, challenge, or editorialize. Our intrepid reporter didn't even qualify for the rain-soaked, off-road, finals, and spent the day in museums instead. All of the conversation around the results is second-hand hearsay, and none of the sources have the same story anyway. The top prize couldn't have gone to a better person, and he GOT there by winning the New York leg of Squid's VeloCity tour!
from http://www.movingtargetzine.com/article/more-on-the-cmwc-xv-dqsMore on the CMWC XV DQs
13.08.07 by Buffalo Bill
This year's Cycle Messenger World Championships in Dublin was probably the wettest since Edmonton, the drunkest since, oh, the last one, and maybe the most controversial since the very first one in Berlin. As I pointed out before , it's not unusual to have one or even 2 disqualifications amongst the top 10 finishers. So when I left after the finish of the main race, I was not unduly surprised to have seen a possible double dq amongst the leading 3 men. However, I was a little surprised to find on my return to London that all top 3 male finishers had been dq-ed.
This left Peter Bradshaw of Boston as the Cycle Messenger World Champion (Male) 2007. I think he is a worthy champion. I heard from Steve C (SF) that Pete got right royally w&nkered that night, stripped to his waist in the rain and was last seen looking for his prizes and his messenger bag.
The official results of the final are here. All the results from the side-events are here (if you got myspace log in).
However, as I like a good stir, and I know that it wasn't only me that was curious about the DQs, I have decided to publish Gar's account of what he saw, and how Jumbo, Austin and he himself were binned from the final standings. If you read the messengers mailing list, I apologise for reprinting messages that have come from there. Anyway, here's Gareth's totally subjective, biased and unofficial account of how it happened. happened.
Let's call this story:
How I Came to Be World Champion For Less Than A Day
Sooooo, we had some notable d.q.'s this year in the main race final, with first, second and third over the line deemed by the lads to have all overstepped the mark in one way or another. And I've read with interest this week anonymous comments on various websites and forums (fora?) either dissing the Dublin crew or the guy who wound up with the winner bag. One idiot even hoped for a new potato famine to strike the auld sod in the event of Austin not being retrospectively awarded the title. I am going to find out who that one was from and ram spuds up his hole till he loves me , but only cos he's rooting for the wrong guy ha ha! Joke, joke .
Seriously though, what went down? It seems many people are unclear on this, and I'm kind of in the know, so briefly:
Austin: seen during the race travelling with arguably non-good intentions to a checkpoint in the wrong direction around the one-way course. A d.q. offence? According to the written rules, it would seem so. This said, having spotted him in the act myself, I (perhaps selfishly) decided that as long as he finished behind me, I wouldn't be too bothered. How much of the course he got to skip through his actions isn't immediately obvious to me, certainly a tough lap, possibly more.
Roughly, his defence was – "I was on foot". roughly my reply was – "this is a bike race, not a f&cking running race and it's taking place on a one-way f&cking course", but I think I cursed more.
Fact: if me and Jumbo got d.q.'d and Austin had bitten the bullet, done his proper laps, and not had punctures or any mishaps, he still would have finished ahead of the eventual recipient of the main race winner bag [Peter]. Had me and Jumbo not got d.q.'d, Austin could have done his laps and would still have probably been on the podium. We were all a good bit ahead of fourth [this would be the eventual winner, Peter – Ed].
Jumbo: repeatedly ignored requests from marshalls to park his bike in designated areas, repeatedly jumped over cordons instead of running around them, repeatedly displayed the manners of a pig in his dealings with checkpoint people when looking for stamps, pick-ups, his manifest back etc. A d.q. offence? On paper, yes. Politeness was an absolute minimum requirement when it came to time spent with volunteers (and rightly so in such weather – some of these people got colds and worse for our benefit) at Dublin; the organisers had it written on the list of rules in the registration pack, and in Rubber-side Down too, I think.
I would still [have retained] some small jot of sympathy for him. These complaints had been communicated from an early enough stage in the race but he was let ride his ass off (and in fairness he had nothing left in the tank on the last lap) to the finish before getting the bad news ha ha! When do we get to see him on youtube firing his bike into space like an olympic hammer thrower, then cracking wooden stakes in two against his head!? Somebody definitely got it .
(for what it's worth, he later expressed to me sincere, deep regret . . . for disrespecting . . . . . . . his fucking bike – no joke)
Me: got a look at the first manifest shortly before the race actually started. Took some hurried, sketchy, ultimately non-helpful notes on its nature. A d.q. offence? Not, it turns out, covered in the written rules. I was, however, later informed of certain unwritten rules regarding the "out of bounds"-ness of the course and its checkpoints before the start of the final. I wish now, of course, that these had been written down, or, at the very least, enforced.
Nor was it me who noted that the same manifest could be looked at on the start line before the race actually started by anyone caring to look at their nearest bike wheel.
Now, while the lads were satisfied that no advantage had been gained by my seeing it (I was way down the pecking order after the first manifest), they were by the same token not so satisfied that it if this all got out, say, it wouldn't among other things look like favouritism for a local boy, what with them having the previous day d.q.ed Austin and all. For about 20 hours Sunday going into Monday, I was semi-officially world champion. Is this a record? bill will know [20 hours is the longest that anyone has ever been a world champion semi-officially – Bill].
I pointed out that I had already two years ago made my peace with the notion that some people were always going to say something like that when faced with a good showing from me in dublin, no matter what , but the lads remained unmoved . . . ( insert smiley here as mood dictates )
So what's the upshot?
I don't know for sure. If I was ever again offered a sneak preview of a manifest, I think I'd still find it hard to avert my eyes.
I think Austin shouldn't have saved himself a lap, certainly not at my f&cking expense, and most certainly not on an unmissably fluorescent orange bike.
I think Jumbo could benefit from a few terms at a good finishing school, though it may already be too late.
I think we still don't have a winner (how self-involved does that sound? Of course we do, just not to my satisfaction, and I can be notoriously picky about these things ha ha! Well done Peter, and f&ck the begrudgers, me included), but my intention is to try to rectify that at toronto next year. Maybe.
I think I'm going to go see Transformers, then the Simpsons, then watch Dublin kick Derry's arse and hopefully West Ham do the same to Man City. In Dublin it's raining a lot worse than it was last week ;-).
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