I'm a fakenger-
It rains...perfect day to go for deliveries with a bike messenger.
I place the brake,the riser,I meet Matteo, Bike messenger or better, Rookie, he will be a Messenger in a few months, you need to eat up kilometers for two winters to become one.
It's just like a videogame: you select a bike, legs, riders but you are stuck at the first level, you must cycle and deliver, tone your muscles before unlocking the hateful level padlock.
We leave together to make a couple deliveries, it rains crazily, ten minutes later I'm soaked to the skin, but I don't give up.
I try to keep pace with his bike, but the cobblestoned roads and tram rails are enemies that deserve respect like mountain tops or stormy seas, so I give up and wait till water and wind blow over.
On the horizon, the smooth and shiny Largo Cairoli asphalt. I start pumping on the pedals, I do have toned legs, often on Saturdays I cycle with the "StoccaFissi", I reach Matteo's pace and back wheel sprinkling water like the best Napoli_Isole hydroplane, but I am in such a competitive trance that I don't give a shit, from here to Piazzale Kennedy the asphalt is great, the curve is closer, I set the trajectory and instead straight through the park (looser) where the white soil becomes muddy and Matteo drives at 30/35 " see those cobblestones?
This is where I fell and broke the helmet" he will tell me on our way back. Half of the mud that was on the road is now on my pants and thanks God I didn't put on my Clarks (looser).
Corso sempione puts a strain on me, infinite road, wide with few cars, now we are
serious, I push and push, I'm there and yes I'm thinking of my time out with my friend Rido,but then, in an instant, all crumbles around me just like in a scene form the movie Inception: buildings, streets, lungs, the hydroplane moves away, but I do have the red trafflic light wave on my side. What a fluke.
We reach our destination, I'm exhausted not by the effort, but by the idea of travelling back even wetter.
While I watch the bikes, a doorman asks me the typical questions, the bike is great, it's light but how do you brake...what a drag.
On the bikes, a frenetic REWIND, luck is on my side: they call me from school because my daughter has a fever.
I say goodbye and with the stored adrenaline I leave again like one who's going to deliver a certificate for grace received to a sentenced to death and think how crazy this last hour has been. It's just noon, it pours down, it's 7° degrees and the good Matteo is cycling crazily in the wrong direction on one way streets, on pavements, cutting through parks.He has a delivery that brings him from X to Y and variables in between.
GOD BLESS LOSERS!
by Marco Cremascoli