Broad&Market

(Loved how this girl looked, but the helmet on is what made it for me. I felt funny asking for her picture, to leave the helmet on and hold the bike … So, covert-opped it this time. Sorry. :/)

This rant was spurred by a comment Lady Peppertooth made about being tired of “bike messenger style.”

★ “Bike messenger style” in this case, I feel, is as interesting comment on one section of Philadelphian style. I ride a bike to school every day. I know that it is very easy and very comfortable to wear jeans (tight/cutoffs), sneakers (Vans/Converse/etc), and some variation of flannel/hoodie overlay with a messenger bag. The “bike messenger look” in Philadelphia always seemed to me loosely tied to Philly’s punk fashion, when I first moved back in 2005, I mean (born and raised tho!).

I made a post back in 2006 about skinny jeans and how they were becoming popular lately with the general public. In other words, you could buy skintight jeans in The Gallery now and didn’t have to make them. I don’t have the time to really flesh out how the proliferation of skinny jeans, the general rising popularity of commuting by bike in Philly, and the current thing that is commonly perceived as “bike messenger style” all go together, but maybe just my stringing along of those terms can get your mind juices flowing.

I get it, what Kim’s getting at. Now what generally could be perceived as bike messenger style is well known as “bike messenger fashion.” Meaning, it’s some funny (possibly Internet-driven) subculture where, for some people, the look overrides the function … Although the main point of bike messenger style is usually function!

But think about this… Recently, since around the spring of 2008 maybe, I noticed a lot of people switching out their bicycle’s drop/road handlebars for cruiser bars that allowed for a more comfortable, upright position. Then I went away to Osaka for 9 months. I got a bike frame in Osaka, and when my friends and I were putting it together I insisted on having cruiser bars. Over in Osaka, the fixed/messenger look was just burgeoning (already going in Tokyo), and my friends didn’t think it was cool to have granny bike (the mama-chari/チャリンコ）handlebars on my red KHS frame. I told them that handlebars like the ones I wanted were in vogue right now, and set about looking for pictures of Philly cyclists. Sure enough, I found plenty of pictures to convince my fixed buddies near Kyobashi.

When I got back to Philly this summer, I noticed that one, commuter-style bars were ever more popular, and, there were LOADS of beautiful single speed and fixed-gear bikes everywhere. Lovely colors and clean. Temple’s campus used to have well-used, dark-colored beaters locked all over the place, and in my absence they were replaced by beautiful machines. I had to wonder who was riding them…

What’s funny is that in Osaka the bike messenger look is a little more hip-hop “street”. Dudes wear baggier pants and vests, not skintight jeans and tight hoodies. But it’s still the fixed “look” to some degree. So, I have to wonder where the “bike messenger style” in Philly really comes from. Hipsters perpetuating a look? Punks that ride bikes? Laziness? Comfort issues and not caring about what one looks like while riding? More than being connected to cycling, I think the loathing of “bike messenger style” has more to do with some hipster/punk kids ish. That’s just what they choose to look like, I guess. And there’s a lot of punks and hipsters in the center of our city. The thought of wearing heels, or voluminous pants or any long jacket is stifled by the fact that Center City streets are far too narrow to risk getting clipped by a SEPTA bus.

(Osaka bike kids at GiraGira Chariya, courtesy of Kentaro)

I get that our cyclist style has a place, but I do agree with Kim … There are other functional, comfortable clothes in the world besides tight jeans and hoodies. It’s okay to wear something crazy when you’re riding.