Equipment
The most essential piece of equipment for a bicycle messenger is a bicycle.
The majority of messengers use a bag to carry deliveries and personal effects. Bags with a single strap that wraps diagonally across the chest (popularly known as messenger bag) are popular because they can be swung around the messenger's body to allow access without removing the bag. Clasps which can be adjusted with one hand (ideal for riding), clips, pockets and webbing loops on the strap for holding a cell phone or two-way radio and other equipment also feature on purpose-built messenger bags. Bags generally have large capacities (up to 50 liters or 3,000 cubic inches). Baskets and racks mounted on the bike are also used, and at least one messenger service (in New York City) equips its riders with specialized three-wheel cycles (sometimes known as cargo-trikes), with a large trunk in the rear. Many bicycle messengers also wear helmets and mount lights and fenders to their bicycles.
Because bicycle thefts are prevalent in many cities, a lock to secure the bike during deliveries is essential. Simple chain and padlocks are often used, with the locked chain worn around the waist like a belt while riding. U-locks are also popular.
Messengers typically carry basic tools, weather-proof clothing and a street map.
Read more about this topic: Bicycle Messenger
Famous quotes containing the word equipment:
“Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“Biological possibility and desire are not the same as biological need. Women have childbearing equipment. For them to choose not to use the equipment is no more blocking what is instinctive than it is for a man who, muscles or no, chooses not to be a weightlifter.”
—Betty Rollin (b. 1936)
“Why not draft executive and management brains to prepare and produce the equipment the $21-a-month draftee must use and forget this dollar-a-year tommyrot? Would we send an army into the field under a dollar-a-year General who had to be home Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)