Somebody has to stand up when the italians steamroll the world..

Breschel wins bronze

Matti Breschel (Denmark)
Photo ©: AFP

Matti Breschel won a bronze medal at the elite men's UCI Road World Championships on Sunday, thanks in part to the help of fellow Dane Chris Anker Sørensen.

Sørensen made several attempts in front groups and was eventually joined by riders including Breschel, making a total group of 13 for the final selection. He then picked up the pace so no more riders would be able to join the leading bunch.

The race was more or less decided three kilometers from the finish line, when Italian Alessandro Ballan made a strong attack. Sørensen got little help from the other 11, and he was unable to reel in the Italian rider. In the final sprint Breschel was the only one able to prevent a pure Italian podium as Damiano Cunego took second and Davide Rebellin took fourth. Sørensen would finish 13th

"This is huge! I'm extremely satisfied with getting a medal at the World Championships at the age of 24," said an elated Breschel according to a team press release. "My career at this level has only just begun so I'm very happy to be standing here with a medal.

"Of course I was sitting in the group at end hoping to take the rainbow colored jersey, but this is amazing though. I owe Chris and the other Danish guys a big thanks for all their hard work – they have a big share in this medal too."

Thx cyclingnews.com

Couriers..

Tribe? Idunno, but friends - yes..

Flecha is great.

Even though he stole the victory from Piil in TdF a couple of years back this is fucking great and he is my new hero..

Blackout celebration.

These are the pics:

Blackout celebration.

This was a little event I had foreseen to get a lot of trouble for. When the black and whites showed up we were on the sidewalk and they asked why we were there and they just left when we explained it was a party.The pics are from the party in the middle of a busy intersection. All cars that came by had to go right and go around the block. We had a party for 15 mins there and kept on going on the sidewalk afterwards with no problems. Way to go Toronto. I enjoyed it..

Open forum 1 (2) in pictures

This is what it looked like

Open forum 1 (2)

Open Forums as I saw them.

I was the secretary for the first.. So here goes.

Open forum 1 Toronto 2008

Intro by Andy D our revered and beloved president.
Andy explained how this circus is run. Basically and in short it is a flat structure, so everyone has as much say-so as any of their fellow members. If you choose the other option in the voting procedure, other than to vote yes or no, which is to block, it comes with a obligation to have an alternative to the suggestion you block.

Stefan explained that IFBMA (international federation of bike messenger associations) is incorporated under Swiss law, because there is no taxes for international federations. (ex: IOC,UCI and IFBMA) therefore to comply with Swiss law we have constituted a council.

And then I revealed the exciting agenda:

Website
Rulebook
Global alliance for ecomobility
CMWC2009
CMWC2010
Open floor

Website:
Jacobs has a plan, but no graphics. ( He was at the second Open forum elected to head up the IT group for us all.)
Andy Z: Go ahead and do it.
Jacobs: Content?
Ho: We could make a thread on it on the message board.
Stefan: We should keep it in line with the work Joel Metz has done.
Andy Z: We could do it wrong rather than wait for a perfect world to emerge.

Q: To migrate the messengers.org to a new format, and maybe an IT group.( Jacobs was at the second Open forum elected to head up the IT group for us all.)
Andy Z suggested to make schwag to support the IT.

Rulebook:
After lots of argumentation everyone agreed on making an event guide line.

Q: Is everyone ok with the council making an edit on this? (All were at the second Open forum)

Global alliance for ecomobility:
Andy D: It is a NGO that lobbies for city development that it is less car dependent and more focused on alternative modes of transport. Represents all sorts of messengers: foot- , rollerblading- , and bikemessengers. Members also includes amateur cycling organisations, governmental organisations. Advocates for passenging or car pooling.
The council opted to join for networking purposes, and we have agreed to be advisors, and to have a chair on the committee. We can at all times get up and leave if we feel compromised by the alliance.
Andy Z: It all sounds good, but can back fire if we just let random messengers speak on everyones behalf.

CMWC2009
Yosh: Last months race was good. We are ready for next year. Less experience with large events in Japan - but Tokyo is ready. Jacobs had a few questions and all was good.

CMWC2010
No bids at this meeting.
At the second meeting however Panajachel, Guatemala was selected, the bid was presented by Nadir Olivet and the race captain will be Andy Zalan.

There was a few shoutouts:
ECMC
NACCC
Cross dress for red cross
Earth hour
Now 3 of those sounds pretty standard events .. What do I know..

Peace out.

/m

Tobma meeting and election

Meeting in August for Tobma.
August 21st

Welcome to all.
Present was:
Marli, Jeremy, Givago, Charlie, Bennet, Rich, Brian, Mark, Martin, Smitty, Graham.

Secretary: Martin
Speakers adjudisisarory/chairman: Mark

The meeting Had quite a short agenda.
Accept of the minutes from last meeting and the agenda for today.
Nominations to the steering committee/voting
Ideas for what Tobma should be
Open floor

The minutes for the last meting was accepted. So was the agenda.

http://www.new.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=5350&post=22791&uid=20038712099#post22791

Martin added a comment made by Tif - Why not have a veteran on the steering committee? My answer was: We are trying to make a club for working messengers that might be able to grow into a union. Veterans are welcome at meetings and in any capacity cooperating with Tobma, but should not have voting rights and should not be on the steering committee of said group. This is of course up to the new steering committee to agree upon and put in the by laws.

So we went on to nominations:
These 6 wanted to be on board:
Brian
Marli
Rich
Mark
Bennet
Givago

Rich did not get voted in.
So the new steering committee is:

Brian
Marli
Mark
Bennet
Givago

They will constitute themselves so there will be a president, accountant, secretary and 2 ordinary members.

The last 2 items of the agenda merged into:

An idea by givago was kicked around a messenger store of sorts in the core, even a vending machine with tire tube and lube on sale. Mark had an idea for a contact.
Mark have the laminator and the stapler.
One had an idea to make spokecards for all maybe with a slight difference for the steering committee members.
We can raise funds and awareness with:
Patches, Stickers, tshirts, sweatshirts, caps.
We basically need branding.
We need to keep up the work with the Guidebook for rookies.
Maybe make a seminar on winter.
Work place hazards.
What to do if you get in an accident.
Is there a tax rebate on less cycling oriented gear/clothing?
You can claim 30% of your own phone and claim your work space at home.
There is a owners club, maybe we should make contact to cooperate.
Rate transparency to the messengers so you can figure out what you make.
Rich pointed to a fact that we according to the law we are not to undercut the postal service. and we don´t if all our cheap calls are 47 grams or less. I think we need 3 volunteers from different companies to carry a scale for a month. Maybe what we find is an item for Market place on CBC.
We need to focus on the cheapest rates to make a reasonable living out of our job.
How else can we get attention? Strike?
We need to make a www page. Maybe a board.
We need to lobby with the city to make the city move more stuff by bike instead of cars.
Tif made a pledge to head up a ´zine for Toronto messengers.
And all should go to Velosocial on the first Monday of each month.

http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=44920354936&ref=ts