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Rebecca "Lambchop" Reiley:
Photos taken by Heather Halliday
Age: 31
Bike: Fixed gear* with basket and two bells
Years on the Job: 8
Cities she has messengered in: Washington D.C., Chicago, Houston, Denver, San
Francisco, Boston , Los Angeles, and New York
Rebecca has a mission. "I am writing a book about messengers." She has been
for seven of the eight years that she has been a messenger.
She has ridden in eight US cities and thrives on the nitty gritty of the
messenger lifestyle. "I wanted to see the country for real. I'm not big on
going to museums and churches and saying, 'I was there.' I want to really be
there. I want to really know a city. I want to know the people. Really felt
it in my veins. It felt like crap sometimes, but I really felt it."
She started because of "pure hunger." Rebecca remembers, "I got a bachelors
degree in equestrian science. I graduated in the middle of the recession and
the kinds of jobs I was finding were in telemarketing. I am really opposed to
holding a female job. It was going to be either landscaping or messengering
... I found a messenger job."
When she started she was, she admits, "scared to talk to anybody. I was the
'I'm sorry' girl." But the harsh work altered that. "I became mean in really
short order. I changed a lot. I got mean and I got scared a lot. I was just
that disgusting and mean." And now she concedes, "that's part of the reason I
need to get out now because it's just all piled up 40 times a day. I have big
tits and long hair and I'm just sick of (the harassment)."
Rebecca is well known in the messenger world. Before meeting her I had
already heard stories about she could undress while doing a track stand*. At
this year's World Messenger Championships in Zurich - her fifth championship
event, having already competed in Barcelona, Toronto, San Francisco, and
Washington D.C., the latter two of which she helped organize - she was belle
of the ball. "I swept the track bike events. Everyone knew I was going to
win the world titles and it was kind of weird. I felt like Michael Jordan.
I'm always the looser and I go and they're like, 'Wow your the one that's
going to win.'" She rode away with titles in Queen of the Track Bike, Women's
Track Stand, and the Women's Skid.
Rebecca is taking a sabbatical from the rough life of messengering to finish
her book, which will surely spread the vast knowledge and wisdom she has
gained from her intimate experience of the streets.
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