Last week, while the world’s finest amateur athletes competed in London, hundreds of poorly paid professional athletes from four continents convened in Chicago for the Olympics of bike messengering. They were here for the 20th annual Cycle Messenger World Championships, the ultimate test of two-wheeled delivery prowess.

It was a long, alcohol-fueled week of events celebrating the courier lifestyle, including the main race simulating a day of work in the Chicago Loop business district, on-street “alleycat” races, a courier-themed film night, track competitions, and the Messenger Prom, where cyclists got dolled up in slinky dresses and ironic tuxedos.

Many pundits have predicted that bike couriers would go the way of the Pony Express, rendered obsolete by digital technology. But the crowd of messengers, who came from as far away as Guatemala, Japan, and Australia, proved that, while email and online file sharing have cut into the messenger business since the salad days of the 1990s, as cities grow more congested, there may always be a place for fast, efficient, environmentally friendly bike delivery.

On Sunday, the last day of the “champs,” dozens of couriers gathered in a huge parking lot next to the Soldier Field football stadium to compete in the finals for the main race, with parcels to transport, multiple checkpoints to visit, and plenty of split-second logistical decisions to make. Many rode sleek fixed-gear bikes, and most wore some combination of high-tech bike gear and thrift store threads.

Photo by John Greenfield.

If there was a uniform, it consisted of a cycling cap, cut-off Dickies work pants, and a single-strap bag customized with colorful patches. There was plenty of brightly dyed hair, along with dreadlocks, piercings, and tattoos. One guy with a Fabio-like mane had an angel inked on each bicep, one labeled “Triumph” and the other “Failure.”

I buttonholed a fellow dressed as a giant hotdog, one of the unofficial symbols of this meat-obsessed city. “My favorite thing about the championships is seeing all of my friends from other places, getting drunk, and racing,” he said, introducing himself as S.K., from Minneapolis. “If you’re a bike messenger, sometimes it seems like everyone else in the world is a jerk and other messengers are the only people you want to hang out with.”

S.K. offered to sell me a copy of “The Full Package,” a pin-up calendar featuring male Minneapolis couriers in their skivvies, a fundraiser for the 2014 North American Cycle Courier Champions, to be held in the Twin Cities.

As I walked away from the human frankfurter another courier teased, “Your wiener’s showing.”

At one of the race checkpoints, longtime Chicago messenger John “Blunt” Robbins, sporting turquoise dreads, posed for photos shirtless with his trademark banana-seat bike held over his head. “The people here are all my family,” he said. “We’re all related and we’ve all got the same mother, no matter what race, creed, or color, because as messengers we’ve had the same experiences and the same difficulties.”

Photo by Dave Schlabowske.

These hardships include pedaling hard in heavy traffic in pouring rain, freezing cold, and this summer’s record-setting heat. Broken bones and totaled bikes are common, and many couriers have war stories of near-death experiences. But while the job used to offer relatively good earning potential for “unskilled” labor, with efficient couriers making over $25,000 a year in commissions during the late ’90s, nowadays most messengers make little more than minimum wage, sans benefits.

Yuki Ogawa, from Tokyo, which hosted the world championships in 2009, said the challenges of messengering in her city include hard-to-find addresses, speeding motorcycles, slow-moving housewives on “mamachari” utility bikes, and taxicabs with automatic doors that can suddenly open in a cyclist’s path.

After the finals of the main race, there was a cargo competition, with contestants transporting boxes, bricks, car tires, and wooden pallets via trailers and specialized cargo bikes, or simply stuffing items into their courier bags and carrying them by hand.

The guy in the sausage suit excelled in the sprint competition, and the heat after his featured a racer who streaked in the nude, save for his bike helmet. (Although many couriers opt not to wear head protection at work, helmets were mandatory for the racers.)

Photo by Dave Schlabowske.

The final competition was skids, with contestants on brakeless fixed-gears locking their knees to halt their tires, performing amazing slides on the pavement while leaning over the handlebars at a 45-degree angle to the ground. The longest skid won.

After the races were over, the couriers pedaled to a nearby rock club for live-band karaoke and an awards ceremony. When the final results were tabulated, the overall male and female winners were announced: Craig Etheridge from Seattle and Josephine Reitzel from Lausanne, Switzerland. The scruffy, sweaty, PBR-swilling crowd went wild.

The enthusiasm of the couriers for their job was palpable, but with all the difficulties, dangers, and low pay, why do they still love it? “If you’ve got some alternative ideas about using oil and using cars in the city, being a courier is a great way to do what you’re talking about,” explained Jérôme Demuth from Paris. “You’re outside, you’re getting exercise, it’s a rush — and it’s good fucking work.”

“It’s not that we don’t like straight people,” explains Jeff Rogers, president of the Windy City Cycling Club (WCCC), Chicago’s oldest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender bicycle group. “On the contrary: The biking community at large tends to be made up of very nice people who are very accepting of diversity in general. But gay and lesbian people have a comfort level with each other that’s different than with straight people.”

That sense of belonging is easy to see as we hang out at T’s, a buzzing lesbian, gay, and straight pub in Chicago’s LGBT-friendly Andersonville neighborhood, on a sunny February afternoon. A dozen or so club members, mostly women plus a handful of men, are gathered at an off-season social for Dykes Pedaling Bikes, the club’s monthly women’s ride. Ranging in age from late 20s to late 50s, they kibbutz over $5 hamburgers and tall glasses of hefeweizen with lemon slices as Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” blasts on the sound system. A couple of them wear the club’s jersey, featuring a bicycle wheel, the Sears Tower, the Chicago flag, and a rainbow banner.

The WCCC formed in 1992 to get the wheels of fellowship turning among lesbian and gay folks. “Our society has opened up a lot in the last 20 years,” says Rogers, a mild-mannered financial advisor. “But back then the bike rides were a good place to meet people in a safe environment outside of a bar setting.”

Nowadays members lead mellow bike path cruises as well as speedy training rides and rugged off-road excursions. Since the Chicago area is mostly pancake-flat, the club also arranges trips to Wisconsin and Michigan for more challenging riding, plus bike vacations to Ireland and the Texas Hill Country. During the winter, the WCCC organizes get-togethers for skiing, sledding, skating, and spinning, and members also support bicycle advocacy by volunteering with the Active Transportation Alliance, which lobbies for better biking, walking, and transit conditions.

Dykes Pedaling Bikes started several years ago as a collaboration between the WCCC, the Lesbian Community Care Project (part of the Howard Brown Health Center, a local LGBT healthcare provider), and Dykediva.com, a website that promotes events in Chicago’s lesbian community. From spring to fall, the ride meets on the first Saturday of the month for a relaxed spin through Northwest Side forest preserves to the serene Chicago Botanic Gardens.

Windy City Bike Clubbers gather for drinks and a little camaraderie. (Photo by John Greenfield)

Each ride draws as many as 40 women, plus an occasional man or two, since all club members are welcome to participate. “But it’s mostly a lesbian cycling group, so it’s a chance to meet other women with the same interests,” says rider Lori Pontious. She’s also working on organizing some longer, faster club rides for women, as well as winter cycling events, to attract a broader range of participants.

Munching a veggie burger at a nearby table, Drew Jemilo, a spinning instructor who founded the Chicago Razors gay triathlon team to compete in the 2006 Gay Games here, says he only rides with LGBT clubs. “A lot of us gay men weren’t into sports in high school but we got into it in our 30s and 40s,” he says. “In a gay group you might have guys who like to bike really fast, but there’s less competition and more camaraderie. It’s not a group of guys who ride to show how macho they are. It’s guys who ride more for the sense of community.”

That community can be quite empowering. In 2007, a bus struck Susan Levin on her bike, causing a concussion, a fractured elbow, a hematoma in her hip, and severe road rash that required a skin graft. The experience led her to co-found Active Trans’ Crash Support Group, meetings where cyclists can share encouragement with others who’ve been in a crash. She started riding with Dykes Pedaling Bikes in 2008 as a way to feel comfortable on a bike again. “Part of the healing process for me was going out on these non-competitive, totally supportive group rides,” she says.

Nowadays Levin helps coordinate Dykes Pedaling Bikes, but she also pedals in predominantly straight rides like Chicago’s huge, friendly Critical Mass, with thousands of participants during the summer, and the North Side Mass, a rowdy neighborhood cruise which can draw over 100. “Gays and straights do social rides for the same reasons,” she says with a grin. “It’s all about meeting other people. Really, the only difference is who you flirt with. I met my last girlfriend on a Dykes Pedaling Bikes ride and I know people who met on the ride who are now married.”

Levin emphasizes that the women’s ride is open to couples as well as singles, and she also enjoys biking with the guys on WCCC outings like the annual 85-mile tour from New Buffalo, Mich., to Saugatuck, a popular destination for LGBT tourists that’s been called the Provincetown of the Midwest.

After the bartender buys us all a round of marshmallow-fluff vodka shots, Lisa Bigelow and her buddy Sue tell me they dig the social aspect of Dykes Pedaling Bikes. “But it’s not just a hook-up ride,” Sue insists.

“That part helps bring people out, but it’s not a meat market,” Bigelow agrees.

And all women, not just lesbians, are welcome on the ride, they say. “We don’t ask and you don’t have to tell,” Sue says.

Commissioner Gabe Klein.Photo: Steven Vance

When forward-thinking Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) Commissioner Gabe Klein reported for work on May 16 as part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s new administration, it marked a sea change in the city’s priorities.

Chicago spent most of the 20th century trying to make it easier to drive. In recent years, as other cities pioneered green transportation initiatives like car-protected bike lanes, large-scale public bike sharing systems, and “ciclovia” events which shut down streets to make room for car-free recreation, Chicago futilely tried to fight auto congestion by removing pedestrian crosswalks, shortening walk signal times, and installing slip lanes and right-on-red signals to help drivers make faster turns.

After Emanuel won the election, his choice of Klein made it clear the mayor-elect was serious about sustainable transportation. The new commissioner was fresh from a stint as transportation director for Washington, D.C., where in a mere 23 months, he made numerous pedestrian safety improvements, launched a new streetcar system, expanded the downtown circulator bus system, piloted protected bike lanes, and created the nation’s first and largest bike share system.

He arrived a month before starting work, so within six months on the job, the commissioner racked up an impressive list of accomplishments and firsts, installing the city’s first protected bicycle lane, starting work on new protected lanes on two other streets, and laying plans to install a total of 100 miles of protected lanes within Emanuel’s first term. Under Klein, CDOT has begun striping conventional bike lanes continuously through intersections, it has broken the Richard Daley-era taboo against lanes in the city’s central Loop, and it has installed Chicago’s first on-street bike parking corral. The city recently issued a request for proposals for an operator to launch a 3,000-vehicle bike sharing system in summer 2012, and approved a contract to design the long-stalled Bloomingdale Trail, an elevated rails-to-trails.

And it’s not just cyclists who are feeling the love. CDOT is currently working with the Chicago Transit Authority to launch bus rapid transit corridors. The transportation department is also drafting the Chicago Pedestrian Plan. And while in 2005 Daley had the pedestrian crossing between Buckingham Fountain and the lakefront fenced off to speed car traffic, last month Klein re-opened the crosswalk, a powerful symbol of the city’s new attitude.

At only 40 years old, Klein’s personal style is very different than that of a typical Chicago bureaucrat. He’s the first CDOT commissioner to make full use of social media to promote his agenda, tweeting frequently about the latest transportation news. His Twitter profile lists pop culture, pizza, hip hop, and international beaches among his passions, and he gained a reputation here as a clotheshorse when he showed up for the July opening of the Kinzie protected lane, nattily dressed in a white linen suit.

Klein is also far more accessible than most of his predecessors. He is already a familiar face at rallies, ribbon cuttings, and galas, and it’s easy for the public to contact him via Twitter and Facebook. At Chicago’s first downtown ciclovia in October, he even volunteered for the dunking booth.

I recently interviewed Klein in his CDOT offices. I was curious about the path he’d traveled to become a self-described “fiscal conservative who’s as liberal as they come.”

Klein was born on Valentine’s Day 1971 in Hartford, Conn., to parents that were part of the Beat Generation. His Irish-Catholic mother was a lifelong artist. His Jewish father dropped out of NYU in the 1950s and moved to Japan, where he established a successful adhesive tape import business. “Supporting himself with this company basically allowed him to follow his dream, which was to be involved in civil rights and politics,” the commissioner said.

Klein’s father campaigned for liberal candidate Adlai Stevenson in his 1960 race against John F. Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination. In the early ’60s, he was as a Freedom Rider who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Stokely Carmichael at demonstrations in the South. Later that decade, the elder Klein opened a cafe called The Sign of the Fool in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, befriended poet Allen Ginsberg, and was housemates with Neal Cassady, the inspiration for the central figure in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

Klein got his start with bikes early. When he was 3, the family moved to Putnam, Conn., and his dad opened the Silver Bike Shop, where Gabe helped out as kid. And although a recent opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune by John McCarron accused Klein of waging “war on cars,” the commissioner harbors a not-so-secret love of classic automobiles, which he also traces back to his father. “He got a different car probably every six months,” Klein said. “So the infatuation with transportation runs in the family.”

In addition to bikes and cars, Gabe Klein’s youthful obsessions included computers and yoga. He bought an Apple II at age 10 with a loan from the local credit union, planting the seed for his current affinity for technology. That same year, he decided he wanted to study under his father’s guru, Swami Satchidananda, the holy man who gave the opening benediction at the Woodstock festival. When the guru opened the Yogaville Vidyalam, an interfaith school along the banks of the James River near Buckingham, Va., Klein followed him there at age 11.

While studying at the ashram he lived with various families, including that of classmate and future Dave Matthews Band bassist Stefan Lessard, until Klein’s family moved to the area to open a second bike shop. Other Yogaville contemporaries included actor Liev Schreiber and Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, with whom Klein played Dungeons & Dragons. “There were some very creative kids there,” Klein said. “It really changed my life.”

He still practices yoga every week with his wife Stephanie, and he said the spiritual lessons he learned from Satchidananda have strongly influenced his life choices. “I’m half Jewish and half Catholic, but I grew up more Hindu,” he said.

Klein’s professional history includes a stint with Bikes USA, the nation’s largest bicycle retailer at the time, and four years as a regional vice president for Zipcar, where he helped grow the company into a billion-dollar enterprise and the largest car sharing service in the U.S. In 2006, Klein left Zipcar to launch to On the Fly, a D.C.-based boutique food service company, where he helped develop electric “smartkarts” as an alternative to gas-guzzling food trucks. Two years later, new Mayor Adrian Fenty tapped him to lead the District Department of Transportation.

After Fenty lost reelection in 2010 and the administration changed at year’s end, Klein traveled to Costa Rica, did consulting work, and pondered his next move. He’d been offered positions leading various state transportation departments, but these jobs didn’t spark his imagination. Then he got the call from Chicago.

“One of the things that appealed to me about working for Mayor Emanuel was that he really had this holistic vision for a sustainable transportation system in Chicago and he also understood the economic benefits and the health benefits,” Klein told me. “So I’m really excited to be here to carry out that vision.”

Besides John McCarron’s op-ed in the Tribune, there have only been a handful of negative newspaper articles about the commissioner’s plans, but will there be a large-scale revolt once CDOT starts taking significant amounts of real estate away from cars for protected bike lanes and bus rapid transit?

With his background in marketing, Klein thinks he can prevent a major backlash by educating his constituents about how better walking, biking, and transit facilities can make the streets safer, more efficient, and more fun for all Chicagoans, even reducing congestion for motorists.

Here the commissioner takes a page from another technophile and devotee of Eastern philosophy, Apple founder and Zen Buddhist Steve Jobs. “He was able to give people what they hadn’t even envisioned that they needed yet,” Klein has said. “And then once they had it they couldn’t live without it. I think all of us in the transportation industry could learn from that.”