Kilometrix

26 May - Despite being grey and miserable weather I only wore shorts and short sleeves - thinking that the weather might clear up a bit. It didn't but moving alleviated the cold weather until I stopped moving. Number of trips were still down from the old days but the money was okay although I certainly worked for it today. The most kilometres i've ridden since I started recording them (85.5) - doing the long distances doesn't feel so bad because when there are long stretches you can usually get some speed up and it makes it a bit easier - when you're just hitting hills a and short stretches the constant acceleration can be far more exhausting ... At least that's how I take it. A few of us headed down to the Cambie afterwards where we were joined by a slightly ranting, drunken Kevin, one of the new Novex guys who's been fired or quit from about half a dozen companies in a year - he wasn't sure but its possible that he may have been let go from Novex which is a shame because he's pretty good when he's good, when he's bad ... he's ... well, not as good as when he's good. Well, if he has been let go maybe i'll be able to claim his radio. Shortly after kevin left a big burly guy with a beard all dressed in black came up to our table and demanded to know if we were the Novex crowd - we admitted we were and he introducd himself as Scott, our dispatcher. Always interesting putting a face to the scratchy voice that comes off the shoulder (not my shoulder because i'm still waiting for my radio clip) - he talks a lot of motorbikes and big cars and considers himself a man of eclectic tastes - pretty nice guy, although a little scary. He's certainly a good dispatcher who knows how to work with bikers, a far more difficult job than dealing with cars because of the high volume and short times. He also agreed with us that there were too many bikers working for novex but he gave us the standard Novex line that they were looking to expand - the onlyway they're going to get the extra work is by cuttingtheir rates again, which will mean less money for bikers, which will mean they'll quit, which will mean we're understafffed again, which will mean that we'll lose the contracts. It's the circle of life. The attire I was wearing was okay for the day but once the sun started to go down and the rain started to come down, sitting outside in shorts started to creep up on me so a pretty miserable ride home. Headed over to Kristl's for beer and peanut butter before going to a nouveau crappe bar in kistilano which was not the nicest place i've ever been to, but company was pretty good so I won't complain.