HOUSE OF PISTARD - COMING BACK TO LIFE IN 2012

Merry Christmas!

LONDON CALLING 2011

ECMC 2012 EDINBURGH SCOTLAND

The European Cycle Messenger Championships will be in Edinburgh next year during the month of June.
Exact dates will become available once confirmation from the Local Authorities has been received until then here's a Flyer and some bumf:



The European Cycle Messenger Championships 2012 will be hosted by Scotland's beautiful Capital City of Edinburgh. The Pre-Event for will be held in London with the after-event taking place in Glasgow for Millportpoloco.
Scotland is no stranger to hosting courier and bike events. Edinburgh has previously been host to two successful British and Irish Cycle Courier Championships (BICCC 2010 & BICCC 2011), as well as hosting Eastcoastaloco 2009 and the UK Bike Polo Championships 2011. Glasgow has put on Glasgopoloco 1 and 2 the Pre Events for ECMC Dublin 2002 and ECMC London 2003 and is regular host to Millportpoloco.
You can expect a warm welcome from this stunning city, surrounded by breathtaking mountain landscapes and filled with cycle paths along beautiful rivers and through patches of nature, along old railway lines.
Don't miss the chance to ride an Alleycat around the city of Edinburgh, with its cobbled lanes and mazelike structure of old tall buildings. With what is sure to be a fantastic Mainrace, and also Velodrome, Rollapaluza and Time Trial around a hill right in the middle of the city.
How does a party in an old quarry or on Cramond island sound?
This will be a year to remember, and if the Mayans are right and the world ends, 2012 could very well be the last ECMC!
So Don't Miss Out! Be There.

FULL ECMC WEBSITE COMING SOON

Dispatches from the CMWC. Part five.

First of all I owe a small correction. When I wrote in one of the earlier posts that not a single London messenger qualified to the main race, I meant that not a single messenger currently working in London qualified.
I overlooked the fact that an ex Cyclone rider Safa Brian made it to the finals. Well-done Brian!
The image below is of Brian competing in the extreme weather conditions (and kindly greeting me with his carefully manicured finger).


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Also I feel that someone should mention the unsung heroes of COOLNESS at the CMWC: the pensioners from Pogon Security.

Dispatches from the CMWC. Part four

Brutal is the only way to describe the weather conditions during the final race.
Torrential downpour turned the racecourse into a muddy swamp, manifests were dissolved, many brake pads disintegrated
within minutes. No amount of gore-tex would keep one dry for longer than 15 minutes.
After the race more of alcoholic debauchery ensued at the race course, then moving on to the near-by club and lasting until the wee hours.
As I'm typing this we are still missing one member of the house hold- Tom was last time seen yesterday under the bridge.
I still dont have any idea who are the new World Champions. Last three days of partying left me with a temporary brain damage.
CMWC 2013 will take place in the hilly Swiss town of Lausanne. Promotional tactics involved setting up an outdoor jacuzzi and giving away beer vouchers that can be exchanged for a pint in 2013.
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Dispatches from the CMWC. Part three

What are the absolutely necessary ingredients needed to replicate messengers’ working environment? The traffic, the elements, nasty security guards and bored receptionists are definitely somewhere near the top of the list. Well, in terms of traffic there was not much that organisers could do to stimulate the real working conditions on the road. So nor cars nor pedestrians on the racecourse, and that’s probably a good thing. Now for the elements. The rain started bang on time for the beginning of the qualifying race.
The grass and muddy sections of the racecourse were not dissimilar to Dublin’s infamous Phoenix Park racecourse from 2007.
Those who attended ECMC 2006 in Helsinki would remember the Messenguerilla race that was happening along side of the main race. This year similar thing happened, and the two races were going on simultaneously. The official race involved delivering the usual boxes and envelopes; the Messenguerilla race involved carrying envelopes filled with “money” and jiffies stuffed with “weed”. To make it more entertaining there was a security checkpoint where passing riders were liable for random bags searches, verbal abuse and confiscation of the goods. Another checkpoint was manned by a “bored receptionist” with a queue of a couple dozens of angry messengers waiting to get a stamp necessary to continue the race.
Also, for the couple of hours during the race there was a black market going on that allowed for exchange of the “money” and the “weed” for real beer. Not too sure how that worked but I’ve seen couriers being bought beer in exchange for a wad of “notes” and a bag of rosemary.
As soon a the race finished the rain eased a little bit and the usual activities of drinking and chattin proceeded next to bbq’s and small bonfires under the bridge.
With a fairly big stage and live bands playing on and off it felt more like a music festival rather than any other event.
I spent the rest of the night sharing the table with drunken Londoners, Irish, Finns, Kiwis, Mexican Spaniards and even a passed out Aussie wrapped in a cling foil.


THE MORNING UPDATE: Not A Single Londoner In The Finals. Surprise, surprise...
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London- Glasgow- Dublin manned checkpoint
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More of the checkpoint. Please note the bags of "weed" that have just been delivered
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Austin Horse of Samurai NYC queuing at the checkpoint with his polish bodyguard
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London's Own Vojtech in the qualifying race
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Soon-To-Be London's Own Lane is ripping some rubber during the skid competition
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And now for the real competition: Australia & New Zealand vs The Dog

Dispatches from the CMWC. Part two

Despite the fear of rain, the weather on Friday turned out to be just perfect: warm and sunny. All the bad stories of police making a mass crack down on anyone ridding bikes under the influence seemed to be quite an exaggeration too. Unfortunately there were some genuinely bad news, mostly about the Dublin lad who is in the hospital and has yet to regain his consciousness after a Wednesday night collision with a car.

The racecourse is located on the river, not too far from the town centre, right under the major highwayish looking bridge. In many ways it reminded me of the sports complex where the ECMC 2004 racecourse was. A perfect place to chill out with a beer surrounded by a lot of not cycling cyclists.

Most of the people were indulging in a bottle related activities, be it downing lager, or as some of the Londoners did, using empty beer bottles as a football substitute.

As the day progressed the mosquitoes descended on the racecourse biting anyone indiscriminately. Because the whole event is actually called championships, some sporting activities occurred. Along-the-river sprints did not seem to distract people too much from the bar duties. Before the sprints through, the wing mirror smashing competition proved to be a very popular spectacle, turning eventually into an impromptu car-overturning riot. The London crew played rather major part in the car smashing but everyone else joined happily in tire slashing, kryptonite-ing the windows or trying to rip off car doors.

Happy drinking and mosquito assault continued through the evening…

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A part of the racecourse

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Norf London vs Sarf London Empty Beer Bottle Derby

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Londoners sight seeing

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Anyone remembers those mugs?

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Should we have a riot?

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Yes we should!!!!!!!!!

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Dispatches from the CMWC. Part one

Its Wednesday night and just before midnight a van full of couriers sets of from the very exotic post code of SE23. We are heading towards the ferry port of Dover.

The ferry trip is a fairly uneventful affair. We are the only customers at the bar. The fact that it is 3am may explain it.

Reaching the continent and meeting up with the second courier van that made it over on an earlier boat. The convoy proceeds to the nearest available petrol station. The station happens to be in Belgium and happens to be serving tins of Jupiler lager. Unsurprisingly enough tins of Jupiler become a pre-dawn breakfast for some.

The couriers smelling convoy moves through quite picturesque fogged flatness of Belgium into the gridlock of Cologne’s outer ring.

Sun, rain, sun, petrol station after petrol station stocking up on beer, sandwiches, crisps and chocolate. Monotony of the autobahn is briefly broken by a German/Swiss carpenter couple hitching a lift with us into the East Germany.

It turns out that the world is a small place indeed as the carpenter girl knows Judith- a fellow messenger from Zurich. We are dropping the carpenters off in the middle of nowhere and heading towards the border. The very first song we managed to catch on the polish Radio 3 is AC/DC’s ‘Hells Bells’.

Few more hours on the polish roads and we are reaching Urban and Kuba's home town of Brzeg. After experiencing amazing hospitality of Urban's parents we are pushing on to cover the final few hundred kilometers to Warsaw. Finally after nearly 30 hours of driving we are reaching the camp site at the CMWC HQ. To be continued...

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Happy hour at the ferry is at 3am
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Synchronising walkie talkies in Calais.

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Full english breakfast in Belgium.

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Autobahn 1.

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Toilet stop.

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Cigarette stop.

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Petrol station: yawning and nose picking.

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Autobahn 2

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First minutes in Warsaw: trying to save the victim of reversing

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CMWC WARSAW DFL PRIZE

We got together with Black Rainbow Project to make some pouches for the greatest achievement in the international sporting field: DFL.



This is a custom pouch collaboration where once again HOP has left the lion's share of the work to the other party. One of these has already been won by Panda at ECMC Madrid earlier this month and all you need to do in Warsaw to get this one is come Dead Fucking Last in the Mainrace.*


*We're not sure if that means in the Final or overall slowest time, that's up to the organisers to decide but this whole project has been running so far underground it's doubtful that the CMWC Organisers are even aware that a pouch is heading towards them in RagWorm's tour van... actually it's doubtful even that RagWorm know it's hidden in there.

NEW LCEF TEES FOR CMWC

Just finished some shirts for the LCEF to sell at this years CMWC in Warszawa.
It's just a slightly updated version of the Original Logo to keep it FRESH FOR THA KIDZZ.