TCB Courier

TCB Courier Gets a Storefront (And It's Opening Tonight)

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

TCB Courier, the bike messenger company that began humbly as a service delivering condoms and cat food (among other things) at 3am around the Mission, has grown to a 50+-person company delivering everything from catered lunch orders to flowers.  And now they're taking things a step further by opening a small shop at 565 Ellis in the Tenderloin.

TCB's John Daniel Reiss tells us a little bit more about what they're looking to do with the space:

We have begun a small push towards selling soft goods, both to promote TCB and explore other means of income.  Following the release of our team cycling kits earlier this Summer, the benefits of merchandising became obvious. We have a strong amount of creatives among our rider base and now we have an effective outlet to showcase this.  With that in mind, we are offering a variety of TCB branded items at the store and online, including t-shirts, cycling caps, water bottles, jackets, cycling kits, etc.  We will also be featuring items from local California bike culture producers, such as SF-based Archive Bags and LA-based Yanco & Tracko, and consignment for high-end bike parts as well.  We hope to entertain all friends and visitors that have a fascination with bike messenger culture, but the TCB office won't be functioning as a traditional bike shop, we're not going to be setup to fix flats or sell frames. 

You can check out their opening party tonight from 5-8pm, and they promise “cases of beer will be provided for social lubrication, candy for diabetes and merch will be for sale.”  (And if you cannot make it tonight, their regular hours are M-F 10am-5pm and Saturdays 12-5PM.)

Your Local Messengers are the Best in the Nation

— By Erika Kali |

Even though we just posted about TCB Courier a few days ago, we're gonna do it again — right now — so prepare yourself.

Over the past weekend, a few of the TCB riders flew out to Richmond, Virginia to compete in the North American Cycling Courier Championships, and our homeboy/TCB head honcho Chas Christiansen won the whole thing. So what exactly is NACCS you ask? Let's take a look, via the NACCS website:

The North American Cycle Courier Championship is the premier bike messenger event on the continent. The hardest working couriers throughout the continent converge to socialize and face off for a chance at the title of Courier Champion. The weekend event will be a grueling logistical challenge of strength, speed, and mental capacity. Open forums, parties, and side events turn the weekend into a true celebration of sport, friendships and culture.

This is a pretty big deal, not only because it means that Chas is the best of the best, but also because this is the first time that San Francisco has won any sporting championship since that North American Stickball/Journey sing-a-long Championship back in 2010.

So congratulations Chas! We at Uptown Almanac are pumped you brought it home for SF, and we can't wait to see you at our door with those sandwiches in 30 minutes or less (cause then it's free, right? Or am I thinking of Dominos…).

[Photo via Zach Gibson]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Some Background on TCB Courier

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Different Workbook recently unleashed a nice profile of TCB Courier, the local bike messenger service that's about to deliver some sandos to my fucking face:

As part of a planet-spanning cycle messenger community, Chas and his friends witnessed the old paradigm for this type of business stop working. It used to be that bike courier businesses revolved around the financial district of a city. Fifteen years ago, at the height of the dot-com boom, the FiDi neighborhood in San Francisco was served by more than 500 cycle messengers. Yet between the Internet, fax machines, e-mail, and finally a seriously down economy, the traditional cycle delivery businesses began failing. “A dying system,” Chas says. Today, the downtown financial core of San Francisco is served by about 70 messengers.

So what do you do when you love to be on your bike every day and love the global messenger community you’re part of, and you’re watching the old ways of working die? These guys decided to create a company that revolved around a cultural center, not the financial center, of their city, to serve local individuals and businesses, and to provide a less expensive alternative to downtown bike messengers. As they created a service for their neighbors, TCB Courier was born. TCB stands for “takin’ care of business.” Today, they are bigger than expected. The business has expanded as other cycle messengers, living in other neighborhoods, decided they’d like to similarly serve their own neighborhoods. They called TCB and asked to join them and run their own neighborhoods.

Read on.

[Photo by John Daniel Reiss]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

365 Days of Sexy Bike Messengers!

— By Alissa |

TCB Courier made some calendars with pictures of themselves on them!

Aren't couriers just totally the hottest? Hottest hotties ever. So cute. And buff. Now instead of loitering around the statue or the courthouse hoping to catch the eye of a Vigorelli-riding hottie, you can bring them right home with you in the form of a wall calendar!

Initially I wanted to make fun of this as just obvious attention whoring but it's really a pretty clever way to promote a local business. Actually, the more I look at these pictures, the more I like them. At first I was nonplussed. Now I keep scrolling back up to look at that picture of Chas' back. Later today I'll probably stop by Mash and pick up one of these calendars. You can also shoot an email at tcbcalendar@gmail.com to order one. 

Previously on Uptown Almanac: