Riding on the sidewalk is always illegal. On West 36th Street between 7th and 8th there are two — count 'em two — bike messenger services, and at various times during the day and evening, you can literally run a gauntlet of fast moving bikes.

Hey, NYPD! They're easy to find. Their employers are easy to find. All you have to do is post a couple of plainclothesmen and grab 'em as they whiz by.

How about busting some of these heavy duty cyclists and giving us recreational weekend riders a break.

And where's Etoain Shrdlu on this when we need him?

Don't blame the bike messengers, blame the companies. I used to work for one of those companies on W 36th (Urban Express), and it generally isn't the fault of the bikers that they're rushing like mad through traffic. When you're given a rush envelope to be delivered in a short period of time, you have two choices:

1.) Get there as soon as possible (through red lights, by going the wrong way down one-ways,..) in order to get the drop-off on time.

2.) Follow the rules of the road, which were written for automobiles, and fail to drop the package off in time.

Every messenger will chose the first option because they are paid meager wages and they generally don't have time to stop for read lights. There is a small minority of bike messengers who are downright wreckless, but most are not.