A Guy With A Skin Grows Back Sticker.

Tonight at the Sydney Rd IGA I saw a guy with a Skin Grows Back sticker on his Catlike helmet. Why he was wearing his helmet in the supermarket remains a mystery. Percentage chance of me knowing someone who knows that guy: I'd say around 80%. But I didn't know him.

I met Jamie from Skin Grows Back for the first time when I was on the Cannonball Run, the infamous 6 day, one-gear-only, bike messenger rite of passage, Melbourne to Sydney via the coast ride pioneered by Scooter. At some point during the second day we veered off the highway and into the wilderness. I had no idea where we were going, but as I was kind of the noob in that particular bunch of people - and definitely the outsider, having never been a bike messenger on the streets of Melbourne - I just followed along anyways. The roads we were taking became less and less well-travelled, until we were finally on the dirt track that led to Jamie's house. A bunch of the guys had known him while he was himself working on the bike, I think in Sydney. He took us in, fed us, and didn't batt an eye when we used up two or three full tubes of his sunscreen. We couldn't stay long though - I think we must've had a further hundred ks or so to go. As we wheeled our bikes back out to the dirt track he followed us, and you could kind of tell he wished he was also hitting the road, throwing his leg over a bike and pushing off into nowhere.

Locked up outside the IGA was a classic 2007 style track bike, with sensible wheels, suitable rizors and a single spokecard. Percentage chance of me knowing someone who knows that guy: 95%.