Slow Going at MerryXmas Charity Race After Party 2014

The narrator is a loud-ass goofball, but the rest is pretty good!

Messenger Profile #14 Casey Monahan!

Casey has recently left us for Seattle, but was a great addition to the crew while he was here. We're only dissapointed that he had to quote Jason Gordon Levitt at the end of his profile. Good luck Casey!!! Sad to see you go. -RG

Hey there. I’m Casey. I started riding the treacherous roads of Santa Cruz in 1998—at the tender age of three, on a red plastic heartbreaker—and I’ve been wrecking hills ever since. I started working with bikes in high school at the local non-profit Bike Santa Cruz County (formerly People Power) instructing kids on bike safety and maintenance, making smoothies and generally “taking care of business”. I got into the d.i.y. punk scene early, and have made being a musician a huge part of my life. I’ve played countless shows in the area, and everywhere up and down the west coast, in my own projects or in my friends’ bands. My band Pigeon Pit talks a lot about growing up in Santa Cruz being loud and queer and sad (you can check it out if you want but I didn’t tell you to) and has a lot of autobiographical narratives. My music for me is about storytelling, which is a huge passion of mine. The other thing I do, besides biking and sleeping, is write. I now study Creative Writing and Gender Studies in college, and plan on writing to be published in the relatively near future. I met the guys at Clutch playing bike polo while studying literature at Cabrillo College in Aptos and working at the Bagelry downtown. After a couple years working in food service jobs and pestering Brandon about letting me work at Clutch, an opportunity arose. Working at Clutch Courier has been completely liberating for me. It’s a paycheck, sure, but it’s also an honest day’s work where I get off with a thin coat of dirt and sweat and I feel fantastic. The progress I’ve made at Clutch with my riding, my outlook and my anxiety has accomplished a huge amount of positive change for me. I feel like I’m really working for myself here, waking up completely stoked to go to work, and going home feeling exhausted and accomplished and ready to eat anything that comes near me. I recently transplanted to Seattle, WA to study Creative Writing and to eventually teach high school, but I’m still wrecking hills and blowing through tires every day, hopefully returning to courier work once I’ve gotten to know the city. I ride a touring steel frame road bike for business and a steel frame fixed gear track bike for pleasure (no brakes no masters, all cars are bastards, can’t stop, don’t want to).

Messenger Profile #15 Kellie Su!

Kellie has been an awesome addition to the Clutch Crew .. ready to take on whatever we throw her way with professionalism and a positive attitude. Plus her gear and riding skills are always on point. Keep up the good work Kellie! -RG

Hello folx,

My name is Kellie and I’ve been with the Clutch Crew for almost a year.

I was born and raised in San Francisco, doing hoodrat things with my friends mostly around the Richmond and Mission districts. I owe most of my love for cycling to my beautiful hometown, and my dad who used to be one of those spandex wearing weirdos. And now I’m a spandex wearing weirdo, but only on the weekends.

I moved to Santa Cruz circa 4 years ago to attend UC Santa Cruz for school. After pestering Clutch off and on for a while, they finally had an opening for me and I was able to say I wasn’t a starving college student anymore. Clutch gave me the opportunity to do what I love while going to school, and a real work-life balance that worked perfectly for me. Now that I’ve graduated, I get to ride my bike everyday, and sometimes even get paid to do it-- and I love every minute!

I like riding my bike in San Francisco, but I absolutely love it here in Santa Cruz. The people are nicer, traffic is less terrifying, and the roads and scenery are breathtaking.

When I’m not riding my bike, I’m either holed up playing video games, eating way too much spicy food, bummin’ it at the beach, or riding my bike.

Messenger Profile - Cody Gin

Messenger Profile ~ Cody Gin.

Howdy,

I’m Cody, and I’ve been working for Clutch Couriers for a little over a year now.

Rick’s been hassling me to write this for months, but now feels like the right time.

I was born and raised in San Luis Obispo, California. There, I ran amok in the hills and woods with my friends, always riding our crappy mountain bikes or rollerblades to the next adventure and/or troublemaking opportunity. I started riding my bike to school in the 8th grade, and I’ve been hooked on cycling ever since.

I moved to Santa Cruz to go to Cabrillo College to avoid the torrential rains of Humboldt, where I had previously been schooled. Here, I started playing bike polo, a weird mix of hockey and horse polo (which you all should totally play!), where I met Brandon and Andrew, who worked at Clutch Couriers at the time. It seemed like they had the dream job; getting paid to ride a bike all day. I made one attempt at that operating a pedicab, but it turns out that legal documents are way easier to carry than overweight tourists.

After graduating college, I managed to evade adult life for a couple of months by working at a camp near Yosemite. After the camp burned down in the 2014 Rim Fire, I was cast adrift into the real world. Direction was only restored when Brandon offered me a job at Clutch Couriers. After a month of couch surfing (thanks for the couch Brandon!) I regained my footing and am happily working here today.

Riding one’s bike in Santa Cruz is interesting to say the least. The dense traffic and non-intuitive street layout makes for some strange riding, unlike anywhere I’ve ridden before. However, it’s all worth it when I ride to the top of a hill and can turn around to see the entire coastline wrapping around the Monterey Bay, but on overcast days see nothing but an ocean of fog reaching all the way up to the redwoods. That shit never gets old.

In my spare time you can find me drinking beer and heckling at the polo court (search for Santa Cruz Bike Polo on Facebook for times), riding my weird cyclocross bike in the forest, or throwing my disc golf discs at trees.

Owners note- Cody is our latest messenger to cruise through his rookie year with flying colors, while always leveling up in the game. He is a dedicated and professional courier, and we are stoked to have him on crew. Great messengers like Cody don't come along every day, but they are starting to become more common due to the decent living and opportunities for advancement offered by Clutch Couriers.