Bike messenger v taxi
What's faster across the city of Chicago, a top bike messenger or a taxi? In this video, we find out.
Nico Deportago-Cabrera is one of the world's fastest bike messengers, according to Red Bull, who made this clip. Does he know the streets of Chicago better than a cabbie? And if he does can he get from downtown to the northern centre faster?
They set out at the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower and the tallest building in the world from its completion in 1973 until the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia claimed the title in 1998.
Their destination is Wrigleyville, location of the Chicago Cubs ground at Wrigley Field, which you may remember from the movie The Blues Brothers.
It's 5.6 miles by bike, 7.2 miles by car, but the cab can take the fast freeways while Nico has to battle surface streets with their traffic, lights and slow-moving buses.
Who's fastest? Whose machine reigns supreme? Watch and find out.
Our official grumpy Northerner, John has been riding bikes for over 30 years since discovering as an uncoordinated teen that a sport could be fun if it didn't require you to catch a ball or get in the way of a hulking prop forward.
Road touring was followed by mountain biking and a career racing in the mud that was as brief as it was unsuccessful.
Somewhere along the line came the discovery that he could string a few words together, followed by the even more remarkable discovery that people were mug enough to pay for this rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work. He's pretty certain he's worked for even more bike publications than Mat Brett.
The inevitable 30-something MAMIL transition saw him shift to skinny tyres and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.