Rhythm of the road suits the jazz singer

How many people can truly, hand-on-heart, say they love their jobs? Frank Willems, 44, blues and jazz singer and Brussels’s bike messenger, is such a rarity. "It’s just a pleasure to be on a bike, that feeling of being free, going where you want on your own power," he says. "You smell everything, you hear everything. It’s good."

For a decade he has been cycling 100 kilometres a day, sometimes, on Mondays and Fridays, 120km or more. He is, he claims, the only full-time, all-weather cycle messenger in Brussels. There is another cycle courrier, he concedes, "but he’s not really serious".

In bad weather his rival uses a car, Willems says with good-natured disdain. For his part he would never even dream of getting a driving licence: "Never!"

As a child Willems knew the cycling legends Eric de Vlaminck, future trainer of the Belgian national team, and his brother Roger. "Roger was one of the first guys who could beat Eddy Merckx," Willems remembers dreamily. "He’d come to my grandparents in Flanders to ask for vegetables or fresh rabbit. Sometimes they’d give me gloves or a cap from their team. The Vlamincks were my first idols. I was always biking."

At 20 a big love story - "we are still together" - brought him from Ghent to Brussels and the tough life of learning French, busking, then singing in bars, finally a regular spot at the Blue Corner in the centre of town, touring, a manager, singing with the then famous Blue Valentine.

It was while on tour in London that he saw bike messengers for the first time: "And I thought, that’s something for me."

He still plays and sings while he is cycling. Despite his resolute cheerfulness he admits it is sometimes tough surviving in the often merciless Brussels traffic. "The real hard part of the job is to stay focused, on what is going on in front, behind, next to me. I have to have eyes on my back."

He admits he does not wear a helmet unless the weather is really filthy, but concedes he probably should. "Motorists see you in the mirror and then seem to just forget. They are in a box protégé." The downside of the job is a doubling of traffic, aggressive drivers, much worse air pollution, and no-go areas in St Josse, Schaarbeek and Molenbeek.

The upside is that at long last something is being done for cyclists, even if, he says, it’s still "a pot-pourri" compared to the ubiquitous cycle ways of Amsterdam or Vienna. He approves of the cycle paths on the Rue de la Loi and hopes that something similar will be done on the narrower Rue Belliard.

The job is a matter of six-six-and-a-half hours a day in the saddle "riding, riding, riding", another two running up and down stairs; it pays around €2,000 a month. The clients are not the EU institutions. Willems belongs to non-EU Brussels, apart from occasional deliveries of invitations to the Euro-world. His bread and butter is that of documents and packages to and from lawyers and government ministers; his repose is savouring Brussels’s leafy, half-secret squares.

"I do something I like to do and the clients are satisfied because they know their packages will really arrive, and on time, sometimes in a big hurry. I am good value." How much longer will he go on? "Five years? If I keep the temperature down there’s always tomorrow...I don’t know what the future will bring, but I love what I do."

How many people can truly, hand-on-heart, say they love their jobs? Frank Willems, 44, blues and jazz singer and Brussels’s bike messenger, is such a rarity. "It’s just a pleasure to be on a bike, that feeling of being free, going where you want on your own power," he says. "You smell everything, you hear everything. It’s good."

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