I hate to admit it, but I’ve become covetous of a messenger bag.I know, I know. The thought of a middle-aged doofus like me pedaling away on a trendy, hipster fixed-gear bike with a trendy, hipster messenger bag slung over his shoulder is just too much. It’s enough to give the whole trendy, hipster movement a bad name.But I don’t want a messenger bag to look cool. I gave up on that a long time ago.I want a messenger bag for the simplest, most practical of reasons: to haul stuff.One of the challenges of riding a bike to work regularly is getting stuff to and fro, and messenger bags are some of the most elegantly purpose-built, bike-specific carriers I know.Luckily for me, my job doesn’t entail a lot of hauling. Pens and reporters notebooks get stuffed in a pocket. Audio clips get saved to SD memory cards and pocketed. Pictures and large files get saved to the thumb drive I sometimes carry around my neck.Sometimes I have to lug bigger items, like a laptop. I have a laptop bag, and while it’s fine for shoulder-slinging, it’s terrible on the bike. It tends to migrate around the front at the most inopportune times, or it swings around to the back and bounces off the, er, saddle uncomfortably.I know the inherent difficulty in hauling stuff scares some people off from commuting, and I have to admit it can be a factor how and when I ride. I tend to accumulate things – documents, books, magazines, swag – at the office until I have enough to make a decent load in the dreaded laptop bag.I also load up when the weather turns and I’ve added layers. More layers equals more pockets. But that’s not ideal, either, as is evidenced by the apple that fell out of my pocket the other night and rolled away down Lawrence Avenue. There are, I know, all sorts of ways to lug stuff on two wheels: panniers, trailers, racks, baskets, backpacks and the like. But I prefer to travel light, so I make do with the laptop bag when necessary, and I’ve gotten pretty good about balancing two grocery sacks – plastic for me, in this case – on the handlebars after late-night grocery runs.The other day I happened upon an unusual scene. Ahead I caught a glance of what appeared to be two or three cyclists riding together. As I drew closer, I saw it was, in fact, one cyclist riding with an extension ladder thrown over his shoulder. And to think I have the nerve to complain about shouldering a laptop bag.