RNC pedicab confidential: Politics, secret sadness and a $10 fight

CLEVELAND – It was only $10 more than the usual fare.

But for the man getting out of David Ames’ pedicab, it was too much, despite the particularly strenuous, out-of-the-way trip. The man marched off into his hotel. The woman with the man fished out a $100 bill and paid Ames his $30 fare plus a $5 tip.

“Here you'd think he’d be a gentleman and just pay for it and I’ll get him on the next one. We both have money. And he only wanted to pay you $20,” he recalls her saying. Then she whispered in his ear:

“'He’s a billionaire.'”

Just another interesting customer dealt with by a pedicab driver with Tiger Ghosts Rides Cincinnati's Pedicabs Company, in Cleveland to taxi delegates and others around the city during the Republican National Convention.

The pedicab's open-air back seat serves as an impromptu confessional. It's a place where riders can open up about politics, their dreams and disappointments to someone they may never see again.

“Twenty dollar counselor, right? Short-term therapy,” Ames calls it, with a laugh.

He might be the perfect pedicab driver for a rider eager to spill their secrets. He's worked as both a mental health counselor and bartender.

Sarah Mattson is the majority owner of the Cincinnati company but drives her own pedicab with the rest of her team. She's averaged about 50 passengers a night at the RNC, biking miles while gulping down water and a constant stream of snacks.

Many passengers she’s picked up have praised her small-business success, she said. But not everyone was so gracious. A man she described as a “self-righteous bigwig” sat behind her, and turned the ride into an inquisition.

“He was like, ‘What are you doing with your life?’ Like, “Why would you do this?’” She recalled. The man pressed his case: “‘Are your parents happy with your decision?’”

Mattson, 33, assured the man she was doing fine and her parents supported her, then turned his questions back on him, asking him if he was happy with where he was at in life. Then the truth came out.

No, the man said. He wished he had gone to law school.

Mattson doesn’t seem to have any regrets about her decision to practically move her company up to Cleveland for the RNC, despite some hurdles. She and seven other riders passed Cleveland’s strict battery of tests (drug, background, a physical) and she added brake lights and turn signals to her three-wheeled cabs to make them street-legal in Cleveland.

Convention passengers have been mostly friendly and open to chatting, Mattson said. She described one passenger, a TV personality who introduced himself as someone she should know (she didn't), and then gave her twice her price for the ride. But she has no interest in talking politics with passengers, preferring to deflect the conversation to safer topics.

"“I just say I politely decline to comment," she said. "Sometimes I say, 'My boss has asked me not to talk about politics for the weekend,' but I’m the boss, so they can’t really say much to that.”

Ames' approach couldn't be more different. He's happy to talk politics with Cleveland passengers and said his sense of delegates, including the buttoned-down, staid types, is that they're ready to accept their nominee, Donald Trump, with "a sense of resigned amusement." Giving delegates rides gave him an inside scoop on convention happenings, he said.

“They told me they already had their infighting, and they had decided," he said. “It was kind of fun for me knowing the way the tides would turn before the media did.”

Ames says the pedicab life is a great way to make money, meet people, and hear their stories, unvarnished. even if sometimes people are jerks.

“The fun thing about being a pedicab, is you’re in the People’s Republic of My Pedicab," he said. "If I don’t like the way you’re acting, you can get off here."

Ames works as a pedicab driver at big events all over the country during the summer. The money he makes helps fund From Gainesville With Love, the small non-profit he founded in his hometown of Gainesville, Florida. The organization works with Gainesville's sister city in Haiti on various initiatives and cultural exchanges.

Ames said he’s still not sure which presidential candidate he'll vote for in November, but his time in Cleveland left him even more convinced he’ll need to consider the real motivations of Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“I feel like in this election, we all have to look beneath the mask,” he said.

Now, if the two candidates would only spend a few minutes each in his pedicab ...