I have just finished a research project in Japan. While travelling around, I had the opportunity to attend the Cycle Messenger World Championships taking place in Yokohama and, to attempt to form an understanding of these events through the lens of a community-based tourism that re-enforces the right to the city for bicycle messengers.
My interest in these activities increased during the two months I spent there, allowing me to develop a deeper knowledge of both the global and Japanese messenger communities.
Events
Here is a quick overview of some of the events.
Slow-Burning Man: Slow-Burning Man is a community festival thrown by local messengers and was the pre-party to this year’s CMWC. It hosts a tracklocross race, stalls and music, with a prize giving at the end.
The Cycle Messenger World Championships:
Wednesday: The event begins with registration and meet and greet where competitors sign up for races, meet the organisers and hang around the park for a beer.
The following day (Thursday) the organisers hosted a group ride to a local temple, to learn about the culture and visit the kierin track. Here, we competed in time trials for the chance to race in a real kierin event.
Friday: Skid Competition
Open Forum:
Saturday: Delivery Race qualifiers
Unofficial Alleycat
Sunday brought the Delivery Race final, the Dispatch and Cargo Bike races and messgames. The day finished with the awards ceremony.
Context & Observations:
The CMWC brings isolated messenger communities together to compete, create bonds and have fun. Hosted by local messengers, it is a community-run event that showcases the local messenger culture to the wider messenger community. The weekend begins with an air of slight unfamiliarity and timidity between attendants, but by the end of the packed schedule of events, it feels like a family reunion with messengers reconnected after another year apart. Cycling along, it’s easy to spot the various hordes of messengers that have taken over the city. It must be odd for the onlookers, who aren’t aware of this subculture (though this may not be so typical in Japan) or, who wonder why there are suddenly hundreds of rough and ready cyclists roaming around.
These games were last held in Japan in 2008, and they left a lasting impression. During the games, a pedestrian was struck by a foreign messenger, and suddenly, what was once an obscure and unknown subculture gained notoriety in the media. With this came the scrutiny of messenger demeanour. Most notably, the riding style; with little regard to traffic laws and on brake-less, fixed-gear bicycles. This sparked a crack down on brake-less bikes from the authorities, but more than this it informed the wider public of the rampant rule breaking apparent within the messenger community.
In a country with a prominent compliance culture, this fostered distaste towards an industry that readily flouted the rules. In response, many messenger firms started to require that couriers rode road legal bikes during working hours and, to prohibit messengers from breaking traffic laws. But the damage was done, and messengers had what seemed an indelible negative image. Some Japanese messengers, however, want this rectified, setting the theme of the 2023 CMWC as the ‘new standard’ for messengers. Essentially, the organisers were trying to professionalise the image of messengers within Japanese society and hopefully ease the sense of suspicion and tension with which they can be viewed by the public.
This was a controversial decision to some within both the global and Japanese messenger communities, not least as it appears to contravene the very ethos of being a messenger. In practice, these steps meant what looked like greater restrictions being placed upon Championships’ participants. Most notably, all competing bikes had to be road legal, and therefore have brakes, and intoxication or open consumption of psychoactive substances on the racetrack would result in disqualification. Had these rules been strictly enforced the rift within the messenger community may have been greater, but in practice bikes only needed to have what appeared to be brakes (clip-on fakes were available) and, if competitors were intoxicated only some discretion was required. This was enough to satisfy the organisers and were able to invite in the media to begin getting the message out.
These compromises seemed to have settled dissent, with only a few heckles during the open forum. One concern remains, however, of elite capture. As there is only one courier firm in Yokohama, ( and, it is run under a hierarchical system) this meant that, rather than the usual collaboration of multiple businesses, decisions were left to a select few. It’s also true that the ‘new standard’ and attempts to professionalise could be interpreted as a method to exert control over local messengers and, to further business interests.
Other aspects of the messenger culture also caught the attention of the police; alleycats. The ensuing crackdown this caused, resulted in alleycats only taking place a handful of times a year and usually requiring to be small in numbers to avoid alerting the authorities. With the large congregation of messengers in Yokohama for the CMWC, keeping this year’s alleycats out of the authority’s sights was impossible, and the event was marked by warnings and interventions from the local authorities. No arrests were made but, it demonstrated the difficulty Japanese messengers have trying throw an alleycat.
The final day of the CMWC began in a sombre mood as news spread of a death the previous evening. This brought home the reality of a life on the road for a lot of people there. Moreover, with the victim intoxicated and on a brake-less fixed-gear, the organisers were quick to, not only express solidarity, but distance themselves from the incident. So far, there have been no negative repercussions for the organisers, but having made the news, there is a chance this death may undermine the vision of a ‘new standard’ and further the negative image of messengers in Japanese society.
This blog was written by Norman Duncan. Norman is a PhD research student in CCSE at UWS.
Leave a Reply