enough to land him a lengthy prison sentence in Poland. As we were just about to cycle to the police station to see if they’d let him go, he rolled up sheepishly on his bike. ‘They never checked my pockets,’ he said, ‘just put me in the back of the van. So I ate all the speed.’ He already had glassy eyes and a wild stare. He would stay awake for the rest of the week, growing increasingly confused and belligerent.
Mosquitoes swarmed in the dampness of the forest. The rain fell. No one wanted to talk about the messenger from Dublin.
On the second day we assembled under the Łazienkowski Bridge on the peninsula to watch the qualifications. A steady stream of competitors walked through race HQ, collected their manifests and set off to navigate their way round the course. Race officials tramped around making sure they obeyed the rules of the road, admonishing those who ignored the one-way systems and confiscating the bikes of riders who neglected to lock them up. Some messengers competed on foot, and did well. Others cheated, discovering unmarked tracks and secret routes through the forest. A pair of messengers raced on a tandem. I sat at acheckpoint in the forest for a while. Occasionally messengers would emerge from the trees, ask if they were in the right place, and cycle off again.
The organiser of the race, a messenger from Amsterdam named Fish, explained to me how he had designed the race using a complicated logistical algorithm that could be applied to any course. He said that his system would revolutionise the world of competitive alleycat racing, standardising its rules and allowing objective trans-competition comparisons to be made. I cycled to another checkpoint and watched the stream of competitors slip down a muddy hill. The course was strangely quiet, far removed from the usual sounds of a working day.
In the afternoon the sun came out, and a large crowd gathered round an old car, which had been wheeled out for the wing mirror smashing competition. Competitors had to cycle alongside the car and knock off a mirror stuck on with Velcro, with points awarded for distance and style. Some tried to kick with one foot while pedalling with the other, but the most effective strategy was to use a D-lock as a bat. Eventually people got bored of the controlled destruction and the competition degenerated into a near-riot. The car was kicked to pieces and smashed up with locks before being overturned and almost ending up in the river. Someone tried to set it on fire before one of the organisers climbed on top and asked people to stop as the car was to be used as the winner’s podium. Acrossthe water, a pair of old men who’d been quietly fishing withdrew, and eventually the police turned up.
That evening I sat by a fire tended by a dreadlocked, moonfaced man from Budapest, who admonished people for upsetting his shopping-trolley grill. A friendly drunkard stumbled over and sat down heavily on the embers. The comforting stench of several hundred messengers drifted up on the evening air. Bored by the rain, I left the campsite a few hours later and drifted back into the city, guided by a Polish messenger who I knew from London. Halfway home he showed me a street of clubs and bars, on one side of which stood an empty, half-finished office building, dotted with clubbers taking the air. Couples sat with their legs dangling from its empty windows like figures in a doll’s house. We locked our bikes, climbed through a fence and explored the concrete skeleton of the building, before sitting down on the roof and watching the lights of the city.
On the third day, my last in Warsaw, I wandered round the racecourse on foot. No working London messengers had qualified for the main race. In the hours before it began, the most serious competitors sat studying maps of the course which they’d drawn on their arms in permanent marker. Some tinkered with their bikes, adjusting gears and brakes that had become clogged with
Mosquitoes swarmed in the dampness of the forest. The rain fell. No one wanted to talk about the messenger from Dublin.
On the second day we assembled under the Łazienkowski Bridge on the peninsula to watch the qualifications. A steady stream of competitors walked through race HQ, collected their manifests and set off to navigate their way round the course. Race officials tramped around making sure they obeyed the rules of the road, admonishing those who ignored the one-way systems and confiscating the bikes of riders who neglected to lock them up. Some messengers competed on foot, and did well. Others cheated, discovering unmarked tracks and secret routes through the forest. A pair of messengers raced on a tandem. I sat at acheckpoint in the forest for a while. Occasionally messengers would emerge from the trees, ask if they were in the right place, and cycle off again.
The organiser of the race, a messenger from Amsterdam named Fish, explained to me how he had designed the race using a complicated logistical algorithm that could be applied to any course. He said that his system would revolutionise the world of competitive alleycat racing, standardising its rules and allowing objective trans-competition comparisons to be made. I cycled to another checkpoint and watched the stream of competitors slip down a muddy hill. The course was strangely quiet, far removed from the usual sounds of a working day.
In the afternoon the sun came out, and a large crowd gathered round an old car, which had been wheeled out for the wing mirror smashing competition. Competitors had to cycle alongside the car and knock off a mirror stuck on with Velcro, with points awarded for distance and style. Some tried to kick with one foot while pedalling with the other, but the most effective strategy was to use a D-lock as a bat. Eventually people got bored of the controlled destruction and the competition degenerated into a near-riot. The car was kicked to pieces and smashed up with locks before being overturned and almost ending up in the river. Someone tried to set it on fire before one of the organisers climbed on top and asked people to stop as the car was to be used as the winner’s podium. Acrossthe water, a pair of old men who’d been quietly fishing withdrew, and eventually the police turned up.
That evening I sat by a fire tended by a dreadlocked, moonfaced man from Budapest, who admonished people for upsetting his shopping-trolley grill. A friendly drunkard stumbled over and sat down heavily on the embers. The comforting stench of several hundred messengers drifted up on the evening air. Bored by the rain, I left the campsite a few hours later and drifted back into the city, guided by a Polish messenger who I knew from London. Halfway home he showed me a street of clubs and bars, on one side of which stood an empty, half-finished office building, dotted with clubbers taking the air. Couples sat with their legs dangling from its empty windows like figures in a doll’s house. We locked our bikes, climbed through a fence and explored the concrete skeleton of the building, before sitting down on the roof and watching the lights of the city.
On the third day, my last in Warsaw, I wandered round the racecourse on foot. No working London messengers had qualified for the main race. In the hours before it began, the most serious competitors sat studying maps of the course which they’d drawn on their arms in permanent marker. Some tinkered with their bikes, adjusting gears and brakes that had become clogged with
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