The European Cycle Messenger Championship hits Edinburgh next week, and for the first time any cyclist can take part
If it's not the endless hills and ancient cobbles, it's the tangle of tramworks tying up much of the city centre. Cycling in central Edinburgh can be a challenge for the most experienced rider. For cycle couriers it can be akin to a daily assault course.
Next week, the city's bike messengers will pit themselves against the best in the world as Edinburgh hosts the European Cycle Messenger Championships. It's the 17th year of the competition but the first to open its doors to any cyclist who thinks they can match the pace and panache of the couriers: trousers rolled up, radio holsters strapped on, D-lock in the back pocket.
"Over the years, couriers have been this kind of subculture, kind of us and them, so this year we're really trying to involve everybody," says Eva Ballin, 41, a veteran Edinburgh bike messenger and organiser of this year's event.
"This year we want to have it open to anyone with a bicycle. We think Edinburgh is a beautiful, and challenging, city to cycle in."
More than 100 couriers from across Europe and as far afield as Canada, Japan and Taiwan will be in the city between 15 and 17 June to take part in a series of events. It starts off with a one-mile sprint up Arthur's Seat. Organisers had originally envisaged a race around the city landmark, but with a live traffic downhill section and three roundabouts, it was deemed by police to be too dangerous. There is also a five-hour track event at the Meadowbank velodrome, and the final challenge when participants will have to pick up and deliver a series of parcels and packages around the city. And it's not necessarily the fastest that will come first.
"It's a package race, courier-style, but it's not just about being fast," says Ballin. "You have to be smart and you have to be polite. If you jostle, you're going to the back of the queue."
But surely the Edinburgh messengers will have a head start when it comes to cobbles and inclines.
"Maybe over those who don't have any hills," says Ballin, who admits her least favoured route is a straight and unrelenting run from the bottom of Dundas Street to the top of the Mound. Some days, she can be up and down it like a yoyo. "Just as you're getting tired you get another call. And with the roadworks in the city centre it's a drag. Sometimes you feel you might be better walking than cycling."
Brian Dunsmore, a former courier and now a partner in a Glasgow cycle shop, said it was apt that the competition was in Scotland this year because it's the 200th anniversary of the birth of Kirkpatrick MacMillan, the founding father of the bicycle.
"The competition will celebrate the bicycle as a working tool, a simple means of transport, a health and fitness booster and ultimately a little piece of freedom in an increasingly congested urban environment," he said.
The event has the backing of Edinburgh city council, and on Tuesday some of the contestants met the lord provost, Donald Wilson, at the city chambers.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/scotland-blog/2012/jun/13/cycle-couriers-edinburgh-streets
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