European Cycle Messenger Championships 2017, Vienna – Austria

Highlights of the European Cycle Messenger Championships 2017 event hosted in Vienna, Austria. The annual event brings together the bike messenger community from all over Europe to have fun, party and race! Video shot and produced by Sabotage Films http://www.sabotage-films.com

Vienna is an absolutely amazing city in terms of quality of life It’s a good city for cycling, I really like it in Vienna and I don’t want to live somewhere else. ECMC is the European Cycling Messenger Championship. Cycling messengers from all over Europe come to Vienna.

We are a group of messengers and we often spoke about the plan of organizing an ECMC here in Vienna. At some point we had formed a rough concept and came to the point where we decided, “Yes we are going for it”. People coming from all over Europe,

They come together, and for four to five days they really enjoy themselves, and besides all of that they do some racing. When I heard there was one in Vienna I just said “I should try”. We had a group ride on Thursday where we all rode together through the city.

There are different contests, for example, Trackstand, the goal is to keep the balance on the bike while standing still. Sprint, Goldsprint, where the only goal is to be as fast as possible. Why we are here today is the qualification for the main race tomorrow.

The idea is to stimulate a typical messengers workday on a park, racing for roughly three hours and transporting packages between checkpoints. At first you get a to-do list and you have to pick up several things on the track.

There are checkpoints, there are a lot of potholes, so you really have to watch out. Also, watch out for other people but everybody’s looking for each other and everything is safe. The difficulty is not to forget things at checkpoints. For example, the two walking areas where you have to get your bike

And push it, you then go to the checkpoint, get your stamp, you return back to your bike and the first impulse is to jump back on your bike and continue. Therefore, I got some penalties. I took most of the time on some of the longer stretches to go as fast as possible.

They went the shortest one so I’m not really sure that I would win that. Having a bike where your on a holiday for example, like now, right now I’m in Vienna with a bike. I can explore the city like a normal person who lives in Vienna would do.

“Who wants to take part in the alleycat?” For me, it’s the perfect combination of being active and seeing a different city. Biking is first of all like a fast way to get around the city, like, the fastest. Even if you’re not 100% truthful to the rules

Of traffic you still get away, most of the time at least. The feedback from the people is amazing. They like it, have fun, party, race. All in all we are super happy that all went very well. Vienna, I am amazed. I definitely would come again.