Work in Bicycle Cinema: From Race Rider to City Courier

Abstract

In the opening of the novel Kill the Messenger by Tami Hoag, Jace Damon, a bicycle courier, is rushing to make a delivery:

Legs pumping. Fingers tight on the handlebars. Fingertips numb. Eyes on the gap between a Jag and a FedEx truck. Quads burning. Calves like rocks. The taste of exhaust. Eyes dry and stinging behind a pair of swim goggles. A bag full of blueprints in cardboard cylinders riding his bag. (Hoag 2004: 1)

In this fast-paced narrative of a courier at work, we see an unmediated connection between the body of the worker and the ability to navigate the urban environment. This emphasis on split-second decisions that can have life-saving, or life-ending consequences is very much part of the thrill of courier work. In this type of narrative, instead of being positioned behind the immovable machine in the factory building, the worker on the bicycle machine performs life as it unfolds. The bicycle worker comes across as free while the factory worker appears to be chained. Felito Julião is another bicycle worker, but a very real one:

Julião is carrying two bundles of sugar cane on his bicycle. This bright young man earns a living with his bicycle … A rapid expansion of education means that he can read and write. He has a bicycle, which a decade ago was very uncommon. And he is bright and inventive, finding a way to carry more sugar cane and increase his income by a third [from $0.80 to $1.20 a day]. (Hanlon and Smart 2008: 1)