“Of course, I like bikes, but it’s really about working my body. I guess I’m a bit of a masochist.” Ayumu - Photo by Benjamin Parks

“When I meet bike messengers from other companies, they’re always totally on the level,” says Book, a baby-faced 25-year-old with four years of experience under his belt. “They’re the most peaceful people you’ll ever meet—I mean, you’ll wonder how there could ever be war in the world.”

The warriors, presumably, get office jobs instead. Ayumu, a 31-year-old with stumpy dreadlocks who’s been working as a bike messenger for five years, gives a succinct explanation of the job’s appeal: “Of course, I like bikes, but it’s really about working my body. I guess I’m a bit of a masochist.” He laughs, not for the first time. “Is there anything I don’t like about it? Nah, I love this job.”

Matsudo, 26, is still relatively new to the game, having started eighteen months ago. Tall and with striking features, he supplements his income with the odd acting job. Along with a love of bikes and “the feeling of going really fast,” he cites Hayao Miyazaki’s Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki’s Delivery Service), the animated tale of a young witch who runs an air courier service, as an inspiration for getting into the messenger business.

“I didn’t know that much about it before I started,” he admits. “I’d be out riding around town on a hybrid bike, and I’d overtake these guys wearing messenger bags. That’s what stuck in my head: the bags. And after I started racing against them, I realized that some of them, y’know, were pretty fast. A lot of magazines had started writing about track bikes at that time, so I bought one of those, and I became a bike messenger shortly afterwards.”

Others have followed what might be considered a more predictable path. Nocchi, 29, worked as a pizza delivery boy before getting into the courier trade. When I meet him, he’s dressed like he’s about to compete in the Tour de France—his standard get-up, apparently.

“I was a guitarist in a band for eight years, and was trying to make a living off that,” he recalls. “I started working as a bike messenger during that period, and it gradually eclipsed my interest in the band. I was meeting lots of interesting people while I was out working, and obviously I was making money too, so eventually I decided to quit the band and focus on being a messenger.
“Do I have any regrets? No.”