Individuals
 The individual
competition will be run on courses laid out on city streets and designed
to most effectively test the complete skills of the cycle messenger.
There will be physical obstacles as well as the added edge of sequentially
oriented checkpoints and special traffic patterns which will have to be
factored into the racers' strategies. Two rounds will be run with the average
being used to determine finalists. The qualifying course will require
20-30 minutes of hard riding. The finals will be more grueling, lasting
one hour and utilizing a separate course. This event is high excitement,
and will appear to the uninitiated to resemble a highspeed treasure hunt,
replete with special deliveries and manifests. |
Sprints
The sprint competition will be decided in two distinct formats.
All entrants will be required to qualify for final heats by racing against
the clock in a time trial on a five hundred meter course. Head to
head seeded heats will follow in quarter and semi-final rounds until the
world's speediest messengers line up to dash for the championship trophy.
These races are high energy with thrilling, tightly packed finishes.
Pick a good seat for this one! |
The Bob Traliers Cargo Race
This competition pits the real work-horses of the messenger world against
one another on machines designed to transport heavier loads. Various design
tactics have the racers managing these loads on the bikes themselves or
in trailers which are towed by the cyclists. The cargo heats will be run
on the individual course, with some obvious modifications since most of
the obstacles in this contest are in or on the bikes. There will be time-trial
qualifiers, semi-final heats and a final round. This is full on power competition,
with men and women going head to head. The current world champion, Ivonne
Kraft, is the fastest cargo courier in the world. Period. |
Relay
Washington is introducing this contest as a spectator event involving
coed teams composed of four messengers who will work together to move a
series of packages along a special course. There will be head to head time
trials of two teams running on parallel courses at the same time.
The best overall time will decide the winners. High excitement, thrills
and spills are expected. |
Bunny-hop
This is not a dance.
Contestants launch their bodies and bikes over a parallel bar that is raised
incrementally with each successful pass. The current world champion
managed a gravity defying eighty-five centimeter leap at Barcelona.
The course is a short runway leading up to the bar. Every competitor is
a crowd favorite here and the rising level of competition is mirrored in
the enthusiasm of the spectators. We haven't seen any women yet in
this one, but we're looking. |
The Airwalk Trials
The trials event really has the flavor of an urban rodeo. Contestants
maneuver their bikes over a course which resembles an apocalyptic cityscape
of the future. Each entrant will have three periods of one minute
to run the course and show their stuff. Judges will award scores
based on degrees of difficulty and cleanliness of technique. |
