Thursday, August 4, 2011

Riverwest 24: Hate the Playa not the Game


This blog post is aimed at people familiar with a Midwest bicycle race. Those who are not familiar with the race but know a thing or two about urban bicycle culture will pick up on the arguments here quickly.

For the past four years, the Riverwest 24 weekend has been my favorite time of the year. The neighborhood I lived in for 6 years comes alive in ways unimaginable to outsiders. For 24 hours, the bicycle becomes more than a tool for mobility. It becomes a community builder, a moving block watch, and a friend maker. I was first drawn to the Riverwest 24 (RW24) because it was simply yet another crazy thing to do in Riverwest and my new roommate wanted to ride in it. So we spent the greater part of 24 hours biking around the neighborhood. I will not bore you with lofty musings of my time with the RW24. We get enough of that walking around Riverwest. But I want to make clear that I simply adore the RW24, its organizers, the neighborhood, and the people I have ridden alongside with.

For the past four years, the RW24 weekend is also a moment where various groups of cyclists merge in a working class neighborhood—and this merging is an experiment every year. Spandex weekend warriors, bike messengers, leisure riders, grocery getters, commuters, and casual cyclists all show up and ride the same course. At the beginning of each year’s race, one of the organizers holds a “riders meeting” where he explains the race rules, the vision of the race, and any changes to how the race operates (it follows a similar pattern every year). While I could paraphrase what the organizer says to the crowd, I think the RW24 history and goals found on its website portrays a similar message:

The RW24 was born through community block watches throughout Riverwest. It is a way for our neighborhood to welcome new people, strengthen relationships within the community (and beyond), and show everyone why Riverwest is amazing.” (http://riverwest24.com/about)

What this blog post is about is the frustration many riders, volunteers, and neighbors have in observing particular people’s disregard to the RW24 vision. I want to take the time here to expand on some arguments that have been shouted during the race, in exhausted rants post-race day, and most recently online (gotta love those Facebook posts). While I understand my role in picking a huge fight with people I would call friends, or at the very least fellow bicycle community members, I continue to be baffled by the ability for these people to ignore some basic tenants of the RW24. I also want to make clear that while my voice carries louder than most, what I argue here are not original arguments. These are arguments I have heard over the past four years that I think need some more attention than a brief mention during the riders meetings or in a bar down the street. Still, I take full responsibility for these arguments and in no way do I speak for the RW24 organizers unless I have heard something straight from their mouths (and thus noted). And so,

THINGS THAT HAVE TO STOP:

1. The hyper-competition among a small group of riders.
Every year there are a few men teams that compete very heavily with each other. I will not go on my rant about white men dominating every other bike race, but boy is it annoying for them to dominate this one too. And domination is not always in sheer numbers but also in the symbolic space one takes up. These male riders who ride very fast and dangerously close to slower riders without any warning are the exact people the organizers are talking to when they say, “Slow down. Don’t ride fast. This isn’t a race; this is more of a ride.” The organizers ask at every year’s riders meeting for people to slow down while biking, but a few teams refuse to listen. These men also rush volunteers to punch manifests, verify bonuses have been completed, and in getting needed information about the race. One organizer specifically spoke to these riders at this year’s meeting when he said, and I paraphrase, “The volunteers are not going to follow you with your manifest so you can keep riding.” Yes, these riders think it is ok to keep biking and have volunteers run after them to get their manifests back. Yes, after the organizers explicitly asked all riders not to. While these few teams may argue that some inner-competition is not hurting anyone, let me tell you that when riding on the route it is very annoying. The danger in silently speeding past riders is absurd. The rudeness of cutting off other riders to get a manifest punched is absurd. The total lack of disrespect for the organizers to make volunteers follow a rider with their manifest is absurd. The general aura of anxiety and impatience kills other people’s happiness. While riders stand in line to complete some silly task to get bonus laps and they are bombarded with competitive riders complaining about the line and how worthless the task is—well, that just sends a real nice message about how they feel about the race and Riverwest now doesn’t it? Calm down. Enjoy the neighborhood. Cherish the time you are spending with all these wonderful, dirty, smelly people, will ya?

2. Subverting rules
There are six rules in the RW24. One is to wear a helmet. Thank goodness. This rule is especially powerful this year as a Riverwest resident had to skip the race due to severe brain damage caused by a helmet-less collision with a motorcycle. Still, as a volunteer this year, I had to ask someone to put on their helmet while racing. This person actually argued with me. They asked me, “are people giving you a hard time about wearing helmets? Why are you so upset?” I responded, “no you are the only person who isn’t wearing a helmet.” Even telling them the story of our fellow brain-damaged neighbor barely moved them enough to think about putting their helmet on. I had to literally block their path because they tried to ride past me after our conversation, still without their helmet on. I do not think I have to extrapolate on how offensive it is to a. argue with a volunteer and b. ignore a simple rule intended to keep you from dying. Beyond the obvious, there are smaller rules that riders have to follow to earn laps. Bonus checkpoints are an easy way for people to gain laps. You do a fun activity, you earn some laps. The idea behind the bonuses is to show riders the various community spaces in the neighborhood or to connect riders with really amazing neighbors. Still riders try to find ways to quickly get through the bonuses. One bonus asked riders to bring back two vegan snacks. I watched people steal food from a volunteer in hopes of getting quick laps. During another bonus, I watched people pretend to go do a yoga session (it takes 10 minutes, not 3 minutes, I am not an idiot). The organizers established the bonuses in large part for one safety reason: to slow riders down. Because they don’t want a high speed race, they force as many riders as possible to calm down at least once every hour. Yet particular riders ignore the point of the bonuses and try to get out as fast as they can. Real cool.

3. Obsessing over winning.
Honestly, no one cares if you win. Especially the people who keep winning. We really really don’t care. We extra don’t care if you aren’t from Riverwest. The organizers made ice trophies this year (yes, that melted away). If that doesn’t symbolize “we don’t care” then I don’t know what does. The prizes (which are totally gendered/sexist by the way) are not worth competing over. While other races give out bicycle frames, the RW24 gives out bike photo books and tattoo gift certificates as prizes. So I don’t know why you are obsessing over winning. And yes, I am sorry, but it is not cool for people who have never lived in at least Milwaukee to win. It is just not.

4. Letting people get away with it
This one goes out to all the volunteers. When the organizers say to slow people down who are being rude and/or riding too fast through the course, then slow them down. When the organizers threaten to give penalty points to people who are rude and/or break rules, then give them penalty points. I personally had to call one rider in this year because I was sick of hearing people complain about the rider’s attitude. When an organizer forced the rider to apologize to the volunteers, the rider actually argued with one volunteer over the apology. Why that team has zero penalty points and the rider kept riding is beyond me. These rules and threats are worthless unless we all step up and enforce them. The organizers ask riders to maintain positive attitudes and respect everyone. But when the riders disrespect that request and we barely do anything about it, how will that stop this reoccurring behavior?


5. Sneaking into the race
This is a new issue. As the RW24 has grown tremendously over the years, people from out of town have rightfully wanted to participate. And last year the organizers made that a possibility by opening up online registration. The online registration seemed to be a huge headache for the organizers due to technical difficulties. The online registration did not exist this year. The result? Very few people from out of town showed up. Now, I cannot confirm this, but I would guess that one reason that the online registration does not exist (beyond stopping headaches) is to keep people from out of town coming in. I say this because if the organizers wanted out of towners to participate they could have easily set aside some spots. But instead they watched locals snatch up every spot in under six hours. Yet somehow people from out of town managed to sneak into the race. I chose to volunteer this year before I knew about the registration situation. Living in Minneapolis, I would have been unable to register anyway. Or I would have had to find some way to get my registration down to Milwaukee. I chose not to race this year because I know how quickly it sells out. I wanted to open up a spot for people to race who haven’t before. I wanted to give back to the race I partook in for three years. Ok, this sounds a bit high and mighty. My point is, the organizers made it pretty obvious they just wanted locals to register this year. But out of towners were there. And some of them even won! Even more out of towners won the year before. Yeah, local registration. For a reason. If people from out of town are really excited about this race I would suggest volunteering for 24 hours. A Riverwest resident and RW24 rider makes this point better than I ever could:
“I welcome anyone to the riverwest family that is there for the community involvement. I regret that I did not see out of towners that I perceived were interested in integrating and celebrating the neighborhood. It is my understanding that I am not alone in wishing that those participating were participating with the community first in mind. It is what makes Riverwest so special and unlike anyplace I have ever known or visited or been. If people want to ride a bike race, there are so many options for them to do so. In my mind and the organizers minds, RW24 is a community event before anything else, and it saddens me that douchebags (ppl only only interested in winning a race) crash the celebration.

6. Caring?

At this point some readers may be asking themselves, man why does she care so much about this dumb race? I am admittedly putting a lot of emotional and literal time into this. Why I care is twofold: 1. I love Riverwest more than any other urban space. I have been choked up so many times being a part of the RW24. The pride I have in that neighborhood fills my heart. Huge events (whether positive or negative) in Riverwest elicits emotional responses from a lot of neighbors. It is not the neighborhood where people smile and keep walking or yell and move on with life. We embody what happens in this neighborhood. Because we care. And 2. I loved the RW24 from the beginning because it wasn’t run by typical urban bike people and because people who don’t typically do bike races surrounded me. I rode a race that wasn’t competitive, that was small, and that was filled with my neighbors. It is not that anymore. I watched a race turn very quickly from a neighborhood party to a neighborhood party with jerks trying to crash it. It is so sad I have to even type those words. I know I sound like some weird, obsessed RW24 police force. I just wish people would sit back, think about who they are and what they represent, listen to the organizers, and choose your actions wisely. Riverwest 4eva.

photo: 24 hour volunteers Robert & Me

For ethical research purposes: I am working on a PhD dissertation that looks at how bicycles are used as a form of activism, including community building and crime prevention. RW24 may be a prominent case study in my dissertation. My involvement with the race has never been for research purposes as I have just recently decided to include the RW24 in my dissertation. With that said, conversations about the race may impact my research and I am grateful for this space to share my thoughts and ideas outside of the oppressive ivory tower.



6 comments:

  1. Great points made here! One thing I think is not accurate- the registration filled up in 6 hours this year and every other year it was a few weeks at least. The organizers had no idea it was going to fill up in the few hours they were open on May Day. Many Riverwest residents didn't even get to register. I am not an organizer, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional.... but it's a good idea! ha!

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  2. True that! I didn't mean to imply that happened every year. Although from what I recall from last year, online registration went very very fast.

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  3. Great article. As a rider for the last 2 years and probable volunteer for the next year I, too, have gotten sick of people not stopping when a volunteer tells them there are cars coming down locust, or someone blowing by you within inches, or riding at night without lights while coming towards you. As I told someone complaining about the line for a bonus checkpoint "Chill out, this is fun."

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  4. Melody I couldn't agree more with this. Oddly enough, I was only about a third of the way through reading this and thought it was you (and I don't even know your name). I complained to a friend that his teammate was being a total dick by not calling out passes and heading straight for people on the switch back in the dark! And that is just one story of a dick not enjoying RW but rather "needing" to win. I posted that at least all my riders are still friends. I heard of a team throwing a chair, smashing a phone and other unsavory behavior.

    I thought this was all about having fun and building community. It used to be and I hope it is again next year!

    Thanks for your blog and see you next year.

    Tony B.

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  5. Well said! I volunteered for the first time this year, and fell in love with the neighborhood all over again. We moved away from rw after living there for some years, and I had no idea this was happening; I didn't see it at registration where I volunteered or at the checkpoints I visited, although I am not surprised it happened. Thanks for your well written arguments. I look forward to seeing how the organizers approach these issues next year.

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