On the Way to Cycle Rage: Disputed Mobile Formations

Abstract

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in 2012 a conflict arose between two men riding a popular mountain biking track in New Zealand. This gained both local and international attention after one of the riders posted his video of the incident on a social media site where it went ‘viral’. The video helped identify the other rider, who was taken to trial and convicted of assault. This paper uses the video as data for an ethnomethodological analysis of the joint production, in real time, of an ordinary trouble that takes an unexpected turn. The two riders come across each other travelling downhill at speed on a narrow track, and quite quickly they develop a disputed mobile formation. The camera-clad rider wants to pass the older rider in front, and proceed at a faster pace, but except for an intriguing and brief interlude, the older rider will not let the other pass. Consequently, the camera-clad rider grows increasingly frustrated; the problem is, he is oblivious to the way his own actions in showing he is faster, result in dangerous tailgating. It is this, along with some ‘lecturing’, that annoys the older rider. At the end of the ride, complaints and accusations are made, and then a brawl breaks out. The paper uses snapshots and transcriptions from the video to analyse how visual, vocal and tactile aspects of their interaction, situated in the terrain they are travelling through, contribute to the conflictual ending.

Key Words:

• Cycle rage
• Mobile formation
• Mountain biking
• Ethnomethodology
• Activity enclave

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Shawn Spomer, Content Director, Vital MTB for a copy of the video. Also thanks to the two anonymous referees for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

1. This point is made on the basis of my own experience of mountain biking, including frequent reading of mountain biking magazines and websites.

2. I have been mountain biking for five years, both in Wellington, and at other prime mountain biking sites throughout New Zealand. Mountain biking is well-served in New Zealand with a significant network of tracks utilising the hilly and mountainous terrain, and it is now a very popular activity.

3. There are plenty of GoPro video records of Flying Nun rides available online. For example see: http://tracks.org.nz/track/show/486.

4. All figures with multiple screensnaps can be read in a chronological fashion from left to right, then down to the next level, left to right and so on. Where panel numbers are referred to, this is in the same order.

5. Dalton’s bike looks to be at least ten years old. This does not necessarily mean that it is ‘slow’, but in comparison with the full suspension bike that Brizzell rides, it does mean a more constrained style of riding: jumps and aggressive riding are far harder on the rider’s body on a ‘hardtail’ bike. I agree with an anonymous reviewer that the role of the technological element in the interaction deserves discussion, but other than to note the early work of Rosen (1993), there is not sufficient space to develop this here.

6. The transcription symbols used here follow the conventions of conversation analysis (see Schegloff 2007 for more details).

7. As shown in Figure 1, Brizzell’s riding in lead position is very short, as Dalton cuts back onto the track after having ridden on the road. My view on this, after having ridden the track, is that it is more likely by chance rather than intent that Dalton managed to get back in lead position. This is because a rider on the track cannot be seen by a rider on the road, thus it would be very difficult to intentionally cut back in front. There is not space to comment on this part of the ride, but it seems reasonable to suggest that losing lead position would have done little to alleviate Brizzell’s frustration.

8. Broadening the discussion to include surf and road rage is a good point to address the question of whether gender plays a role in the cycle rage event. It seems that ‘mountain biking is for men’ (Huybers-Withers and Livingston 2010), and the two riders in the dispute are indeed male, and seem to display a classic masculinist one-upmanship leading to violence. My own view is that it is unlikely, but not impossible, that women mountain bikers would engage in such behaviour. The other two types of mobile rage are good to think with here: surfing and surf rage is indeed dominated by men, but women are quite able to display in road rage the same extreme forms of behaviour as men (see Katz 1999; Tilly 2003). Thus, no definitive conclusion can be reached, but it does seem to be a good topic for further research.