From Scratch & Other Stories (Video)

Words, photos, and video by Claire Tayler

This film project was conceived whilst sat in a cafe in Seoul. The day previous, I’d met Eui Ho Kim, a bike messenger working in the city, who’d taken me on a ride around the busy roads and shown me his friends’ projects and shops. Eui Ho Kim, I’d learned before travelling, was one of a handful of bike messengers in South Korea. In fact, Gig Courier—the bike messenger company he started on returning to his home country after some years studying and working in Tokyo with the long-established and revered T-Serv—was the only bike messenger company he knew of in the country. “It’s just us,” he’d said, when I asked if there were other bike messengers we might be able to meet in other cities as my friend Flora and I rode through South Korea for two weeks on our way from northern Seoul to Suncheon in the southwest.

The consensus was that motorbikes did the job just fine. As we rode, we saw a lot. Over-loaded motorbikes on the wide five-lane main roads, stacked with bags, and as we turned into the narrow alleyways of the printing district, more practically packed motorbikes carrying huge blocks of paper supported by metal rods jutting out the back of the bikes. Motorbikes, Eui Ho Kim said, were the thing to look out for on the roads.

Eui Ho Kim describes the roads in Seoul as freeing and fun. After working as a bike messenger in Berlin, a city full of bike paths and often annoyed motorists, I found the streets busy but incredibly respectful and fun. Your milage may vary here, depending on your version of fun. In recent years, the Han River bike path cycling infrastructure has been built, but the rest of the city has yet to receive consistent attention.

But bike paths aren’t the be-all-and-end-all in cycling in Seoul. Marcus took me on a ride around Seoul the way that he navigates it. It was a ride filled with alleyways and winding roads, a far cry from the huge Gangnam streets that stick in my memory. Marcus also runs a deeply charming YouTube account where he shares the most relaxed of rides as he travels the city on his Rivendell and Velo Orange collection, picking up nice snacks and having a generally peaceful and jolly time exploring every nook and cranny.

As we met Eui Ho Kim’s friends—bike shop owners, a frame builder, and a bike soft goods and cycle culture cafe owner—each had the same point to make. In Seoul, there are two main types of cycling: road and MTB. And the in-between space that each of these people largely operate within is often hidden or hard to find.

So, I found myself in Seoul, with my camera on hand and planning to shoot something short with Eui Ho Kim. I’d met his friends and experienced the sense of love and hope to grow the smaller scene of klunkers, ATB, chill rides, coffee, overnighters and casual daily riding (no matter what the bike). And that sense of love and hope led to this. The result is what you can now watch: seven films that explore Seoul cycling culture in 53 minutes.

Friends have helped translate the subtitles into six languages (English, Korean, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese – and Mandarin is in the works), and organise screenings in 14 different cities worldwide. They’re now on YouTube for everyone, and you can also find related links and a little description for each short film there.

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