Growth
Substantiating the growth of alleycat racing is difficult, given the lack of publicity and record-keeping in the community. Some themes commonly associated with alleycats, such as the use of fixed-gear bicycles, became more popular in the later half of the 2000s. The number of alleycats being organized also appears to be on the rise, as non-couriers begin to organize their own races. Events featuring alleycat racing culture have seen significant expansion since 2000. Individual races have come to embrace issues important to messengers or messenger communities, such as New York City's 4/20:Hip to be Square, the Global Warming Alleycat held on the same day in Toronto, San Francisco, Mexico City, Berlin, and New York City, and Baltimore's GhettoBlaster. Meanwhile, events like the Bicycle Film Festival have expanded across dozens of cities and embraced many different expressions of alleycat-style bicycle culture. Alleycat veteran and videographer Lucas Brunelle is widely credited as having pioneered the art of filming alleycat races from the first-person perspective and sharing the footage online. YouTube currently hosts more than 1,000 videos of alleycat races, most of which have been uploaded since 2006.
Read more about this topic: Alleycat Races
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