Cherubim Pista

So while the cycling part of my Instagram feed is awash with masochistic cyclists tackling the Rapha Festive 500 and the UK is just literally awash with floods, I've been in Japan for the last week and a half photographing some areas that were devastated by the 2011 tsunami (and on that inappropriate note, here endeth the water references).

The last time I was in Tokyo, during the spring, I photographed along the banks of the Tama River (Tamagawa), which flows through western Tokyo before emptying out into Tokyo Bay amid Haneda Airport and a dense hive of factories, shipyards and refineries. One of my planned routes took me along the banks of the Tamagawa, through parks, baseball diamonds, large raised levees seemingly continuously under construction and repair, small encampments of homeless men and just the odd random bits of civilisation that get pushed up against a river. One of those random things was a large cycling velodrome, where I planned to explore at the end of the day. But despite my best efforts, I ran out of time (or more specifically daylight) and finished well short of it. I always wondered if I'd find my way back to it.

For this trip, my girlfriend, who had developed a mild obsession with track cycling, insisted on seeing a keirin race. "I don't care what else you or I do, but we are damn well spending one day at the keirin!" I bloody love my girlfriend. I have a friend who had cycled from Osaka to visit and photograph the NJS Keirin School, while also (fruitlessly) searching for the framebuilder behind Gan Well Pro), but beyond that I had no idea where to start.

After a small amount of searching and a far larger amount of Google translating, it turned out that somehow the stars had magically aligned. Firstly, the season-ending Keirin Grand Prix, the three day event that decides the Keirin champion racer for the year, would be taking place while we were in Tokyo. By a further odd coincidence, it would be taking place at the velodrome along the Tama river, the Keiokaku velodrome that I had failed to visit. It's a strange sensation to tell someone that you "know" a place which you've never visited. But I knew where it was, I knew how to get there, I knew the river, I knew the lay of the land. So that settled that, we were bloody well going to the Keirin Grand Prix.

And today, we did. As we took a train 30 minutes out of central Tokyo, more and more gentlemen of a certain disposition joined us in the carriage. Old working-class men, many wearing caps, with worn, creased faces, clutching newspapers. Keirin gamblers basically. We didn't even have to figure out how to get to the velodrome from the station, we just followed the crowd of old men. We paid a token 50 yen (30p) to enter the stadium and there we stayed for the whole day, from first race to the final grand prix.

Most people know about the riders and we all love their beautiful bikes, but the best part of the experience was hanging out in the company of the gamblers. As the day progressed, the clouds of cigarette smoke grew thicker and the shouting and yelling before, during and after the race more frenzied. By the final races, you would see a noticeable number of spectators throwing their betting slips away in disgust at the end of a race but also an equal number cheering and saluting the winning rider who had no doubt earned them a hopefully healthy amount of yen. The bikes were beautiful and gleamed in the golden, afternoon winter light (I saw a few gorgeous Kalavinkas), but you're really there to soak up the atmosphere and hang out with some real characters. As my girlfriend said, pretty much a ridiculous amount of fun for less than £10 per person.

PS. Appointment booked with Cherubim to discuss frame geometry when the store re-opens after the new year.

PPS. My friend Tim's photography project on Keirin spectators: http://www.timbowditch.com/big-dream/