Book Review: War on Wheels, by Justin McCurry

Justin McCurry's War on Wheels is a book about keirin racing in Japan. It was originally planned for 2020 but was released last year ahead of the 2021 Olympics. The book is an improvement on Kenny Pryde's The Medal Factory. The medal factory has not appeared in paperback more than two years after its hardback publication. There was a lawsuit which required the excision of several pages. First bicycle tyres to touch Japanese soil arrived on an American ship in Yokohama in 1865. They were probably pedal bicycles. If they were pedal bikes, they probably didn't have tyres. Von Drais’s draisienne had been around for the better part of half a century.

Justin McCurry's War on Wheels is a brief history of keirin racing and its place in Japanese culture. It's a book largely about bureaucracy with very little human warmth.

Keirin racing in Japan came into being after the Second World War. Teisuke Kurashige and Kiyoshi Ebisawa are credited with creating the sport. In 1948 a law was enacted allowing betting on keirin races. The first keiririn race was held in Kokura in November 1948. A six-day meet in Osaka in January 1949 attracted 67,000 punters who gambled away ¥37 million. Justin McCurry recommends War on Wheels by Justin. He claims that the money bet was for reconstruction and welfare services.

Keirin's founding fathers met through a mutual acquaintance. They shared an enthusiasm for sport and their vision for a leisure park on the Shonan coast south of Tokyo. Their backers would be like-minded individuals and institutions.

The keirin is a discipline of cycling. It is organised into nine regions based on three roles: leadout, sprinter and blocker. The rules govern when each role is allowed to launch its sprint. There are strict equipment rules for the men and women. For the top-earning men, the winner gets to compete in an annual Grand Prix. Every six months the 30 worst performing riders get replaced by a new cohort of riders. The worst-performing riders are replaced every six years. In the book War on Wheels, Justin McCurry doesn't give a clear description of the keiririn.

Kurashige studied and adapted the long-standing use of pacer motorcycles that had been a feature of competitive cycling in parts of northern Europe since the turn of the century.