Enoden Bicycle Bro
トラブルとなった動画の撮影地点はこの写真とほぼ同一地点である
The Enoshima Bicycle Dude is a man from New York, who became famous on Japanese Internet after disrupting train enthusiasts filming the Enoshima Electric Railway, causing an uproar among the Japanese train spotting community.
Details of the incident[編集]
Background[編集]
In the late evening of the 5th of October 2021, a group of train enthusiasts had gathered at a crossing near Katasekaigan in order to take pictures and videos of the train model 300 Nr. 305 that had just been newly painted. According to local residents the train spotters had started gathering from around 7 p.m. and were slowly increasing in number until around 30 people, most of them looking like minors around middle or high school age, had gathered up. The train Nr. 305 was and still is the oldest in Enoshima Electric Railway's fleet, having been in continuous use since the year 1960. It was supposed to do a test run between the hours of 10:30 to 11:30 p.m., running from Gokurakuji station to Fujisawa station and back. According to a statement by Enoshima Electric Railway, the test run hadn't officially been announced beforehand.
Around 10:50 pm the train was on its way to Enoshima station and had just crossed an intersection, when suddenly a man on a pink city bike appeared. The man who was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts had his left hand raised above his head while riding alongside the train. The train enthusiast who were trying to photograph the train screamed at the man to get away from the train. Due to a lack of response from the bicyclist, fans started closing in on the man. The man who seemed to be in a state of bewilderment was showered with insults from part of the train spotters, while others tried to calm down the situation. After the bicyclist had exchanged a fist bump with one of the mediators and said the word "Peace" the situation seemed to have calmed down, eyewitnesses say.
Viralization of the video[編集]
A video that captured the chain of events was spread on Twitter (now X) and was retweeted over sixteen-thousand times in a matter of one day. The man in the video, who's identity was unknown, started to become known as the "Enoden Bicycle Dude" (江ノ電自転車ニキ). It was also later found out that the Enoden Bicycle Dude was the owner of a mexican restaurant. Some people on the internet expressed criticism towards the angry train fans in the video, while the viewpoint from the train enthusiasts side remained that the Enoden Bicycle Dude was at fault.
Attacks on Bicycle Dude's restaurant[編集]
From 7th of October of the same year, around the time that information about Enoden Bicycle Dude's mexican restaurant spread, his restaurant's google maps page started to receive a wave of one star reviews and harassing comments. However, there where also people trying to fight against these negative reviews on behalf of Bicycle Dude by leaving five star reviews. In the end close to 8,000 five star reviews had been left on his page. Most reviews, both good and bad ended up being deleted and the restaurants review page was reset. Nonetheless, the restaurant seems to have gotten good publicity from the entire ordeal. Customers had in fact increased so much so, that a line had started to form in front of the shop.
Further Developments[編集]
In an article from the women's magazine Joseijishin (女性自身) published in December of the same year, a train fan who had been present on the day of the incident has come out to apologize to the Enoden Bicycle Dude. In response to this, Enoden Bicycle Dude said that he had part of the responsability as well, but that he accepted the apology.
On the 31st of December 2021, Enoden Bicycle Dude appeared at the Comiket99 comic convention in front of a group of a group of train fans.
About the activity of train spotting[編集]
As a result of the incident, concerns about train spotting have been raised.
This article "Enoden Bicycle Bro" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Enoden Bicycle Bro.
