Daisy Messenger was started in Nagoya in 2006. It started in Izuru Shimasaki’s apartment in order to keep the fire of bike messengers alive while other companies in the industry shifted to transportation by car or went out of business.

Daisy Messenger advocates for exploring the possibilities of bicycles in the city of Nagoya and expanding the rights of cyclists. The service offers same day delivery of documents and parcels by bicycle: messenger service is the core of our business, but we also offer on-site bicycle repair services, ordering and delivery of bouquets, as well as coordinate the deliveries of Circles bicycle shop’s web store, etc. What makes it special is that all of these services are provided by bicycle. In parallel with my courier work, I also plan and operate Critical Mass Nagoya- which advocates for increased bicycle rights, picking up garbage in bicycle lanes, as well as bicycle riding and safety classes for children, and seasonal recreational rides.

I met Adam Bell– a Munich based cyclist and the author of a six-language bicycle encyclopedia, at Circles, and since then he has traveled to Japan almost every year using Daisy Messenger as his base. He make’s an endless array of really unique cycling caps, so he thought it would match the uniqueness of the Daisy Messenger, so I commissioned him to make one. I hope this black cat cap is on the heads of messengers, Critical Mass participants, children riding bicycles, and everyone riding bicycles around the world.

P.S. Daisy Messenger’s “Daisy’s” origin story may have been the De La Soul song or perhaps Haruomi Hosono’s label, but I think it’s definitely my favorite Nelories album.

Dug deep in the archives to find this video that Ryota from SimWorks in Japan made about Izuru back in 2011. It’s an early Ryota gem.