Jae took the lead as they headed toward Hannam Bridge. The traffic officers waiting near Namsan Tunnel Two aggressively cut the rally off in the middle. Because they attacked from the front, they nearly ran into Jae’s bike. But Jae avoided the patrol cars with his dazzling maneuvers, then emerged up front again. He looked back at the patrol cars. About a third of the bikers had been marooned by the police, but Jae didn’t stop. He continued toward Hannam Bridge. He probably thought the cut-off group could join again later. He stopped the ranks of bikes still behind him on the Hannam Bridge overpass.
“What is it?” Mokran asked me.
“Look at that. There are cops all across the bridge. It looks like Jae’s trying to turn the group around.”
“But some are already crossing.” Mokran said, pointing at the Oksu neighborhood. The motorcycles cut off by the police were now detouring toward Oksu. It was clear that they would make it south to Gangnam by crossing the Dongho Bridge. As if Jae had made his decision, he signaled to those behind him with a wave of his flashing baton, meaning, Go at top speed and break through. For if they backed off now, the only ones remembered would be the group that made it to Gangnam’s Tehran Boulevard.
“What has to happen will happen,” Jae said, and raced to the front again.
Mokran and I hesitated before following him. The rest of the group whooped as they trailed after Jae. The police had set up a barricade of triangular cones across the Hannam Bridge’s entry point, but Jae swerved onto the sidewalk to avoid it.
He had no idea that there was a reward on his head. Some police tried to stop him, then retreated. When the car-pok saw the barricade, they halted, but over a thousand bikes continued to race after Jae and head for Hannam Bridge. Jae didn’t know this, but Seoul’s entire traffic police force was gathering around that bridge.
To Jae, the cones that the police often used for barricades were symbolic obstacles. If they were truly annoying, you could just get off the bike and move them. The waiting police headed straight for Jae. He eluded them in any way he could, followed by hundreds of bikes that had also detoured around the barricade of cones. In the ensuing chaos, the conscripted police fell into total panic. The rally’s front guard, driving cars, had gotten out to clear the barricade for the others. Then they began fighting with the police.
When the barricade was finally cleared, around a thousand bikers honked their horns and charged across the bridge. Confronted by the tsunami of motorcycles, the young policemen—simply fulfilling military duty—became terrified and retreated to their checkpoint. The car-pok waiting at the shoulder of the road started moving again. The rally triumphantly passed Hannam Bridge and sped toward the Yanjae main road. There was nothing blocking the way to Tehran Boulevard.