Safa Brian grew up in South Africa and on a bike. Photos of him on bikes predate his earliest childhood memories. Raised outside of the city, often his best company was the bike; spending hour after hour exploring his surroundings on a mountain bike and refining his skills. 

After school, he stumbled upon the messenger world and fell in love with the work. He traveled the world for over 15 years, working and racing as a messenger. He has won some of the biggest underground street races, the Cycle Messenger World Championships, and organized countless bike races and events.  

Today, Safa creates cycling films full-time from his base in Los Angeles. He is happy highlighting local legends or the biggest names in the sport. The content he produces is self-distributed across his channels and, to date, has garnered over 200 million total views on his YouTube channel. 

Safa, how did you get into bike riding, and what are your very first memories? 

My family is very outdoors-oriented; there were always bikes around. I remember riding trikes and small bikes with training wheels with my sisters in the driveway. I took over my mother's 3-speed bike when I was a little bigger. With the seat slammed all the way down, I could go so much faster on it. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. 

What are the three scariest descents you've ever faced? 

Deer Creek in L.A. is always scary, with a big drop-off and nothing to see but the blue ocean in the distance. Madeira had some truly mad descents, very narrow, incredibly steep, and some wild drivers mixed in. Any descent in the wet is scary; I take it easy because you never know what the level of grip will be. 

How do you prepare for a descent you have never faced before? 

It's always a good idea to scout it out beforehand or ride with someone familiar with it. I spend a lot of time reviewing online maps, looking at descents, and identifying which corners might be the trickiest. You can't remember every corner immediately, but picking a few tricky spots to memorize often works out well. 

You've filmed with world tour pros; what was it like filming Tom Pidcock on that crazy descent? 

It was a great experience but also quite stressful. It would have been awful if he had gotten injured, but you have to trust the best in the business to handle themselves when it counts. He's the kind of rider that only comes around every so often, extremely gifted to be able to ride down Tuna like that with only a few practice runs. It is special to bring viewers along on that experience and for everyone to see just how intense it is when someone like that goes on the charge.  

What are your memories from your time as a bike messenger?

The good memories all revolve around the messenger community; even on the bad days, you had your friends to make it bearable. We spent all week together at work, and most of us lived with messengers and spent all our time together outside of work—a big family. Bad memories mainly involve awful weather for days or weeks on end, but you come out of those stronger as a rider and closer as a group. 

What does the Cycle Messenger World Championship mean to you? 

It's a celebration of the messenger's way of life, a celebration of being alive despite a really dangerous job. There are races happening all week, but everyone is there for the community and the party first, which is a fantastic balance to the competition.  

You usually ride road, gravel, and MTB: what do you like the most about each one? 

Road is for pure speed and being able to really push the bike through a corner and feel the G-force. On the mountain bike, it's great to be able to throw the bike at things like jumps, natural wall rides, etc; there's more freedom to be expressive. Gravel is a combination of those two; it's also the most sketchy because grip is always hard to find. You have a lot of near misses and corrections to deal with. You get home with a big smile on your face, and the heart rate is still high. 

What are your next goals? 

I have a lot of travel planned for 2024 with the goal of sharing some beautiful areas of the world and exciting cycling events to my audience. Beyond that, my bigger goals are documenting cycling through video in an exciting, up close, and realistic way. I want the world to fall in love with cycling through my films.