Bike Movie Night

Wallingford Neighbors for Peace has a great series of documentaries, each followed by cookies and discussion, called Friday Night at the Meaningful Movies. It's a great series and group, and really gets some important, compelling stories out there on a range of topics. On Bike to Work Day there were three short flicks, one about a NYC messenger-entrepreneur, one about a Vancouver fun-bikes & bike-powered machines collective, and one a reflective piece on American culture's peculiarities around bicycling, compared to "everybody-bikes" places like Beijing & Amsterdam.

• The NYC messenger, a very athletic urban rider, is an above-the-knee single amputee -- an injury he sustained when saving a kid bicyclist from getting run over by a truck. Note to all able, nonbicycling citizens: you now officially have No Excuses.
• The East Vancouver group, Pedal Works, featured in Easy Rollin', builds one-off crazy bikes (such velo-mutations are known as choppers), and shares the joy in street festivals featuring pedal-powered sound systems, spin-art paint spinners, and smoothie blenders. They bring joy, know-how, and participatory spirit to all sorts of pedal-power sustainable energy projects. Locally, see Seattle's chopperific Dead Baby Bikes. Also, Pedal Works works with Maya Pedal, supporting home economy in Guatemala with bike-powered laundry machines, etc.
• The third movie (Return of the Scorcher)'s interviewees bespoke of the non-integratedness/non-normality of bike transportation in the US compared to other places with everyday bike transportation. Scenes of thousands of bikes flowing through urban intersections in China were an inspirational marvel. In various everyday-bike places, people bike without making it a sweat-drenching speed contest; they bike in normal daily clothes; they use bikes in myriad utilitarian ways. Upshot: Car dependence is alienating, while bike reliance is invigorating, connecting, inspiring, endearing...

Discussion followed; Bicycle Alliance of Washington (me) and Cascade Bicycle Club (Jack) provided info, and Ron from Everett's Sharing Wheels spoke of his upcoming second annual Bike for Peace from Washington to the other Washington. Discussion touched on: coping with car traffic, getting street repairs in Seattle, going car-free and car-lite, the merits of bikes & equipment both simple & cheap and fancier, helmet laws, getting back on a bike after a childrearing hiatus, and bicycling across the country and the generosity of the peace community...

Next...Flextro: The Movie?