Last night I biked from work over to the lions side of the Vancouver Art Gallery and participated in my first Critical Mass. Billed as a decentralized large group bike ride with no pre-determined route featuring anybody with self-propelled commuting, Critical Mass enjoys a 15 year existence, starting in the streets of San Francisco. My bike, a few months old and newly tuned up, performed brilliantly, but I can't say the same for my girlfriend's. She lost a part somewhere along the way, and was unable to shift, making her fearless gearless, though thankfully with brakes. We biked down Robson, turning left on Jervis, making our way down Davie (I think), then crossing the Burrard Street Bridge, riding down much of Broadway, and finally turning onto Yukon where we got off at 11th, where we were jokingly called "splitters".
ICYCLE.CA and Moving Pictures Film Festival present a Bike Month screening of Vancouver-set documentary You Never Bike Alone. Q&A follows screening.
Tickets $8 ($6 for Moving Pictures members).
About the film
Drawing on footage filmed in the city over the course of the last decade and through interviews with people from all backgrounds, feature-length documentary You Never Bike Alone captures the fun, the road rage, the camaraderie, and the freakiness of riding a bike in Vancouver.
You Never Bike Alone charts the history of Vancouver's Critical Mass rides from the early “Tame the Lions” rides, that helped bring about better bike facilities on the Lions Gate Bridge, to the wild spectacle of Vancouver's freak bike collective and the World Naked Bike Ride in more recent times.
As well as a humourous and entertaining look at how cyclists are mobilizing, the documentary looks at the implications of transportation decisions by politicians at municipal and provincial levels and asks are we up to the challenge of making a truly liveable city.
For more info about the movie, screenings and to buy the DVD visit the You Never Bike Alone web site
