Last Friday night, I attended the second screening of this year’s Christchurch Big Bike Film Night series, This year there were only eight films shown, with five of them being about 20 minutes each. Here’s what was on the menu this year:
- An Austrian rider racing downhill, taking on technically challenging terrains on a gravel bike in central Europe.
- A group of friends, including three disabled people on hand-crank bikes, undertaking a trail-ride trip to a hut in the Scottish Highlands.
- Following a few riders undertaking the “Six Corners” Challenge in Golden Bay, attempting to ride to the end of six road/trail heads within 36 hours.
- A group of local bike and snow enthusiasts from Wānaka, highlighting positive climate change action, embark on an annual “Green Steam” ride up to the summit of Treble Cone ski resort and down again with all their snow gear.
- Two women explore northern Pakistan by bicycle for a month, making various new friends along the way.
- A short burst of mountain-bike riding through back country Queenstown.
- The story of the Cycling Without Age programme in Santa Barbara, US, where cycle “pilots” take out older or infirm people for gentle rides on tri-shaws.
- How a young Kiwi took part in a gruelling six-day mountain bike rally, without any external transport assistance, and managed to win.
I don’t know about you, but there seemed to be a distinctive trend amongst most of the films on offer this year – basically a combination of either energetic off-road biking or slugging out gruelling long-distance rides. Indeed, I commented to my colleague that perhaps it should have been entitled the “Masochistic Bike Film Night”…
Now I get it; there are some amazing stories of endurance and athleticism in there, and invariably the cinematography is top-notch (amazing what you can do with a drone camera these days…). And the occasional ironic humour pops up as well. No doubt, for many attendees, that floats their boat – and the event is sponsored by cycle-touring company Cycle Journeys and active cyclewear company Ground Effect. But all that seemed a bit jarring when you also have Christchurch City Council’s travel planning team there on the night promoting everyday cycling and safe bike security…
Easily my favourite film of the night was the story of how a couple of cyclists in California regularly take out older people for a ride so they can experience the simple pleasure of fresh air, scenery, and quiet contemplation (by the way, there are also chapters in NZ…). If I think to previous years, I can also point to other inspiring stories I saw about:
- local parents and teachers promoting active transport within NZ school communities
- a social enterprise that aimed to empower communities in developing nations with bike transport
- a humanitarian cyclist’s journey on a tandem bicycle picking up strangers to inform them about modern day slavery and trafficking
- a South Auckland community where volunteers are encouraging locals young and old into biking
- a Dutch programme teaching migrant/refugee women how to cycle
- the “DIY bike guy” from Auckland who thought it would be nice to build a home-made e-bike for his partner
- a Taupo woman teaching local kids how to bike
- the crazy Zenga Brothers having fun riding around on their ridiculously tall bikes
Closer to home, I see no reason why we couldn’t also showcase the amazing work done here in Christchurch to grow our cycling network (and subsequent numbers), as highlighted in a recent great documentary short by Frank Films.
For me, my usual day-to-day cycling life revolves around biking to work, events/activities around town, and the occasional recreational ride near parks and rivers. I’ve been known to dabble in cycle touring and a bit of recreational mountain-biking every now and then. I don’t think I will be bike-packing, gravel riding, or road racing any time soon – so just maybe there needs to be a rethink about the balance of the Big Bike Film Night’s offerings…
What did you think of this year’s Big Bike Film Night selection?