Pedal Power at Bike Month

A special screening of Pedal Power took place on June 17 as part of Toronto’s Bike Month celebrations. Hosted by Cinecycle and Janet Bike Girl, the film was preceded by a special performance by local musician/composer Donald Quan on his “bikrophone”, a sculpture-cum-musical instrument fashioned from a bicycle. It was his premiere performance on this instrument.

The one year anniversary of the completion of filming of Pedal Power marks a number of developments since we put away our bike-cams. Igor Kenk has been released from jail and has become his own blogger. His bike shop is no more and the transformation of Queen Street continues. There are still no new major east-west bike lanes in the city. The fate of Darcy Allan Sheppard continues to stir up questions about the temper of bike-driver relations, even after the case against Michael Bryant was dismissed. Toronto still has no public bike system, even though City Hall gave the idea of importing Montreal’s Bixi bikes the go-ahead.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that the bicycle revolution is picking up steam. Call it a mild winter and an unusually warm spring, but there are more legions of cyclists on the road that ever before. And the news from the Gulf of Mexico has horrified even more people into wondering about the sustainability of fossil fool transportation. Pedal Power lives on.

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