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The Bicycle - the complete BBC series, David Taylor (1990)
York Films/BBC
six programmes of 20 minutes £15.99
A well-made and insightful series of television programs on all
aspects of cycling
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For years I have wondered why no one had thought of making a television
programme about cycling. As it turns out, they had, and missed it. Not
only that, but it is a really well-considered piece of television, that
is worth watching even 20 years after its original broadcast.
The story of each programme is narrated over archive, stock and specially
made-footage from Europe, the US and the far east. The division of material
is imaginative - history, new developments, the free spirits involved
in cycling, manufacturing, advocacy and the Tour. And there is some great
stuff here.
Interview footage includes: Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly, Greg LeMond,
Mike Burrows, Bob Rodale, Beryl Burton, Richard Ballantine, Samuel Abts,
Stephen Roche, Lucien Van Imp, Eddy Merckx and even Jacques Chirac - then
mayor of Paris, . Unsurprisingly, some of it looks dated - but even where
it does, it simply adds to the charm. The Merckx vs. LeMond ding dong
is particularly entertaining.
Just occasionally it throws up a puzzler. LeMond, for example, earnestly
explains that drugs in professional cycling is a thing of the past and
that: "the riders are all for very strict drug controls." Can
he really have been so out of touch with the peloton?
It is also full of nice British touches. Marin County mountain bikes
are the big story of recent developments, but the programme tips its hat
to earlier rough-stuff riders. There is a clip about Sturmey Archer. And,
a significant number of human powered vehicles and recumbents. The recreation
of scenes of nineteenth century cyclists in the first programme are also
very good. Perhaps because it is so steeped in British cycling activism,
there is a slightly strait-laced air - but this is a small price to pay
for the programs being so consistently on the money.
It is the work of any number of well-considered experts. Jim McGurn
and John Pinkerton are cited as series consultants. Several other familiar
names from the UK cycling scene have production credits. The
main author is a highly regarded film maker. Copies are readily available
from
www.how2dvd.co.uk, and it can be rented from Lovefilm.com.
If it left me with one question in my mind, it is this. What is it about
the bicycle that so captivates, a certain proportion of the population
- myself among them. There are plenty of stabs at answering this here,
none of them, however, shook my feeling that there is something in some
of our DNA that links us cyclists that is beyond rational explanation.
PS June 09
http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=20753
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