On Yer Bike

This Saturday afternoon, I took time out to complete viewing one of my Christmas gifts, the BFI film, "On Yer Bike". A two-disc collection which provides a fascinating insight into the British cycling experience on film featuring an arrangement of short dramas, animations, advertisements, newsreel items, and public information films, spanning the period 1899-1983.

The film opens with nineteenth-century women elegantly displaying their proficiency, moving on to the cut-throat 1928 Olympic Trials at the Herne Hill Velodrome and careless 1980s BMX kids meeting untimely ends. Thinking back to that day in 2013, when I went in search of my new bike, this film includes as least those classic British brands I originally had in mind, such as Raleigh, Hercules, Moulton, Humber, Rudge and Whitcomb!

The line up of films across the two-disc collection:

Disc One
Lady Cyclists (1899) | Race for the Muratti Cup at Manchester Wheelers' Annual Meet [Extract] (1901) | Rudge Whitworth Britain's Best Bicycle (1902) | Manchester and Salford Harriers [Extract] (1901) | Flying the Foam and Some Fancy Diving (1906) | Fat Man on a Bicycle (1914) | National Bicycle Week Begins (1923) | Olympic Trials (1928) | Cycling the Channel (1929) | Woman Wheelers (1929) | From Acorn to Oak (1938) | Cinema Adverts Humber, Raleigh, Rudge (1938) | Tom's Ride (1944) | How a Bicycle is Made (1945) | Stringing Along (1947) | The Ballad of the Battered Bicycle (1947) | Pedal Cyclists (1947) | Good Cycles Deserve Good Riders (1950) | Skid Kids (1953)

Disc Two
Cyclists Special (1955) | Hercules: Lion Cubs (1956) | Cyclists Abroad (1957) | Cycling Proficiency Scheme Father and Son (1959) | Riding on Air (1959) | The Racing Cyclist (1966) | The Moulton Bicycle (1972) | Free Wheeling (1979) | It's a Bike (1983) | Cyclist Turning Right (1983)

This Saturday's viewing closed with Disc 2 and I was immediately enthralled with the opening film, the Cyclists Special from 1955.

This shows my idealistic cycling fantasy which was a reality back in the 1950s. The ability to cycle up to the railway station, check you bike onboard a specialist cycling carriage and disembark a couple of hundred miles later to cycle traffic free roads in a different part of the country.

What also captivated me about this film was the destination of their cycling adventure, as this is an area I know well. It is clear to see in this film how the growth of car ownership over the last 50 years has done much to ruin our towns and villages. While we can not turn back the hands of time, I do hope that the recent growth in bicycle ownership continues at a similar pace and has an equally but more positive impact on our surroundings and quality of life.