Everything to do with Bicycles

Pedal by Peter Sutherland

This is a collection of photographs and a dynamic DVD film exploring the little-known, but explosive, world of New York city's bike messengers. A wild ride alongside a band of New York City's most feared and respected inhabitants, bike messengers, "Pedal" follows the frenetic trips and lives of the cyclists who live by their own rules of the road. Going straight to the centre of this urban subculture, Sutherland serves up compelling portraits of the competitors from dozens of countries, in motion and at ease, checking out each other's bags, lingering over modifications to bikes and bodies. In-between events like sprints, distance racing, and skid contests, Sutherland shows us the riders' elegant physicality and complex individuality, and unique community that crosses boundaries of race, gender, age and class. The accompanying DVD literally follows (on a skateboard) the messengers as they race through the city, trying to make their next delivery on time. Sutherland delves deep into the world of the messengers - a world usually only seen from the outside - and returns with a dynamic document that evokes the unbridled anarchy and energy of its inhabitants.