Bicycle films

There’s plenty of YouTube footage of members of New York City’s bicycle courier fraternity dodging death, taxis, buses – and the odd traffic law – as they race across the city. And now, the Big Apple’s bike messenger subculture is getting the Hollywood treatment in a blockbuster directed by a man behind some of the biggest hits in cinematic history.

Cycling fans in the Bath area wanting to see how the Tour de France was staged in the days before multi-million euro team budgets, race radios, saturation TV coverage and Champs-Elysées finishes, get their chance this Sunday when Claude Lelouch’s classic Pour Un Maillot Jaune is screened as part of the Bath Film Festival.

Stephen Auerbach's documentary follows participants in the 2005 Race Across America (RAAM), and although the race is also open to 2, 4 and 8-Person teams, he concentrates on the efforts of a handful of cyclists from the solo field whose efforts are on such an epic scale that they make our sportive heroics look like a pootle to the shops.