Overview

Best-selling author Peter Sutherland's newest title, Pedal, is a wild ride alongside a band of New York City's most feared and respected inhabitants: bike messengers. In a book of photographs and a documentary on DVD, Sutherland follows the frenetic trips and lives of the cyclists who live by their own rules of the road. In Pedal, Sutherland documents bike messengers competing in the 2005 Cycle Messenger World Championships in New York City. Going straight to the center 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. Between events like sprints, distance racing, and skid contests, Sutherland shows us the riders' elegant physicality, complex individuality, and unique community that crosses boundaries of race, gender, age, and class. And he doesn't shy away from the blood and bruises that come part and parcel with the messenger's life. Sutherland delves deep into the world of the messengers-a world usually seen from the outside-and returns with a dynamic document that evokes the unbridled anarchy and energy of its inhabitants. The accompanying DVD is a fast-paced documentary film about surviving in the streets of New York City as a bicycle messenger. It features messengers from all walks of life as they battle traffic in a race to make their next delivery on time. Directed by Sutherland and produced by Ana Lombardo, Pedal the documentary lets viewers live the spectacle of the delivery itself. It premiered in 2001 at the South by Southwest film festival, and was later acquired by the Sundance channel, where it aired until 2004.

Full Product Details

9781576873144

Table of Contents

Reviews

This terrific book show its subjects in full effect (if in stealth mode) with their canvas - New York's five boroughs - sprawled out beautifully and variously behind them and their names. - Publishers Weekly What he saw was the full spectrum, from all-city kings, to reclusive graffiti hermits, to the guys who say they bombed when all they ever did was hold the paint. Peter was sharp enough to see it, slick enough to access it, and man enough to capture it. - Mass Appeal

"""This terrific book show its subjects in full effect (if in stealth mode) with their canvas - New York's five boroughs - sprawled out beautifully and variously behind them and their names."" - Publishers Weekly ""What he saw was the full spectrum, from all-city kings, to reclusive graffiti hermits, to the guys who say they bombed when all they ever did was hold the paint. Peter was sharp enough to see it, slick enough to access it, and man enough to capture it."" - Mass Appeal"""

Author Information

Filmmaker and photographer Peter Sutherland was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and raised in Colorado. A move to New York City in 1998 prompted his first feature documentary, Pedal, published by powerHouse Books in 2006 as a book and DVD package. The author of Autograf: New York City’s Graffiti Writers (powerHouse Books, 2004), and Buck Shots (powerHouse Books, 2007), Sutherland has also published artist’s books with Nieves, Art Beat Press, and P.A.M. Books, among others.

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