Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #137030 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

About the Author
Peter Sutherland is a filmmaker and photographer. He worked as a director of photography on Stoked, a documentary film about famed graffiti writer GATOR, directed by Helen Stickler. In May, 2004, he released his first book, Autograf: New York City’s Graffiti Writers (powerHouse Books, 2004), to worldwide acclaim. He has shown his work at Bape, Tokyo; colette, Paris; International Center of Photography, New York; and CC room, Berlin; among others. Sutherland is a contributing photographer to magazines such as i-D, VICE, and XXL. He lives and works in New York City. ZEPHYR is a graffiti writer and former bike messenger. He is the author of Style Master General (Regan Books, 2001), the biography of Dondi White. Ken Miller was born and still lives in Brooklyn, New York. Subsequent to his birth, he went to college, traveled the world, made movies, wrote books and articles, went to lots of parties, and met cool and interesting people. For the past three years or so he has been the editor-in-chief of Tokion Magazine. SWOON has made public art in New York for five years, and has undertaken projects ranging from billboard alterations to site-specific installations. She is the founder of Toyshop collective, and has collaborated with collectives including Glowlab, Black Label, Change Agent, the Madagascar Institute, and the Barnstormers. Ana Lombardo is a native New Yorker and a prop person on major motion pictures, most recently for Paramount, Universal Studios, and HBO. During hiatuses, Lombardo bicycles and scuba and sky dives around the world, and continues her research on global subcultures. She currently lives in New York and works on the hit HBO TV series The Sopranos.

Customer Reviews

A really cool package
The book is great, I love the photos, but was expecting more words to go with them. Only downside is the cover fell off the first time I opened it up, the glue let go. I think I can fix it up with something a bit better though.

The documentary is pretty good, an interesting look into the lives of some NY messengers. It only seems to scratch the surface though - there must be so much more of a story there. I would have liked to have heard from more people. And coverage of CMWC would have been good too.

I'll definitely watch it a few more times before lending it out to friends. Overall a really cool package.

Review of PEDAL
It's an interresting document as it exposes this "counterculture" collective - bicycle messengers. The book is rather superficial with plenty of pictures and only four texts which vary considerably, ranging from contradictory-ragefilled-selfcentered-discourse to some interesting clearly depicting analysis. The DVD is great! Covering that cosmos: from the despatcher to the messenger, the bike races to the pedal driven task force in action.

Overall I rate it 4 stars, since it gets you acquainted to the NY messenger collective.

Jorge Coelho, Portugal, Faro

Not as great as i thought it'd be
As a former messenger and current bicycle enthusiast, i usually enjoy any documentary or movie on being a bike messenger. I just exspected more from this one. Its kinda depressing at times (tho, being a messenger can be depressing at times so i understand). The packaging and book are nice tho.