Rent On Yer Bike (1983)
3.6 of 5 from 8 ratings
3h 56min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- This two-disc collection provides a fascinating portrait of the British cycling experience on film featuring entertaining short dramas, animations, advertisements, newsreel items, public information films, and the exciting Children's Film Foundation adventure 'Skid Kids'. From nineteenth-century women elegantly displaying their proficiency to the cut-throat 1928 Olympic Trials at the Herne Hill Velodrome and careless 1980s BMX kids meeting untimely ends, the films on this set offer up a century of cycling in Britain, celebrating classic brands such as Raleigh, Hercules, Moulton, Humber, Rudge and Witcomb.
- Actors:
- Hugh Antram, Paul Bandey, Rufus Bradley, Haydon Brunsdon, Richard Davies, Paul Fitzgerald, Ron Fuller, Dave Gardiner, Dave Gillam, Glen Goring, Helen Hobson, James Holloway, Nadia Mackay, Mike Mackmin, Paul May, Francis Mutimer, John Pratt, Sid Sevorgen, Rory Wilson, Rita Carter
- Directors:
- Frank Prendergast, Alan Ross, Don Chaffey, Richard Massingham
- Producers:
- Pat Buse, Nicholas Mullane, Gilbert Church, Richard Massingham
- Narrated By:
- Rita Carter
- Writers:
- David Boulton, Frank Prendergast, Alan Ross, Jack Howells
- Aka:
- On Yer Bike: A History of Cycling on Film
- Studio:
- BFI Video
- Genres:
- Children & Family, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Sports & Sport Films, TV Comedies, TV Documentaries, TV Dramas
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Reviews (1) of On Yer Bike
Angels in Suburbia - On Yer Bike review by CH
On the face of it, this is a compilation for geeks. It does not take long to realise that here is something for the rest of us, as well as those gripped by a fascination for the evolution of bicycle design since the late-nineteenth century, when the opening short shows women taking to to the road in perilously long whites dresses which are sure to crease as they drag against the chain. Safety is a recurrent feature of these diverse films, in two of which - in one case, after hanging onto the back of a truck for easy speed - the bicycle turns ghostly white and voyages further on: through the Hereafter.
Which is a far cry from Herne Hill, which once had a well-known cycling track.
Children, naturally, surface in these films, such as Tom's Ride, in which a boy and girl discover the virtue of honesty. Meanwhile, perhaps best of all is The Ballad of the Battered Bicycle, narrated in rough effective verse by Stanley Holloway who doubles in rôles as a fairground hawker and a Judge who delivers judgment on the boy who has spurned the Highway Code.
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