Best-selling author Peter Sutherlands newest title, Pedal, is a wild ride alongside a band of New York Citys 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 others 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 doesnt shy away from the blood and bruises that come part and parcel with the messengers life. Sutherland delves deep into the world of the messengersa world usually seen from the outsideand returns with a dynamic document that evokes the unbridled anarchy and energy of its inhabitants.
