Come  + enjoy an enchanting mid-week treat + watch an amazing film! Music from 8pm, film around 9pm (as soon as it’s dark enough)

WOW- what a way to watch a brilliant film- beneath the natural canopy of a mini forest : with an incredible choice of tree stumps or bicycle saddles for seats.

Bankey’s Exit Through The Gift Shop is a story of how an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur film maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.

If you’d like to learn more about the movie you are soon to be pedal powering- click here!

We’re sheepishly veering away from Platt Fields for this occasion + showing the film at neighbouring Alexandra Park .

Q. But how will you find us in this vast green space?

A. Enter Alexandra Park via the gate directly opposite Wellington Road on Alexandra Road South.
Follow the path towards the pond…
You’ll stumble across our outdoors cinema amongst the trees to your left. Look for twinkly lights!

+ of course- be prepared to pedal, as always!

You would not believe the transformation of the Boathouse in Platt Fields Park! Formally used by PoWWow as a creative workshop, the building  has now been  turned in to the most glorious bicycle space you could imagine!  Pedal MCR are now sharing the space alongside the arts project delivered by PoWWow to offer even more magic to the people of Platt Fields + far far beyond. Opening up the workshop + delicious vegan cafe space to anyone who would like to use it- to learn, fix, read, eat, chat, watch, pedal, share stories + swap tips about anything cycling. Brilliant! We are super excited to be as involved with the project as time will allow- but you can get amongst it too! Volunteers needed to help sustain this astounding idea- all skills welcomed + shared- there are so many ways to help + create! See below for info + details!

For a weekly timetable of workshops, open sessions + cafe opening times click here!

For a menu of delicious offerings in the cafe click here!

For more information on the project- including aims, ethics + objectives click here!

We were delighted to be given a chance to launch our freshly built pedal powered cinema at Lost + Found Festival- an exciting new festival of performance and impromptu art which was randomly popping in unlikely locations across the city for a week, to surprise + delight the accidental audiences. On trams + in basements of shopping centres, a full wack of culture was drenching the streets, finishing off the week with open air opera and pedal powered short films made by local film makers. Upping our rig to a four bike set-up was also another first- making it a really social + interactive occasion- chatting with other cyclists + deciding  whether we like the films or not. Friday + Saturday nights saw the cinema in action, participating in the ‘Lost’ part of the festival out + about in town and then finishing with the ‘Found’ part + returning back to Contact Theatre, from which the project has been running from.

Watch one of the films we showed here, it’s a stop motion made by the amazing Elle Brotherhood, a local artist generating creative bliss all around the city.

Keep a look out for more PP cinema events – we’re planning a huge weekend in October (so that we don’t have to twiddle our thumbs till 10pm to commence viewing!) : inviting all creatives to get involved- to perform, make films, VJ, make installations, dress-up, whatever you want to do…. we’ll be illuminating Platt Fields Park + bringing the new dark evenings alive! Get in touch if you fancy getting involved..

Every now and then, beautiful bicycle events happen. Bringing together all of the bike groups in Manchester and beyond, Bicycle Village was created in order to raise a load of cash for The Children’s Adventure Farm Trust who do unbelievable things for really deprived + disadvantaged children in the North West.. We laid on some pedal powered tunes to accompany an awash of bicycle activities- including guided rides, cycle cinema, mechanics sessions, bike art exhibition, bicycle smoothies, bicycle museum, training sessions, live music + an incredible bicycle auction- where a load of broken bikes had been donated to Arak at The Bike Barn (+organiser of the day) who spent months fixing them to flog on to help with fundraising. Despite the horrific weather for the first half of the event, people still braved it over to come get involved + were rewarded with a sudden splurge of sun that finally drenched us with gold into the afternoon + accompanied PoWWow Pedal Power home for a disastrous journey with bicycle trailers missing crucial parts + taking the load of an extra recently purchased vintage auction bike!

One of our team, our Dan, is about to embark on a really big bicycle ride. On the 4th June 2011, he + three other lads will venture far up north to the tip of Scotland to begin an intensely challenging ride right down to the tips of Cornwall : a.k.a John O’ Groats to Lands End.  They will be covering 1004 miles in a target of 12 days, this will be riding an average of 83 miles per day with no rest day and getting to grips with some pretty steep ascents. They will be ladened down with camping equipment + supplies to shelter them on their snatched moments of rest and pitching up every night in various plots across the country. This is a sponsored bicycle ride, and the fellas are trying to raise as much money as possible for Christie’s Hospital to support the amazing work they do in both researching cures and treating people effected by cancer. If you’d like to support this courageous ride, then please visit the sponsorship site. Super thanks in advance…… Good luck boys!

18th June : 12-5pm : The Eco Garden, Platt Fields Park (just follow the lake round about quarter of the way from Mabfield Road entrance to your left and look for us, you won’t be able to miss us!)

Oh joy! The evenings are getting warmer + we can play out on our bicycles later wearing t-shirts and alas, set up our brand new pedal powered cinema rig and show some beautiful films at dusk. Smash pedal wollop, for sure it will be the power of the feet that enable this enchanting weekend of short film magic to happen- and smack in the centre of this fine city on t w o consecutive nights : a treat we’re sure, it will be! We’re teaming up with Lost + Found Festival, which is a week long, free fandango of performance and intrigue happening all over the city in luxuriously unlikely places. There’ll be guerrilla theatre, flash mobs, opera  and heaps of music + dance going down.. We’re going to be firing up some pedal powered films made by local film makers, which finally brings us to the point : WE WOULD LIKE YOUR FILMS! No real spec- just short. Drop them in to Contact Theatre- f.a.o Lost + Found and they should eventually find their fine way onto the projections at twilight.  You will need to get these handed in by the end of May so we can concoct a show reel  in time for the events on Friday 10th June : Bridgewater Hall Piazza 7pm onwards + Saturday 11th June : 9pm onwards. Ace : can’t wait to see your movies!

We are very excited to announce that this year, PoWWow Pedal Power have teamed up with Glastonbury Festival to offer a guided bike ride from Bristol to the festival.

We will meet in central Bristol on Wednesday 22nd June, and ride in a group to the festival. Our trained marshals will be on hand to lead the way and help out with any problems, and cyclists’ luggage will travel separately in our support vehicle.

Like all our events there will be sustainably-powered music along the way, and hopefully a fun way to start the festival early on 2 wheels!

For more information and to book your place, please have a look at our ride to Glastonbury information page.

The festival have announced their Green Traveller campaign this year, to encourage more people to get to the festival by bike. Find out more at their cycling information page.

Hope to see you there!

F I N A L L Y : is Spring here, then? Setting up the event in the rain that morning, it sure didn’t feel like it… But to our wonder, the skies stop being pests + let us get on with our first event of the season : HOLI, LEAP into SPRING + COLOURFUL WOMEN = 3 events in one. Put on by PPP’s other strand, PoWWow Arts + The Friends of Platt Fields, this event was programmed as part of International Women’s Day (hence, Colourful Women).

Fusing wonderful celebrations between these three events, we really did get the community out playing care-free for the afternoon- laying on workshops like seed sowing, mural painting, drumming, biscuit making + rangoli. We also built an ad-hoc, but appropriately colourful stage to host the full on line-up of amazingly talented women- from Bollywood dancing, to drumming + circus dances, beautiful performances from an array of musicians and we were also very pleased to host The Spokes Bicycle Dance Troupe- who wowed the crowd + made a stamp on this marvellous celebratory women’s day. In between all of the acts, and spectacularly so, were booming bhangra beats; hoards of energised people of all ages + cultures DRENCHED in every shade of paint + jumping around, making friends + leaping onto shoulders. WHAT a sensational spectacle! + to be predominantly powered by the feet of our audience, completed our all ambitions for this community-made event. HAPPY SPRING EVERYONE!!!

Film of the event coming soon!

What is Holi though? Find out here!

Magnificent Revolution will be introducing its hugely successful Bike Power Workshop to Manchester on Saturday 23rd April.

For those wanting an introduction to renewables and are mad about bikes, this course is a great way to learn about creating energy from bicycles and learning.

The workshop will take place on:

When: Saturday 23rd April
Where: MERCi, (The Login Room), Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick Street, Ancoats, Manchester, M4 7HR
Time: 10am to 5pm
Price: £45 per person
Tickets: Book a place on the course

Magnificent Revolution is a not-for-profit London based cross-disciplinary organisation working in education, ecology, engineering, design, art, music and film www.magnificentrevolution.org

Magnificent revolution facilitates this workshop for those interested in learning the ins and outs of pedal power generators. Our workshops have a good balance of theory and hands-on experience. Participants will discover how to use their own bike as part of a small power station, capable of powering computers, stereos, TVs and other small household appliances. Participants will find out about:

• Basic system design
• Load assessment
• Power generation
• Electricity storage using batteries
• Conversion of DC to AC electricity by inverters
• Control and monitoring of power

For more information and to book: http://www.magnificentrevolution.org/2011/03/manchester-bike-power-workshop/

What a lucky lucky cycling world Manchester has, soon to be hosting another furiously action packed I Bike MCR festival! Dissecting the city for everything it’s got, the festival will beam its way through the busy streets, parks and nearby country roads for a whole month! Officially launching itself on 25th March with an extra special CARNIVAL CRITICAL MASS, complete with a parade of home-made BICYCLE LANTERNS – which you can come + make with us on Thursday 24th March at The Boathouse, Platt Fields Park- for FREE- 5pm onwards.

The timetable for the festival l i t e r a l l y has something for everyone, whether you own a bicycle or not! Check out the finalised listings : h e r e !

But in short : CRITICAL MASSES, Bicycle Polo for beginners, Kidical Mass rides for tots, Women’s rides + maintenance classes, I Bike MCR DIY conference weekend, Cyclists Suppers, Roller racing, Film nights, Cycling holiday, Tandem rides, Alleycats, Parties + so much more : come + celebrate cycling in Spring!!

So out in the snow we went, skidding and slurping our way on the treacherous roads to the Town Hall, our precious kit clinging onto ropey trailers for dear pedal-power life. But arrive we did! And a fine honour it was to scrape our muddy filthy bicycles through the immaculate grand corridors of this prestigious building. It was Manchester Well Being; a celebration and evaluation of a project which binds a cluster of community led, health inspired groups branching right across Manchester from north to south. Groundwork were laying on some appropriately festive willow-weaving, Manchester Young Lives were laying on some brilliant fitness sessions and Playback Theatre were inviting people to share personal and somewhat difficult stories about health issues past and present for their actresses to deliver impromtu and captivating regales of selected tales….and there we were; injecting our own idea of healthy entertainment into the proceedings. Brilliant- because most of the people who got on the bikes experienced a long lost reunited love with the pedals and promised to go home and scrape out their old wheels from basements and dusty unused corners of the garage…

A brief time-out from the I Bike MCR mini fest led us to Envirolution : Contact Theatre’s EXTREME ECO event blissfully placed on a spectacularly sunny Autumn Saturday; which we were super happy to get to spin sounds in (whilst watching a waste sculpture being progressively created).  It seemed as though every single Manchester based environmental group was involved in some way creating an absolute FEAST of knowledge, support, help and offerings to encourage people- amongst many other things- to start reducing their environmental impact. We would be tap-tapping for the rest of the day if we were to try and list everyone doing good things at this event- but have a look at their website for a plunge into a wondrously green soaked day.. Let’s hope this becomes a regular event and perhaps we’ll be able to persuade them to have it in Platt Fields next time ? ? [!]

POLLUTION      SOLUTION   EVOLUTION   ENVIROLUTION

We are so so lucky to have I Bike MCR in this town we live in : how many people would find themselves in a dark tunnel on Monday, with a bat detector on their bicycles on Tuesday, in a bin on Wednesday, spinning their limbs like a  speed spook on Thursday, riding around the city dressed as a monster on Friday, racing up hills on a Saturday and solving high speed spooky challenges ransacking the city dressed as a robot on Sunday ? ? ?

The annual MINI FEST brought to you by I Bike MCR is wondrously on it’s way! This year it runs from Sunday 25th right through till the following Sunday 31st therefore meaning there’s a whole ferocious week of terrifying bike antics : l i t e r a l l y : there will be something for every variety of cyclist : see a full time table HERE ! It’s going to be BRILLIANT ! So come get amongst it…

As part of the Free For Arts Festival- our friends at Akemi put on a truly splendid show last night at Contact Theatre. The joint was awash with a full on fascinated + intrigued audience, all intently listening (to beautiful music from the wonders of Honeyfeet + Rik Warren) or waving (LEDS about as part of a live graffiti show put on by Ragga Photo) and getting puzzled (by a human mannequin who was  being progressively manipulated by her dresser at unusual points throughout) or captivated (by story-telling, circus + experimental dancing) and of course- getting puffed out + rosy cheeked (pedal powering some hot songs). There were drawing boards and canvases all over where people were intently scribbling + scrawling, wondrous film screenings and an interactive photography project by Elle Brotherhood : COR! It surely would have been i m p o s s i b l e  to fit anything else in! Thanks Akemi + we look forward to working with you again!

We were so PROUD to test run our recently finished home-built bicycle trailers- no more shameful taxi journeys or filthy van hires will be necessary for us to get to gigs anymore-HOORAH! We packed + ratchet-ed our heavy equipment to them feeling super nervous that a terrible accident was about to happen, then cycled not much faster than walking pace to the nearby park but soon arrived BEAMING that they had loyally held up to the challenge + more importantly that we hadn’t had to rely on those pesky fossil fuels to get us there!

We can’t take credit for the incredible design of these trailers- they were originally built by a guy named Nick Lobnitz who has also founded the revolutionary Carry Freedom trailers.. The home-build designs we have worked from were made for third world and developing countries to enable them to transport trading goods, tools and produce around- made from accessible materials- literally: bamboo, nuts + bolts, wheels= perfect trailer. Nick very kindly shared his kit design plans with us and we’re sure he would share them with any other people who would like to do good things with bicycle trailers..