BIKES vs CARS. For the last time. At least for now...

Yeah. We might come back to this. It is important! But anyway this Friday was the première of the film "BIKES vs CARS". Here in Gothenburg the showing of the film was preceded by a slow roll from the bicycles café Llama Lloyd, and followed by a panel debate. So let's go through the day!

The slow roll gathered about twelve people. We didn't think that was much, but it was obviously more than the organisers had calculated with, and comments on Llama Lloyd's instagram page suggests that twelve people was more than usual - there have been slow rolls starting out from the café before.

(This photo is from Llama Lloyd's facebook page. And this slow roll had no affiliations with Ensliga Bergens cykelklubb, other than the fact that a couple of us were there.)

The idea to have a slow roll was great, and even though Llama Lloyd is in the other side of Gothenburg we're definitely up for going back to check it out further, since it seems really nice. However, the slow roll wasn't really that slow... Perhaps the guide had never done this thing before, set a fast pace and didn't make sure that everyone kept up. A little miss. But we all arrived at the cinema safely.

Then the film. It's hard to give it a rating... say... from 1 to 5, since it wasn't that kind of movie. We thought it was really good. Of course it was depressing to learn that Toronto's mayor Rob Ford removed bike lanes in the city, and that he had a majority of the voters behind him, or how the car industry actively discarded public transportation in Los Angeles. But learning how Aline Cavalcante and her friends fight for better and safer lanes for bicyclists in São Paulo, following Dan Koeppel's enthusiastic search for a discarded bike lane bridge in Los Angeles, hearing the insightful comments from architect and former urban planning minister Raquel Rolnik... Interesting, insightful and inspiring! Anyone who is interested in bicycles, bicycling and urban planning should see this film.

Aline Cavalcante. We borrowed the picture from her (or your, if Aline is reading this) twitter account. Hope that's OK!

Dan Koeppel. We borrowed the picture from City Walk. Hope that's OK!

Raquel Rolnik. We borrowed the picture from The Guardian. Hope that's OK!

The showing of the film was followed by a panel debate. Also a great idea. Unfortunately the moderator... simply wasn't very good. He was poorly prepared, did not distribute the questions evenly between the four debaters, made strange comments about women and fear, and could not keep the audience in order. And it didn't take long for the debate to grow into quarreling in the audience and complaining about the bike lanes in Gothenburg. Especially one aggressive acting man and one extremely negative woman made us a bit uncomfortable, and we left.

Lessons learned? Bikes vs Cars is well worth seeing. And if you're going to do something, make sure that you are well prepared. Also, try to maintain a positive attitude. (Yeah, that goes for us too.)

Ride safe!