Beauty and the Bike

The full film is now available to view for free online. View it above or on our YouTube channel. Released in 2009, Beauty and the Bike has been seen by audiences around the world, including hundreds of public screenings. Now we are pleased to make the film available to all. This is the English language version with subtitles for the German-spoken parts.

Girls in cycling friendly countries continue to cycle into adulthood, whilst in many other countries they tend to give up during the teenage years. Why?

Beauty and the Bike follows two groups of young women over a period of a year. One is from the Cycling Demonstration town of Darlington, England, where nearly all teenage girls have stopped using a bicycle. The other is from Bremen, where cycling is the transport mode of choice for most teenagers. Over the course of the year, each group visits the other to discover just why their habits – and attitudes towards cycling – are so different.

What they find is a searing indictment of transport policy in the 21st century. To attract people to cycling, politicians need to make it actually attractive, rather than some kind of military expedition. With so much energy being spent looking for technological solutions, why are politicians so reluctant to do the obvious – build attractive cycling infrastructure?

The film concludes with the English girls expressing a new understanding of the political implications of their new-found love of cycling – the car needs to be tamed in our cities and towns, and space re-allocated to sustainable forms of transport.

We also published a book to accompany the film. It costs €18 plus postage from the EU. If you would like to order this from us, please contact us by email at movingfilms(at)movingfilms.de