This year, Bike Fort Collins (BFC) was proud to host the first-ever in-person screening of the Bicycle Film Festival (BFF) here in Fort Collins on Saturday, November 4th, at The Lyric Cinema.
The BFF has an incredible history. Brendt Barbur, Founding Festival Director, was compelled to start the Bicycle Film Festival when he was hit by a bus while riding his bike in New York City. He insisted on turning his negative experience into a positive one. In 2001, Barbur started the Bicycle Film Festival to celebrate the bicycle through music, art, and film. The Bicycle Film Festival has been a significant catalyst for the urban bike movement, one of the last decade’s most influential and culturally relevant forces. The BFF has held events in 90 cities worldwide with an accumulated audience of over 1 million people.
The film program, hand-selected for Fort Collins, featured award-winning shorts for lovers of pro cycling, gravel biking, mountain biking, youth culture, and more – the film took the audience on a journey worldwide. Featuring stories about:
- The 1,900-mile bicycle journey by Erick Cedeno (Bicycle Nomad) retracesretraced the Buffalo Soldiers’ original route.
- Kailey Kornhauser and fellow “fat cyclist” Marley Blonsky are trying to change the idea that people with larger bodies can’t ride bikes.
- A bicycle takeover and one of the United States’ most significant, most anticipated street riding events on the bikelife calendar attracts riders from the wheeling community worldwide.
- A family gives up everything to be together in their motorhome, traveling from bike park to bike park across Europe with their mother.
- The story of 17-year-old Nigel James, a Diné mountain biker who hosts the first-ever • Enduro race in the Navajo Nation and honors their land, community, and culture through revitalizing trails
- A two-month solo bike packing journey across Kyrgyzstan with only one “partner” on the receiving end of conversations for sometimes days at a time: a video camera.
- And a crowd favorite, the incredible story of Rafael, who helped bring the Fort Collins Bike CO-OP into existence.
Mike Moses took to the stage to greet the sold-out crowd in his new position as Bike Fort Collins’s new Executive Director, emphasizing the critical work Bike Fort Collins does for the community and thanking our gracious sponsors, Pedego Electric Bikes and HSD Law. Proceeds from the show helped support BFC’s mission of More Bikes. Safe Streets. And our programs including our Bicycle Advocacy initiatives, Active Living efforts, and our ability to deliver Safe Routes to School instruction to over 7,000 students annually within the Poudre School District.
We look forward to bringing another exciting Bicycle Film Festival to Fort Collins in 2024.