For a wild way to kick off your Bike Month revelry, you could put on your best two-sizes-too-small grey suit and a red bow tie and head to the Bloor Cinema May 29 for The Pee-wee Herman Picture Show — a fundraiser for the newly launched Toronto Cyclists Union and the soon-to-be-launched cycling magazine Dandyhorse. They’ll be screening the cult hit Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (“a really beautiful and touching story about a boy and his bike,” according to event organizer Dave Meslin) and, on a stage in front of the screen, a full-cast re-enactment of the film will be performed by a legion of Toronto indie superstars. The audience is expected to be in costume, too, and to bring props and act along — ringing handlebar bells from their seats and filling the aisles for the big “Tequila” dance.
How much fun is that going to be? “I don’t know if I can quantify the amount of fun — like 102 decibels of laughter per scene or anything,” Lex Vaughn, the Toronto performance artist who’ll be shadowing the title role, says by email, “but I know how giddy people get when they get around this movie, especially if they haven’t seen it in a while. Who hates Pee-wee? Maybe Jean-Claude Van Damme hates him, but he’s not invited.”
Vaughn points out that her castmates are “good-time people” — including Gentleman Reg, Sook-Yin Lee, Joel Gibb, Keith Cole, Maggie MacDonald, Kevin Drew, Andrew Whiteman, Misha Glouberman and Matt Blackett — who will take it over the top.
As Meslin says, the two performances should be full of “slapstick and chaos.” This, as it happens, might also be an apt description of the experience of cyclists in Toronto as they weave their way through traffic, and through the bureaucratic process of trying to get bikes taken seriously on the roads. As a veteran activist who, over the past decade, founded the Toronto Public Space Committee, co-founded Spacing magazine, ran the City Idol project during the last municipal election and found time to tour as a member of the Hidden Cameras, Meslin found himself just over a year ago looking for something new to do.
Around a table at the Toronto Cyclists Union office with coordinator Rick Conroy and assistant coordinator Yvonne Bambrick, Meslin recalls feeling that, for all the various cycling advocacy groups and social clubs in Toronto, something was missing. “The void that needed to be filled in Toronto was a sustainable, membership-funded organization with paid staff focusing on bicycle advocacy.” One that would represent cyclists in every corner of the inner suburbs as well as downtown, and would represent all cyclists: hardcore bike couriers and weekend trail riders, commuters and kids and everyone in between.
Meslin embarked on a year-long research project — a big adventure of his own — to major cities across the continent to see what cyclists in other cities were doing. “I had heard rumours of these large bike advocacy groups, so I wanted to see them with my own eyes. I visited Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York and San Francisco. I think I stole some really good ideas from each and every city.”
New York had a really good fundraising ride, for example, while the Seattle organization excelled at working with city staff to identify opportunities to expand the cycling infrastructure. In San Francisco, they had a good system of making sure every district was represented. Vancouver had an inspiring cycling magazine.
“What I tried to do was take all the elements that I thought were necessary and needed and would work in Toronto and present them to the cycling community,” Meslin says. “And we all agreed together that this was something worth working towards. My job was to get people excited, bring together the people who could make it work and get it off the ground. It will take years for any organization to reach the level we want it to — but you have to start somewhere, and I think Toronto is ready for this and the timing is right, and I think it will grow into something spectacular and influential.”
The resulting organization, which Conroy and Bambrick will run alongside two other assistant coordinators and a ward captain in each area of the city, is a sort of “CAA for bikes.” Job one, Conroy says, will be to work at City Hall to make sure the Bike Plan (a city strategy for extending the network of bike lanes that Conroy says has “come off the chains” in recent years) is a priority for politicians. But they also plan in the longer term to provide the sort of membership incentives that the CAA does for motorists — a lock removal service for those who’ve lost their keys, travel maps of bike routes in other cities, bike insurance against theft and collision, possibly even roadside assistance. Valet parking for bikes — which will be available at the Bloor Cinema launch — is a service the union hopes to provide for large events in the city.
Bambrick points out that the union also wants to ensure there is a focus on families and social riding, to help fight the perception that cycling activists are a bunch of enraged downtown counterculturists who refuse to grow up. Even those who don’t commute in yellow rain slickers, she says, need the streets to be safe for cyclists, “They’re going to the store, they’re going to the park with their kids, they’re doing any number of short trips that aren’t just strictly commuting,” Bambrick says of suburban cyclists. “It’s about safety for those folks as well.” A fundraising social ride planned for October will take members up the Humber River Valley and back down the Don Valley.
Parallel to the union will be the July launch of Dandyhorse, a magazine for cyclists in Toronto that will also benefit from the Pee-wee fundraiser on May 29. Editor Tammy Thorne says the first issue will focus on the “amazing history” of cycling advocacy, but will also touch on “every cycling community possible.” Fashion features will show that you can look “sexy, sassy, pretty” on a bike, there’ll be looks at competitive cycling and the pages will be filled with art and good design.
“There’s been no cycling magazine in Toronto that was not a magazine for real gearheads,” she says.
That’s a sentiment that informs the cyclists union approach too, a point Conroy emphasizes again and again. “It’s a real point for us to be diverse — geographically diverse, age diverse, type-of-cyclist diverse.” And, along those lines, membership is as accessible as can be. People can join for as little as $2 a month (though there’s also a lifetime founding member option for $500) so getting involved is relatively painless, economically.
For her part, getting ready to play a role she says she was obsessed with as a child, Vaughn is happy the fun will be for a good cause. “I’m often shocked this idea hasn’t happened sooner…. I bike constantly but have a healthy fear of a-holes (cars, bikes and pedestrians) who have no idea what they are doing on the road. There is an unnecessary rage relationship between cars and bikes that is really scary, so upping the awareness and education factor for this town is welcome.”
That, Meslin says, and upping the fun factor too. “It’s always fun to make stuff just a little more spectacular than people might expect,” he says. So in addition to being a worthy cause, “it’s also just a big fun night celebrating bikes.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE TORONTO CYCLISTS UNION,
GO TO WWW.BIKEUNION.TO OR CALL 416-826-2964.