“Bicycle Dreams,” an award-winning documentary about a cyclist competition called Race Across America, will be screening Thursday, Feb. 2, at The Blue Note as a part of the film’s “Bicycle Dreams on the Big Screen” Winter Tour.
The film was released in 2009 and has since gained international recognition, winning more than 15 film festivals in both the United States and abroad. Surprised at its explosive success, director Stephen Auerbach said the awards served as a form of affirmation for the quality of his work.
“Awards are generally connected to getting yourself out there and taking a chance,” Auerbach says. “To get an award for an artistic thing is extremely validating and extremely rewarding.”
The documentary itself captures the intense struggle of a group of cyclists competing to accomplish the seemingly impossible: to ride 3,000 miles across America in less than 12 days.
“They are just these type of people who have this spark lit in them, often by life experience,” Auerbach says.
The extreme nature of RAAM lies in its ability to push the human body, both physically and mentally, in ways most people will never experience.
“These people are the most extreme,” Auerbach says. “They are exploring things that other people will never explore in their life, except people in the military or people in the space program.”
The cyclists must ride more than 300 miles of challenging terrain per day after sparing only a couple hours of sleep at night. Because of this, RAAM is considered one of the most difficult sporting events in the world.
With little prize money at stake, the motivation of the riders to enter the race seems to stem from a much deeper source. Auerbach speculated that for some, life crises were a driving force behind their decision to enter. For others, it is simply that, “they aren’t comfortable with the mundane,” he says.
As for Columbia resident Pamela Creech, who plans to participate in RAAM in 2013, her motivations involve achieving something extraordinary: to be the oldest woman to ever finish the race.
She will be 51 at the time of the competition and is setting high goals for her finishing time.
“I am also hoping to set the course record for the age group of 50-plus for women,” says Creech.
In order for Creech to enter the competition, she had to undergo a rigorous qualification process that required her to race 400 miles in Alaskan terrain in less than 33 hours. Although 13 started, only seven finished, and she was the fourth overall finisher.
Creech will also be a guest speaker at the screening of “Bicycle Dreams” at The Blue Note.
“It portrays a lot of the suffering associated with RAAM,” she says. “A lot of the disappointment and some of the tragedy.”
Just as Creech’s experience with Race Across America will surely be a life-changing one, Auerbach will also be forever changed due to his involvement with the competition.
“Making the film changed me because it was such an extreme film to make,” he says. “I am a different person for having done it. It’s a form of love, a form of connecting.”
Auerbach felt deeply privileged to be around the type of people that cycled in RAAM.
“It becomes a transformation where you see that anything is possible, and that ordinary people end up doing something extraordinary.”
PedNet Coalition of Columbia is presenting the event, which begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $11 in advance and $15 at the door.