It's a Bike!

A ripe slice of 80s cheese: a lively, rapping cautionary tale for the young cyclist.

Oozing with 1980s cheese, this hugely entertaining live action comic-strip story was made to encourage bike maintenance and safety. Two thieves pursue an overgrown schoolboy and pilfer parts of his bicycle. But help arrives in the form of a mysterious Victorian avenger and his vintage 'hobby horse'... The fun is crowned with a rapping Cockney narrator in the mould of 80s pop maverick Ian Dury.

Members of the Diss Cycle Club can be seen appearing in the film, the bulk of which was shot in Yaxley and Ipswich, Suffolk. It's a Bike! makes an interesting comparison with The Ballad of the Battered Bicycle (1947), also featured here. A film from the RoSPA collection (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents).