The Pleasant Revolution from Jonathan Grevsen on Vimeo.

The 2011 Pleasant Revolution Bicycle Music and Film Festival Tour, a grassroots event on sustainable mobility showcased through music and film, is set to launch in May. The tour will travel from British Columbia to southern Mexico and work with local organizations on its route to highlight bike culture.

However, the light-hearted event has a much more serious underlying mission: to revolutionize our way of living.

“These days, everyone is talking about global warming, about how bad things are going to get if we don’t change; and yet hardly anyone straight talks about what the necessary changes are, preferring vague generalities or cutesy ‘simple things you can do,” the project’s blog says.

In our explorations of bicycle lifestyle we’ve stumbled upon what we think will be a truth of the coming age: Yes we must change, in some areas drastically so—we must consume less, drive less, throw away less, hate less, fear less. And yet, while superficially this may look like sacrifice, the pursuit of these changes can actually lead to a life that’s more local, rich, humane, fulfilling and happy.

The project reaches out to communities in its path to help raise funds, participate in transferring stage and musical gear via bicycles, as well as pedal the human-powered stage.

According to Paul Freedman, aka Fossil Fool the bike-rapper, including the community in organizing and implementing the event is the most rewarding aspect, and perhaps the most powerful communication tool in getting out the message of urgency.

“We’re taking it down to the community level where we’re saying ‘we don’t want you to go and get rocked,’ which is passive. We want you to ride with us to the event. Help us carry the gear there,” Freedman says. “Suddenly you’ve got all these different ways for people to plug-in to the music experience.”

“So it’s more of like a community participation model of music…and maybe it’s a little bit less about getting rocked but it’s more about ‘we did it ourselves,’ and I think that is the truly empowering message.”

To follow Pleasant Revolution you can visit www.pleasantrevolution.net