Critical Mass In The News Again... For All The Wrong Reasons

It's a shame that you don't hear about the 11 months out of the year that Critical Mass pulls off their fun protest rides without incident. Like most news I suppose, you only get to hear about when things go south.

No need to link to all the news outlets' stories, surely you've seen them already. Perhaps I can shed some different light on the subject, with an eye-witness account from someone we'll call "B":

What I witnessed Friday on Aloha was (imo) terrifying. Drivers will sometimes get angry when they're being corked, but this guy ended up getting rather violent. My story (I feel obligated to share since the news really screwed this one up) is as follows:

Some of us were riding by as this guy in his Subaru decided he wanted to merge into bicycle traffic. Coming close to hitting us, a few cyclists asked the driver to wait, and the driver got angry and yelled that he had a reservation and didn't want to wait for the cyclists to finish passing. Conversation got a little heated and immature, and I didn't feel like participating in that, but I wanted to make sure everybody was safe in the end, so I stuck around on the sidewalk waiting for everything to settle down and the guy in the Subaru to leave. After the driver backing up really quickly out-of-the-blue, the cyclists expressed more concern about safety and about 1 minute after that, he decided to gun his car towards the cyclists. The cracking, crunching and screaming was unreal. The driver didn't just nudge or try to bend bikes in front of him as sometimes drivers do..he rammed into a group of human beings with obvious disregard for their safety. One guy got his leg ran over, another girl got her ankle hurt(broken?), and another guy was forced onto the hood, then roof of his car from the impact. The driver then sped off down the street (going between 30 and 35) with a cyclist hanging on to the roof rack for dear life for a block or so. Concerned for the safety of the man on the roof-rack, and the others on the road, I decided to run after the car to make sure I could help the guy if he fell off the car. A few others were running behind me and we were able to catch up to the car. One person used a knife to slash the left-rear tire and it was obvious he did this to try and prevent the driver from running any further and not to be malicious or thuggish. One guy with a u-lock smashed a hole into the rear window and started banging on the car. More cyclists began to rush the car as the driver made a choice to get out and appoligize. The same guy that smashed the rear window (some not-so-smart thug) came between me and the driver and whacked him in the head with a kryptonite U-lock and the drivers' head started bleeding. After that I ran around to make sure everybody was OK and waited until the police showed up.

In the end, I am happy that most (except the person with the u-lock and others that may have nagged the driver) of the cyclists were helpful and non-violent. I'm just disappointed that the news made the driver look like a victim...amazing. Anyways, maybe it was the thug with the u-lock that gave reason for them to skew the story, but still... they should get their story straight imo.

Surely both sides took things a little too far, but what I can't stand is how the media (and apparently the cops) jumped on the drivers side right away. I don't condone hitting anyone in the head with a U-Lock, violence is lame 100% of the time. But a car can be used as a deadly weapon, and in this case it seems like that's exactly what happened.

I think both the driver, and the U-Lock attacker, should be charged with assault. The driver apparently hopes that nobody is charged, and I'm sure that includes himself.

One thing that few CM-outsiders seem to grasp is that Critical Mass is a form of Civil Disobedience. And as with most forms of protest, the point isn't just to piss people off, but the point is to make a point. And "the point" here is that, as the CM motto goes, "We aren't blocking traffic, we ARE traffic!"

So when I ride with CM, I'm not thinking "this will change the minds of all those drivers." I'm thinking, "Every damn day is Car Day, why can't one day (really just a few hours) out of each month be Bike Day?"

And please don't give me that "but it makes us look bad" crap - drivers have been mowing down cyclists, etc, probably since the first Model T's rolled off the lots. If CM went away tomorrow, you'd still be left with a bunch of drivers who "didn't see you, sorry."

Anyway, I'm going to make a point to go to CM next month, and see how it goes. And if something goes south, again, I'll be able to write up my own eye-witness account of it. And take pictures. Long live Critical Mass!

March 2008 Critical Mass - Might Makes Right For A Night

I went to Mass tonight, something I haven't done in way too long. Turnout was less than I was expecting, but was still 60+ people, not bad for friggin' cold outside!

It's been a while since I've ridden slowly though the city with a few hundred other cyclists.. and I figured why not go down and take some pictures and enjoy some good old American civil disobedience?!

Here was the scene in Westlake Center - sorry this is so short, but you get the idea:



The riders getting read to terrorize unsuspecting drivers! Look out Seattle, here we come... and yes that's a tricycle there on the right!

Rolling up Pine Street towards the Sound at a nice 10 km/h - sorry for the shaking, it's a bumpy road!



Rolling up the hill on 4th Ave (I think) - check out that stylin' motorcycle helmet! Guess he's ready for an aggressive driver:

The peloton going up 12th Ave E. towards Capitol Hill: When we turned off of 12th Ave onto Pine Street (in front of the Seattle PD's East Precinct no less), we were doing the usual corking & blowing a red light, and two cruisers were waiting to turn. One turned, but the other lit up his lights and gave us a good "whoop whoop," with his siren and then split up the pack. And as soon as he started this display of lights & sounds, he stopped it and continued down 12th! Guess he decided it wasn't worth the trouble; chances are there's a real crime happening within a mile anyway!

Soon after this a rider said "that guy just spit on me!" - referring to a grizzly dude sitting in a big white van sitting in traffic. She said that it wasn't a good job of spitting luckily. What's weird is that I don't think we were even blocking him, so he must've been jealous we were having so much fun. Screw you, guy in the van.

On Broadway turning left onto Denny - I broke off from the pack and went home here:
I met Dave who does the 327 words blog, I recognized him from the wool helmet cover. He invited me to his Taco Truck Time Trial tomorrow, seems like it could be cool, although it is supposed to be raining tomorrow. And if I do ride, I'd rather do distance over short-but-intense rides.. But I've been meaning to check out some Taco Trucks around here, and what better way than to race to a few and wolf down a few burritos?!

Interestingly this "Time Trial" is similar to a brevet in that you get a little card stamped/signed at checkpoints. And it's not a mass-start race, which I like for some reason. Actually it's kind of ironic since our 300k brevet tomorrow got cancelled due to snow/ice!

My commute/brevet/critical mass machine:

Total Distance: 12km

Total Time: 1 hour

Fun had: lots!

If you ride a bicycle, I highly suggest going to Critical Mass some time to see what it's like. Some say that it's "not helping anyone" or "breaks laws," but you've got to at least try it before you dis it! You'll see that it's both a parade and a protest, and that the response from onlookers is mostly positive!

Critical Mass Report: November 2007

I made it out to Critical Mass again this month, and damn was it worth it!

Luckily they never roll out exactly at 6 PM, so once again me rolling up to Westlake Center at 6:05 or so wasn't an issue.

There were TONS of cyclists, I'm always surprised how many there are in the cold/dark/winter months. I'm gonna say 3-400, but that's a total guess. I wish someone would count the riders, I'd be interested to know.

This time there was no viaduct-action, we snaked around downtown, then I broke off when Mass headed down that trolly-street (with fucking parallel train tracks on the road - seemed like a really bad idea to me, and I'll bet at least one rider crashed due to the tracks).

Highlights:

• Somebody threw a BUNCH of water on Mass down in Belltown, apparently from an apartment. But given the festive nature of Mass, it just made everyone cheer that much louder
• Going up some of the hills downtown, at least one person bit it for some reason, and about half of Mass decided to carry their bikes up the hill
• Going up a cobbled fucking steep hill coming up from Pike Place Market - somehow I made it up without stopping on the 14x40 miyata fixie!

Again, it was a great ride, but once again, I didn't bring a camera - so you're just gonna have to picture how awesome it was until I can find some pics to post.

Critical Mass Report - October 2007

It's been a few months since I made it out to Critical Mass, but today I decided to take some time out of my Friday night to ride my bike around slowly with hundreds of strangers!

I left my house at just about 6 pm, which is incidentally the same time Mass usually rolls out from Westlake Center downtown. But as I was coming down Pine St I could see Mass pulling out, so I knew I was in time! Sweet.

I'm not much of a costume person myself, but there were some pretty good ones - bunny suits, fake parking signs through the chest, all kinds of funky shit.

The route went something like this: West on Pine St, then Left (south) on 1st Ave - once we got down by Safeco Field we turned around, and THEN GOT ON AURORA! I'm always game for riding on one of the most forbidden roads in the city - the Viaduct. We went up an exit ramp, and all of a sudden Northbound 99 was CLOGGED with bicycles. We rode it through the tunnel under Belltown, and all the way up over the Aurora Bridge. The sun had just set so the Olympic Mountains were rad looking, and all you could see in front of you was bicycles and blinking lights.

I was surprised we stayed on 99 so long, as I thought CM was supposed to turn more often, so as not to clog the city too much - but F that, we went all the way!

After 99 we got off in Fremont and headed up Stone Way to Wallingford, where we took a right on 45th and headed East - I broke off on Roosevelt and went back to Capitol Hill. The total ride was 20 km, and the average was really slow, as CM usually rides at a pace of about 10 km/h, or 6 mph.

If you haven't checked out Critical Mass in Seattle, I suggest giving it a try!

[Update]

Here are some good pictures from the Aurora part of the ride on the .83 forum.

And here are some photos from that forum:


and here's the pirate ship - how could i forget that?!


more of the beatiful view from aurora:

July 2007 Critical Mass Conquers Aurora Bridge Again

The scene at Westlake Center yesterday (photo from flickr):


I made it to Critical Mass yesterday, and the turnout was huge, as it usually is in the summer months. Must've been 300 or more people! The Westlake Center was full of cyclists of all types: smokers on fixies, freds on commuter bikes, squids covered in lycra, and a tall bike!

Two frowning cops watched as the 'peloton' rolled out just after 6 PM, heading down Pine St towards 1st Ave. After a slow and winding route we ended up on Highway 99, aka Aurora! I've done the bridge two other times with my fellow Massers, and it never loses its appeal! (99 is a four-lane, 50 mph highway that goes through Seattle, normally off-limits to cycles)

Some peeps at the front tried to make the mass go right and exit just before the bridge, but they must've been new to the area.. Once you're riding with 400 people on Aurora you might as well go to at least Fremont! A buddy and I corralled some peeps to keep going straight and alas, we did, we went over the bridge.

There were cyclists covering up all four north-bound lanes of the bridge, and extending across the whole length of it! It must've been a half-mile long at that point!! We ended up going through Fremont and towards Golden Gardens, but I turned back towards Capitol Hill before we got there, it was time to go home.

Remember, last Friday of every month at 5:30 PM at the Westlake Center. Don't live in Seattle? There's probably a CM in your town too!

A Silent Ride, For Better Or Worse

Yesterday I did the ride of silence, an annual (world-wide) ride for fallen cyclists. Similar to Critical Mass, but without the merry-making/hootin/hollerin that usually ensues. I was running late to the start, but caught up with the group on Eastlake. I wasn't sure if it was an STP training ride or not, what with sea of neon/lycra and yellow rain jackets. And yes, that was me that rode up to the pack and asked, "Is this the ride of silence?" The response, as you might guess, was a stern nod from one fellow (oh yeah, the ride of SILENCE!!)... oh well, glad I made it, even if I was one of the only peeps on a fixie and not dressed in a full race kit. (But hey, I wear lycra too when the time is right.)

It was way different than a Critical Mass ride, and I felt less safe too. We always stayed in only one lane (allowing cars to try to squeeze by in the left or center lane, yikes), and we didn't cork red-lights, so the pack was constantly split up. In CM, the 'mass' of cyclists creates a safety-barrier in which no cars are allowed to pass, and red-lights are blocked (only briefly, mind you!) to ensure that nobody is split from the group. The other issue I have with it is communication; since it is a 'silent' ride, most questions from onlookers ("what are you doing?" etc) are greeted by icy glances, since we're all trying to be 'silent.' Seems to me that at some point you're got to say wtf is going on, otherwise people are none the wiser.

One highlight of the ride was on 1st Ave downtown, when a young red-neck type sitting in a (parked!) black pickup started yelling "GET OUT OF THE ROAD!!" and repeatedly honking his horn. He made himself look ridiculous, I thought. And only if it had been critical mass, the hoots he would have generated would've drowned out his puny car horn!

April 2007 Seattle Critical Mass report

I made it to Mass down in the Westlake Center just in time for everyone to roll out. Sometimes I'm late, but even then it's not hard to find 200+ cyclists going less than 5 mph; just look for the honking traffic and cheering from peeps on bikes!

It was a strong turn-out, I'm guessing it was about 200 people, maybe more. The route was pretty crazy, at one point we turned up Yesler (I think) and started climbing! It's always funny to do a big hill climb at Mass, so many old road bikes (that apparently haven't gone up a hill since '87) start throwing their chains, people are falling, people walking their bikes. But the fixies, like what I was riding, somehow stay in front. It's a steep hill, see for yourself.

There were some peeps with drums on their bikes, wish my bell was working, I could've added to the sounds of Mass.

I heard some civilians (on-lookers) say, "This could only happen in Seattle," as the mass of cyclists rode by. Funny thing is, that's soooo not the case! This is a world-wide event people, betta know that!

Bikers gone wild

In case you haven't heard yet, some cyclists in SF smashed a mini-van's window last Friday after Critical Mass!

http://www.cyclelicio.us/2007/04/san-francisco-minivan-vs-critical-mass.html

I wasn't there, but having seen people get trapped in CM and then bump a cyclist more than once here in Seattle, I know it does happen, and I understand why cyclists get pissed off about it.

If the mini-van driver bumped the cyclist, then I say fuck it, they deserved to have their van smashed. It's hard to be pulled out of the un-reality of the safety/superiority of your car, but they just learned the hard way that cars aren't necessarily always going to win the battle. Might does not make right.

Who knows, if they hadn't met up with CM maybe they would've been in a head-on collision, as oft happens with automobiles. It could have been worse.

Note to drivers out there: if you're stuck in CM, just wait it out, turn off your car for a few minutes!

Critical Mass rules Aurora Ave once again!

This past Friday (2/23) i was late to 'mass', but caught up with the group downtown, in a super-stroke of luck. It's easy to see 100+ cyclists in the dark, what with all the flashing lights, and the traffic backed up behind them!

We slowly headed north towards Fremont, and while stopped on Denney Ave something weird happened: a Washington State Trooper pulled up beside us and shined his spotlight at our faces, kind of scanning the crowd, of course this yielded hollers and laughter from the crowd of confused cyclists. What was even more confusing was that the trooper then just sped off, and never said a word. Guess he figured it wasn't worth it to try to arrest us all!

Anyway we eventually snaked up Westlake Ave and cross the Fremont Bridge into the 'center of the universe'. Upon turning up the short but steep climb to the Troll, some kid on a fixie (and in a t-shirt in 30 degree weather) bit it hard, basically slid on his chest! and as usual with critical mass, lots of old road bikes instantly gave up on the hill, protesting to years of neglect no doubt. seriously, every time we go up a steep hill at least 10 chains come off!

After partying at the Troll (thanks to the dude with the keg on the trailer!), we eventually decided to take the Aurora Bridge! We walked up the East steps, which meant we had to stop both directions of traffic (all six lanes) - at first a few of us just stepped out into the street, halting oncoming traffic. This is super-scary consider the traffic NEVER sees bikes on this road, and they're cruising at 50+ mph... but they stopped when they saw our flashing lights in their path..

After we all regrouped, all 30 of us rode south on Aurora for 10 minutes or so, to the tune of a half-mile of honking traffic behind us! I tried to do a backwards circle on the bridge before the pack caught up, but drunken backwards-circles are no easy feat! Damn, I just wanted to say I'd done that, guess I'll have to wait till next time.

P.S. If you haven't seen the Fremont Troll yet check it

Critical Mass conquers the Alaskan Way Viaduct!!

The showing at this month's Mass (on 1/26/07) was larger than I expected, definitely more than 150 people in cold and dark (but dry) weather. I hadn't gone to 'mass' in a few months, but I finally made it to one. It was a good crowd, as usual - there were even two boom-boxes this time.

We started off with the usual random snaking route through downtown, including the usual stop in the Seattle Center, under the Space Needle. (not sure why we go there since there's no cars but...)

About halfway thru we started to go up the entrace ramp to the Alaskan Way Viaduct, so I knew this was gonna be interesting.. (For those of you not blessed to be in Seattle, the Viaduct is a two-level freeway going thru downtown Seattle. It's not somewhere you can ride a bicycle). We had to wait a few minutes to re-group, and after about five minutes we moved forward, into 50+ mile-an-hour traffic!!

(sidenote: there was a guy who RAN along with us for the whole route, even on the Viaduct!)

The running man ran out in front of a car and signaled for it to slow down, which it did. Then we (the cyclists) took up the 4+ lanes for about a half-mile, exiting at about the stadiums. It was an exhilarating ride, not a place that any bikes usualy go. We ruled it!

Route saved at the mapping site.

critical mass + aurora = sweeeet!

a few years back i rode in a critical mass that rode on aurora (highway 99)!

we did aurora all the way from downtown to fremont, it was nuts. all three lanes were full of bikes, with a good mile of cars waiting behind us! i still can't believe it happened. anyone know if it's been done since?

so.... i-5 next? (520 would be great too, if it weren't for the big metal grates that could easily fit a bike tire between them)



more pics here