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: