Condition Critical!

Happy 10th Birthday to Critical Mass! In September 1992, a handful of bicyclists converged in downtown San Francisco the last Friday of the month during rush hour and rode in a big clump down the street in protest of the lack of attention and respect non-car transportation gets on city streets. Motorists were confused then angry, the police befuddled but someone listened. Today Critical Mass happens the last Friday of every month in 300 cities around the world and it’s pretty damn hard, in most major cities, to ignore the presence of bicycles.

I was fortunate to ride with the Mass yesterday in the city where it all began, with thousands of other bicycles eager for and passionate about a safer, cleaner, more humane city. Critical Mass has a mixed reputation among practically everyone because as progressive as someone claims to be, see how long they stay that way when stuck in their car for an hour behind a wave of thousands of cheering cyclists. And infamously, in some larger rides, cyclists has been arrested and beaten by police, and gotten into screaming matches and physical confrontations with those on two wheels.

Media coverage of the ride has often emphasized these violent confrontations, portraying the riders as law-breaking thugs with a sadly misguided political agenda. Indeed there are rouge element of the ride who still think Critical Mass is about pissing off people in cars. Hell, even I did when I started riding it and still get a perverse charge out the angry drivers. But really I think the Mass, because it has no organizer, no governing body, it just happens, suffers from a public relations problem. I’ve been in the middle of it several times and mostly you see ordinary people smiling, cheering, happy to be riding in the city they love without fearing for their life. I’ve seen teenagers and senior citizens, people in wheelchairs, and dozens of parents riding alongside their children.

Thank God in celebration of the anniversary, some wise person passed out a sheet outlining the principles of Critical Mass, which included “MOTORISTS ARE NOT THE ENEMY!” It forced me to remember why I was there. And while I read about frusterated drivers “just drying to get home” and merchants worried that their customers won’t arrive if they can’t drive, and say “come off your high horse and take the damn bus!”, I don’t get the same self-rightous thrill I used to.

• Category: Rightous Anger