Critical Mass

[Linford]

It's not a protest, or a confrontation or anything of the sort - it's a real chilled out festival atmosphere. People were bringing sound-system bikes with them, playing out all sorts of different music. You had your really dedicated cyclists with well made and well decorated bikes with lots of illuminations, alongside your casual cyclist on a Boris Bike.

Sure, there were a couple of disagreements with predominantly taxi drivers, but most of them were pretty calm and a lot of them do appear to be understanding that, thanks to the decision of the Law Lords, Critical Mass is a precession and thus is allowed to ride through red lights where the first rider crossed the line on a green. I had one debate with a taxi driver myself, both sides remained calm, he started to understand the movement and that we were only going to be causing a very slight delay.

One thing you do really realise though, is that instead of it being for 3-4 hours each month, car drivers actually have their Critical Mass every single day of the week.

Don't at all agree with the justification behind it....they don't need you deliberately obstructing them to feel the frustration of sitting in traffic jams. If a group organised one in my town, the only part I'd play in it is telling them to stop being a bunch of rentamob bell ends.

 

[Canrider]

If a group organised one in my town, the only part I'd play in it is telling them to stop being a bunch of rentamob bell ends.

Trans: Don't like it, but can't be asked to get off my fat backside about it. Now I'm going to bang on about it online.
ReTrans: Lazy unless it involves typing.

 

[Linford]

Trans: Don't like it, but can't be asked to get off my fat backside about it. Now I'm going to bang on about it online.
ReTrans: Lazy unless it involves typing.

Perhaps you are thinking of your own actions when you have a large group of 'like minded' people stood behind you when you feel the need to menace others.
I've got no difficulty in speaking my mind to people face to face in real life if I feel they are out of order. Those who have met me will testify to this. I don't need a group to back me up though...'you do'....sorry, I mean 'do you' ?

 

[Tyke]

It's not a protest, or a confrontation or anything of the sort - it's a real chilled out festival atmosphere. People were bringing sound-system bikes with them, playing out all sorts of different music. You had your really dedicated cyclists with well made and well decorated bikes with lots of illuminations, alongside your casual cyclist on a Boris Bike.

Without the protest this is just what young car drivers do when they meet at a local supermarket car park when it is closed, with custom cars for a meet that usually results in complaints and a police involvement. Whats the difference.
For the record I am not a young driver just an old bike rider that thinks we can get in enough trouble without this.

 

[Tyke]

I think the theory of a visible critical mass on the road is good but the practice is poor; they only serve to antagonise folk, who may be stupid enough to take it out on a general rider.

+1

 

[ComedyPilot]

I am East Yorkshire's critical mass....

 

[Cyclopathic]

I would encourage any one who has a negative view of Critical Mass rides to visit the Leicester ride. It is very much like a rolling charm offensive and all corkers are polite and take the time to explain to the drivers that they will only be held up for two or three minutes. It really is only a couple of minutes that people have to wait and over the course of their journey I doubt it adds any measurable time to it compared to days when there is no ride.
The Leicester CM has been going for three years now and always with a good turnout. Usually at least a hundred riders and sometimes up to about 300 (I'm not entirely sure of the numbers off the top of my head but don't think these are too far out.) cyclists. In all that time there have been very few issues arising from people complaining about delays. The police in the city have seemed to treat it as a non issue from which I assume they have not received very many complaints. The atmosphere on the rides is very positive and most drivers do not seem to mind at all. The few that do receive polite apologies and an explanation which is rarely over before it is time to move on again.
There has been a deliberate effort made with the Leicester not to involve any aspects of protest and to keep it very much as a celebratory event simply to raise awareness of cycling and cyclists., all of which makes it a very family friendly event with riders of all ages taking part. Parents seem to feel very comfortable bringing their children along either on their own bikes or in carriers and such for the smaller ones. For me this is the best thing about it because it gives children the idea that they are allowed to use the roads to cycle on and that it is not just the domain of the car and the lorry.
It really is a tiny encroachment on peoples time and the positives far outweigh the negatives. What really holds people up in traffic is the amount of cars on the road so if regular events like CM encourage people to feel that they can use a bike the net effect is going to be to bring down congestion.

 

[Whiskey88]

Very well put @Cyclopathic - indeed Friday was a very family-friendly affair, with members of all generations present. Everyone was represented, from professional couriers with their hand-built fixies, to the city workers and tourists riding Boris Bikes. We had a couple of drivers honking at us to get out of the way, but most of the horns we heard were from drivers supporting us - one bus driver even took to corking for us and giving everyone high fives as we rode past.

CM probably holds people up less than your average drive during rush hour in the same area. So once again it's apparent that the only people who "hate" (and I do mean "hate", not just "dislike") CM have never tried it. I used to dislike CM, but that was before I had tried it, so I was sensible enough to keep my opinions to myself at that stage as anything I would have said then would have been an uneducated statement.

 

[ianrauk]

Tried it (a few times) and hated it...

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Tried it waaaay back in the day when I often didn't see more than one or two other cyclists on my London commute. Hated it, CM, then.

Tried it a couple of years back now millions cycle everyday in London. Still hated CM.

Got caught in one earlier this year. Still hate CM does nowt and achieves even less.

And as for a Critical Mass? Well it hasn't achieved one really in London has it. The bomb dodgers and the BB's might have done though.

If CM, and London cyclists in general, really wanted things to change in their favour they'd organise two flash mob's each and every time a London Cyclist is killed and have two simultaneous die-in's that last an hour at the site of the death and on Parliament Square/Whitehall. And really mess up the traffic in central and really inconvenience others. In time for the evening news. On which an articulate PR person could present the cyclists "Stop the Murder" case. Then the authorities might take CM seriously rather than patting them on the head like small children who make too much noise. Holding a party on a Friday night, yep, that will change the world.

 

[Boris Bajic]

Whiskey88's positive reading of the motives and benefits makes a heartening read.

However, I find it out of kilter with the feedback I've heard (and overheard) from people who've ridden with Critical Mass.

There is a strong sense of 'getting back at the man' and an apparent pleasure in disrupting other people's daily lives. I do not say that this is general, but it is the chatter one often hears from participants. There seems at some level to be a 'chip on shoulder' thing going on - a sort of resentment at not being taken seriously.

The broad aims are positive and admirible, but there seems to be an element among those participating who take some pleasure in pissing people off.

I'm with those who say that there must be better ways to make the point.

But it's not a point I feel the need to make. I feel significantly safer on a bicycle these past ten years than I did as a youngster. There are deaths now as there were deaths then. My children are all keen cyclists and I simply would not actively encopurage them into things that I thought dangerous.

What I do see these days is a greater proportion of adult cyclists who seem not to have a sound grasp of traffic flow and rooad behaviour. I do not know why this is; it may be that they are part of the generation who've been sucked into cycling by the swing in the zeitgeist some years back, or they may be arrivists non-drivers who were not taught to ride as children and have come in with an unrealistic expectation of how other road users will behave.

As we all do in London and other large cities, I see on almost every ride (on the rare days I ride there now) people who simply should not be on a tricycle in their own back garden, let alone a bicycle on the teeming street. Some of these people will be squodged while undertaking or sweeping across lanes without looking or doing some other spectacular piece of barminess. I'm sure I saw less of that before the current cycling boom.

But Critical Mass as a part of the cure... not really.

 

[Linford]

Without the protest this is just what young car drivers do when they meet at a local supermarket car park when it is closed, with custom cars for a meet that usually results in complaints and a police involvement. Whats the difference.
For the record I am not a young driver just an old bike rider that thinks we can get in enough trouble without this.

Er...no if you believe that this is why they do that, you have never been near one of their local 'Kroozes' . They do it to socialise with other like minded people and show off their cars to each other. They get moved on regularly because they do unfortunately occasionally attract bell end types who insist on showing off....which then is regarded as anti social behaviour....but they don't deliberately congregate to just wind other people up which is the primary and stated purpose of Critical Mass (the clue is in the name )

I am involved with my area motorbike owners gatherings which can and does attract 1000-2000 people on wednesday evenings throughout the summer at different locations in the Gloucestershire/Hereford &Worcestershire area. If someone turns up to cause trouble, the organisers warn them to cool it, and if that fails then they get sent packing....these meetings rely on the hospitality of pubs and other venues, and the last thing they/we want is to spoil that landlords relationship with their neighbours....these meetings are put on to raise money for the Midlands Air Ambulance (you know, the Helicopters which save peoples lives)

Is there at all an altruistic aspect to Critical Mass, or is it all about selfish demands of 'reclaiming the streets' and to blazes with any other tax payer who funds the upkeep of that space ?

 

[Tyke]

My point was not to criticize the car or in your case motorbike meets but to say that people object to them and then do the CM. I do go to local car meets occasionally but only as a spectator I don't have that sort of car. Recently the local bikers had one for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance but they all need funding so good on you for supporting your local one we probably used it a few months ago when five turned up for a motorway bus crash
My problem is not with you or the cars but with CM turning drivers against cyclists

 

[Cyclopathic]

I can only really repeat that in Leicester the CM is a friendly and reasonably well received monthly event. Those involved seem to be very determined not to allow the agenda to drift to protest of any kind and participants are all of a mind to keep it about celebrating cycling and raising a bit of awareness. I'm sure some drivers get pissed off but as much as possible is done to amelierate apease keep them happy and I think that the positve aspects outweigh the negative, in Leicester at least. On the few I've been on I haven't encountered any body who I thought was doing it to strike a blow or to be particularly rebelious. I may have formed a different attitude about it if I'd had the experience that some here seem to have had though.
All I can say is come to Leicester to see how it can be.

 

[Frood42]

to blazes with any other tax payer who funds the upkeep of that space

Is this not some selfish motor vehicle owners attitudes during their very own every day critical mass (or commute, if you like).