Mass arrests 'Critical Mass' cycle ride during Olympics opening

[RhythMick]

I was hoping not to be drawn into anything like this but you set the pecident when you brought up the Tomlinson case then went on to state that the whole point of a protest was to cause inconvenience and hassle in order to get a point across, then you sarcastically made a remark about solidarity within cyclists.
You sir are nothing if not inconsistent with your posts. If it was a nice sunny evening and you wanted to go out for a ride why on earth would you head in the direction of the ceremony and the enforced lanes which even us up north knew about?
Either you were part of the protest in which case you should have the decency and honour to stick to your origional post or as I am starting to suspect you were just mulling about in the area to add to the confusion of this rather childish and stupidly timed "protest"
To be honest I have nothing in common with you as a cyclist I don't share your views about protesting and any normal sane individual would have known, going anywhere near that event was just plainly asking for trouble.
Its nice to be able to demand that we have a right to go where we want but for pity's sake this is an multi billion pound event being broadcast worldwide and we have been asked to cooperate for two weeks. Grow up and cycle on the other side of the river. You may even like the change of scenery for a while.
We all have rights but we also have responsibilities. I can ride where I want but to bring 100 of my pals along with me just pisses people off and is inconsiderate so I wouldn't do it. Especially when the police are jacked up as it is. Thats not being a sheep or bowing to authority thats just common sense.

Well said that man. Sums it up nicely for me.

 

[dellzeqq]

They take themselves immensely seriously, but nobody else does.
..

completely ignorant. They don't take themselves at all seriously. It's a party. Seriousness doesn't come in to it because, to be frank, most of them are too young and too thick to be serious about anything. Their outlook isn't lucid, let alone articulate. It's just a vague notion about the ordering of our streets being wrong. And, once again, events have proved them right.

As for the Stratford thing. Ponder this. Sunday morning. Thirteen middleaged middle class men and women pitch up to a smart coffee shop in Docklands. On bikes. We park our bikes outside, we order coffee and chocolate cake, the waiters, wearing white shirts and black aprons run around like bumble bees on acid, moving the tables to make a long run, tidying the nappery, and the bright silver cutlery. The sun beams down on their efforts. All of a sudden two neanderthal security guards hove in to view, guided by earpieces connected to a control room somewhere - for all I know a warehouse in Essex. We're told to move the bikes to a remote location because they're a security risk. That's forty grand's worth of bikes somewhere out of sight. No thanks.

What happened next is instructive. One of the thirteen takes the piss out of the guards and suggests they get a proper job - not in a confrontational way, but in a manner designed to confuse them (not difficult) and offer some amusement to the waiters who, after all, are just doing their job, and hoping for a tip. There's a bit of a stand-off, the goons mumble in to their earpieces, the cyclists apologise to the waiters, and prepare to move on. And then the mood changes. The guards (finally) get the joke, have a chat with the control room, and we get to stay.

Now........if any of you haven't clocked that, incrementally, our streets are being privatised in the name of security, and the Olympics is a symptom of that, you need to give yourself a sharp slap around the back of the head, because, as somebody once said, 'you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone'. CM may be just a bunch of scruffy ne'er-do-wells on unpleasant looking bikes, but for the last fifteen years they've stood for something worthwhile. It would be nice if some people who can't be arsed to say boo to a goose would acknowledge that.

 

[dellzeqq]

"Who are we and what are our aims?
We are not sure, opinions seem to differ. There are probably as many aims of CM as there are participants. Each individual comes there with his or her own idea of what it's about, and the sum of this makes up the Mass. We have no organisers and no planned routes and this website does not try to be representative of CM in any way."

I felt like this was relevant, this is the opening paragraph from the Critical Mass London website. Doesn't really fill me with any amount of confidence if they don't even know what they are aiming for themselves! The more I look into this the more embarrassing it becomes. I'm not going to comment any further on this thread as I can't see a clear outcome when talking to these people. Can't see them helping in any way whatsoever.

well, when you've told us what you've done 'to help', and should it come close, as in close to one thousandth of what CM has done, I might be just one tiny bit impressed. Take your time. Just list your achievements........

 

[Andy84]

well, when you've told us what you've done 'to help', and should it come close, as in close to one thousandth of what CM has done, I might be just one tiny bit impressed. Take your time. Just list your achievements........

Surely any one of the thousands of people who go out on their bikes each day, obeying the rules of the road and respecting other road users are doing more to 'help' than the mob who turned up on Friday Night.

I think the problem is that a lot of us agree with the principle of CM, its just that we don't like the yob-ish way in which they go about it.

 

[dellzeqq]

CM attempts to roll back the margins of control, just as the black alpaca generation did back in the 30s

they may not be your kind of people (and, I'm afraid that I'm far too old and middle class these days, so they're not really my kind of people either) but all the respect that cyclists get on the road has been won by being there in numbers, and CM is about numbers. When I rode down Clapham High Street forty years ago I was one of very few, and it took a bit of nerve and quite a bit of assertiveness to get some space around me. Now..........we are thousands strong, and it takes a very brave car driver to mess with cyclists - and, not only that, the street is a happier, more sociable space.

One cyclist riding around the centre of a city doesn't make a difference to the way people think. A hundred, or three hundred, says 'we're here, and you're just going to have to deal with it'. CM has been a vital part of London's cycling boom, and it's not surprising that people like Jenny Jones turn up from time to time to take strength from it and to give it some authority.

And, these days, it's a world-wide thing. Although it started in San Francisco, we should be proud that people have come to London, seen it in action, and taken the idea home with them.

 

[Boris Bajic]

completely ignorant. They don't take themselves at all seriously. It's a party. Seriousness doesn't come in to it because, to be frank, most of them are too young and too thick to be serious about anything. Their outlook isn't lucid, let alone articulate. It's just a vague notion about the ordering of our streets being wrong. And, once again, events have proved them right.

As for the Stratford thing. Ponder this. Sunday morning. Thirteen middleaged middle class men and women pitch up to a smart coffee shop in Docklands. On bikes. We park our bikes outside, we order coffee and chocolate cake, the waiters, wearing white shirts and black aprons run around like bumble bees on acid, moving the tables to make a long run, tidying the nappery, and the bright silver cutlery. The sun beams down on their efforts. All of a sudden two neanderthal security guards hove in to view, guided by earpieces connected to a control room somewhere - for all I know a warehouse in Essex. We're told to move the bikes to a remote location because they're a security risk. That's forty grand's worth of bikes somewhere out of sight. No thanks.

What happened next is instructive. One of the thirteen takes the piss out of the guards and suggests they get a proper job - not in a confrontational way, but in a manner designed to confuse them (not difficult) and offer some amusement to the waiters who, after all, are just doing their job, and hoping for a tip. There's a bit of a stand-off, the goons mumble in to their earpieces, the cyclists apologise to the waiters, and prepare to move on. And then the mood changes. The guards (finally) get the joke, have a chat with the control room, and we get to stay.

Now........if any of you haven't clocked that, incrementally, our streets are being privatised in the name of security, and the Olympics is a symptom of that, you need to give yourself a sharp slap around the back of the head, because, as somebody once said, 'you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone'. CM may be just a bunch of scruffy ne'er-do-wells on unpleasant looking bikes, but for the last fifteen years they've stood for something worthwhile. It would be nice if some people who can't be arsed to say boo to a goose would acknowledge that.

Dellzeqq.... I'm sorry to say this, as your posts often hit the nail on the head:

The above smacks slightly of people taking themselves seriously when nobody else does. And not just the security staff.

I see in your post directly above this one that you mention riding alone along Clapham high Street forty years ago. I lived not far from there as a child at that time. You would rarely have been alone. By the mid-70s I was cycling to school along Stamford Street or round Aldwych. I still ride there. I loved it then and I love it still. No clowns on bicycles have changed a thing for me or anyone else. CM are a legend in their own tea break.

They really are the closest the urban sprawl has to Cornish Nationalists.

 

[dellzeqq]

I'm sorry to have to tell you that the years have dulled your recollection. To suggest that the number of cyclists going down Clapham High Street is anything less than fifty times what it was in the seventies is just bonkers. We have a cycling boom in this town that is without parallel anywhere in the country - and CM is one of the reasons why we're having that boom.

When I read these boards I'm reminded that there's a lot of cyclists who find common cause difficult. The 'I'll never join a club'. (anti) brigade. That, I'm afraid, blinds them to the truth, which is that what they take for granted has had to be worked for.

In fairness to cycling's 'no-mates' tendency, there can hardly be an activity in which your personal achievement is so closely linked to the effort you put in. You look after yourself, you get some miles in and you, nobody else, get to the top of the hill. That's all good - it's one of the wonders of cycling that effort is rewarded, and this forum is scattered with tales from people who have reaped those rewards. But we lose sight of what we're part of at our peril, because, whether we like it or not, the fact that we are so very numerous in London, and the fact that we all of us gain the rewards that being numerous afford us, is down to others - the clubs, the independent bike shops, the LCC, CM, the antipodeans who went to work on bikes from southwest London, Ken and his bus lanes, and even, in a horribly perverse way, the Yorkshire bombers.

 

[Boris Bajic]

I agree completely about the cycling boom. I think it's wonderful. Certainly the numbers in London now are quite, quite unlike anything I saw in the 70s.

As a student in the 80s I saw quite a few around Bloomsbury, but they tended to be other students. And today's numbers leave that in their wake too. I cannot disagree about the surge in popularity.

I'm not sure about cycling alone along Clapham High Street in the early 70s, but I wasn't there on those days. I was certainly not alone on Stamford Street in the rush hour by the mid-70s.

I see only positives in the growth in popularity of cycling in the UK. I imagine we may be at one on that.

I realise the 'common cause' comment was a general one, but my history of activism (before my children were born) suggests I do not have that issue.

Where I disagree with you is on whether CM have in any perceptible way improved my lot as a cyclist. I find that they have not.

There are those who disagree; you may be in that number. I find them to be buffoons. I may be wrong.

 

[dellzeqq]

I agree completely about the cycling boom. I think it's wonderful. Certainly the numbers in London now are quite, quite unlike anything I saw in the 70s.

As a student in the 80s I saw quite a few around Bloomsbury, but they tended to be other students. And today's numbers leave that in their wake too. I cannot disagree about the surge in popularity.

I'm not sure about cycling alone along Clapham High Street in the early 70s, but I wasn't there on those days. I was certainly not alone on Stamford Street in the rush hour by the mid-70s.

I see only positives in the growth in popularity of cycling in the UK. I imagine we may be at one on that.

I realise the 'common cause' comment was a general one, but my history of activism (before my children were born) suggests I do not have that issue.

Where I disagree with you is on whether CM have in any perceptible way improved my lot as a cyclist. I find that they have not.

There are those who disagree; you may be in that number. I find them to be buffoons. I may be wrong.

we certainly are as one on that. And you're not entirely wrong about the buffoon bit either. There's a very high proportion of complete muppets amongst them. But.........CM has a purpose, it has made a difference, and that's why the 'proper' campaigners go back there from time to time.

And now for a bit of CMery of a different kind. Will Paul Smith in Covent Garden admit our Bromptons? I shall report back later.

 

[iLB]

I was going to go but thought better of it in the end, my friend who I was going to see ended up in a nick over night -not fun. He wishes he had taken the chance to leave when he had it, hoping he doesn't get charged.

 

[dawesome]

We need more double-spacing self-important windbags droning on about what CM means, notwithstanding the fact they know nothing about CM, have never attended, know nobody who does and have never even spoken with an attendee.

 

[dawesome]

ABOUT 19 HOURS AGO
'Critical Mass' bail conditions ban protesters from entering Olympic borough with bike

Slips of paper given to the more than 130 'Critical Mass' cycle protesters arrested last night reveal the conditions of their bail.
None were charged.

• Not to go within 100 yards of any Olympic venue
• Not to enter any Olympic-only carriageway, unless that carriageway is open to all traffic at the specific time

• No to enter the Borough of Newham whilst in possession of a bicycle
• Not to take part in any activity that disrupts the intended or anticipated official activities of the Olympic games

http://www.itv.com/news/story/2012-...ympic-stadium-stratdford-and-waterloo-bridge/

None WAS charged.

 

[Cubist]

The chap was sitting down.

Yes he was. My post was to point out that the officer does not have thoption of walking away.

Whether he can justify the level of force he used is up to him I'm afraid. I was not there, I do not have the full facts, and have no reason to try to support his use of force or the level of force used under those circumstances. At the same time, without those facts, and without the context of what went on before, or what took place afterwards, neither can I automatically condemn him. Time will tell, as it wil be very closely scrutinised and investigated.

The sight of a man claiming to be immobile being sprayed is far from edifying, and will provoke a huge reaction. The posters and editors of the original video will have been well aware of that.

 

[Norm]

The chap was sitting down.

Well, at least you have progressed from disabled to sitting down but what, I wonder, would you have expected to be the outcome after he stopped the policemsn from arresting someone and then threw him across the bonnet of a car?

Whining about pepper spray loses it's impact when it's supporting someone who has already committed assault and continues to threaten.

 

[Norm]

I obviously can't speak for ever CMer on Friday...

Which is ironic given that, not an hour earlier, you suggested that CM was the voice of all cyclists and anyone who rides should agree with their motives and actions.