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Let's be clear: Friday night’s Chicago Critical Mass ride will not be the last. No matter what the veteran masses staffing the ad hoc “Grand Finale Committee” decree, cyclists will keep coming to Daley Plaza the last Fridays of October (Halloween Mass!), November and, barring a citywide emergency or SWAT-style police crackdown, every month after that. Want us to prove it?
Started in San Francisco in 1992, and adopted by Chicago cyclists in '97, Critical Mass has no leaders, no bylaws, and no user manual. The moniker “organized coincidence” seems appropriate. Those thousands of riders drawn downtown in July and the few hundred hearty faithful who tough it out in February share not much more than a love of bikes. Popular vote may determine a route, whether that route is followed often depends on the front of the pack.
The lack of formal structure that attracts so many to circle the Picasso and disrupt your Friday night commute is why Michael Burton chose to make headlines and name this month’s 10th Anniversary Ride “The Last Critical Mass.” Anyone with reliable wheels can join the parade, whether or not they ride respectfully, dream of a world without cars, or care about building a vibrant local cycling culture. And in CCM’s “xerocracy” (a system of freedom through copying ideas), Burton and the “Committee” have no more authority to speak for the Mass than we do. The ride has absorbed, well, masses of new riders. Some get drunk and taunt the police, some are just fighting boredom. It is, in the end, just a ride. But it’s also a space for like-minded people to develop local resources like Cycling Sisters, Working Bikes, West Town Bikes, Break the Gridlock, and Bike Winter. When we started riding CCM six years ago, commandeering Lake Shore Drive for the two-wheeled set seemed like madness. Now the Bike Federation shuts down the road for a sanctioned yearly event.
A Tribune reporter joined the group last month, and her impressions were like those of many first-timers — concern, then elation, awe, and a feeling of invincibility. In the end, the police escort turned the group away from the Museum Campus and Northerly Island (prompting a new round of CCM list-serv discussions about Masser-Police relations). Vocalo host Dan Weissmann is devoting the rest of today’s programming to the Critical Mass debate; the cacophony of testimonials is on their site.
We’ve been off-and-on massers these days, sharing many of Burton’s frustrations. But the event’s too big and complex for us to love every minute. We were thrilled to head the pack at the 5th Anniversary Ride, pissed that a group veered onto the Kennedy, relieved to hear no one was hurt, amused to see a rider bring his canoe and float around the Wicker Park fountain, sad to hear a friend’s bike was stolen. Every month is unique, some more unpredictable than others. We’ll certainly be downtown Friday night, spreading “Happy Fridays” to pedestrians wondering what we’re riding for. There are a few things we’d change about the Mass if we could, but we wouldn’t miss this anniversary for the world.
Chicago Critical Mass starts at Daley Plaza, Washington and Dearborn Streets, Friday night sometime after 6 p.m. More information at the CCM website.
Photos by the author.
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I'm not entirely sure I get the point of Critical Mass. I gather it's about bicycle awareness in the face of traffic congestion and pollution, but do the riders still fail to understand that snarling traffic and forcing drivers to sit and idle is actually worse on the environment, even if it's one day a month? Is it to raise some awareness about the second-class citizenry of urban cyclists? Or is this just another case of mob mentality, a sort of 2-wheeled Earth Day concert, all sound, no fury: "Let's stick it to the 4-wheeled and ... wait, what was this about? Does anyone have any pot?"
Disclosures: I drive to work in the burbs, but ride a bike often around the city. You could say I'm bi-curious. I've have had my fair share of car-on-bike near-misses, usually involving clueless messengers (when I'm driving), or even more clueless tools in Range Rovers (when I'm biking).
Sondack
You are about as clear as mud on this. While Friday's Downtown Hipster Mass may not be the last persay, it will to quote Langston Huges “ sag
like a heavy load" and "dry up like a raisin in the sun"
The reason is because the ride as become "hipster chic", lacking meaning, substance, and progress.
Critical Mass has become a fashion hipster parade for the latest urban outfitter crowd, and a cowardly way for the afore mentioned to feel as if they are engaged in protest and activism with out having to take risk or heaven forbid do any work.
So with out the leadership who built this mass with hard work ( as if it just happened with out planning, work and risk), the urban out fitter types will be easily intimidated by Chicago’s Thugs after a few hard looks, not to mention arrests. Neither will these bike hipsters ride during the winter and during the rain. They also will not facilitate communications with in the community and outside to grow. They might have a few “rad” parties, but they will not sustain a cultural movement. But fear not, the movement will continue and grow as it should. The subversion will continue with neighborhood rides that get stronger and bigger
Spoken like someone who's never participated in a mass, spook. What gives?
Spook, you forgot: Critical Mass is good. Just like Daley is bad. These are the official opinions an you contravene any at your own risk.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a CM ride turn into a mass beatdown, but I just have a low tolerance for douchebags who think rules don't apply to them because, you know, they are riding a bike.
On the upside, I haven't been involved in any bike near misses from bikers blowing red lights, stop signs, or riding diagonally against traffic between the center and outer lanes in the last two weeks, so that's good.
Hey Su Su sudio, I participated In the rides once upon a time when they stood for something.
Now I’m all about the rat bike, while you impressed the hipster chicks with your snazzy fixed gear
If I had a nickel for every time someone said "su su sudio" to me in high school... now I'm getting it from a forty-year-old.
You're "all about the rat bike?" Who's trying to impress the hipster chicks here?
Tell you what, come to the mass on Friday and I'll show you just how wrong you are.
=For Immediate Release=
5 Minutes to Midnight for Monthly Bicycle Happening
A Victim of its own success, Chicago's beleagured Critical Mass ride fails to find needed sponsorhip
Chicago: What started in 1997 with a handful of cyclists barely taking up a lane has grown into a wildly
successful monthly party parade, with numbers in the thousands in the summer months and barely
dipping below the 400-mark in the coldest months. But now the free-form bike event that motorists and
'establishment' cyclists love to hate may be nearing the end of the road. A controversial decision to end
the ride on a high note to celebrate the September 28, 2007 10th anniversary from within the ranks of
the ridership, and the resulting bitterly divisive infighting, have now been overshadowed by a real threat:
the expiration of the ride's lease on its Daley plaza starting point, and relative support from the Chicago
Police Department.
In June of this year, ride supporters working within city government learned that the ride would no
longer be able to gather at the Daley Plaza location, and this news lead to the launch of a campaign to
forge a partnership with the Mayor's Office of Special Events in the hope of attaining city sponsorship of
the event. The effort went as far as to receive confirmation that the Mayor would officiate over the
launch of the September 28 2007 ride, but it was not until posters had been sent to every bike shop in
Chicago announcing the Mayor's blessing and attendance that word came down from city hall that the
committment had been a "miscommunication" and the mayor would not be attending.
A reportedly "furious" mayor then ordered the Chicago Police shut down the August ride, resulting in
mass arrests.
Not to be discouraged by these developments, organizers sought private sponsorship, and at one point
had serious interest from Old Style Beer , who had turned out for the group's July Ride to the Berwyn
Car Spindle with t-shirts and bumper stickers; however, a spokesman for G. Heileman Brewing Co,
speaking on terms of anonymity, reports that Old Style is declining sponsorship at this time due to the
high percentage of teens and families with small children typically in attendance on the ride.
With only a few days remaining until the "final tour", Friends of Chicago Critical Mass are now planning
to approach Governer Blagojevich for a bailout, in final hope of avoiding their "doomsday scenario".
A route to meet the governor near his house in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood is under
development; riders are cordially requesting that governor Blajojevich meet them at 9 P.M. at
Huettenbar, 4721 North Lincoln Avenue, or 10 P.M. at the Chicago Brauhaus, 4732 N. Lincoln Ave., or at
11:00 P.M. at Carola's Hansa Clipper, 4721 N. Lincoln Ave. or at midnight in front of Leland Liquior,
4663 N. Rockwell St., or to just look out his window around 1:00 A.M.
The "final" Chicago Critical Mass ride will meet at Daley Plaza, Washington and Dearborn, at 5:30 PM
and depart shortly after 6 P.M. as it has done every month for 10 years.
Contacts:
Web: www.chicagocriticalmass.net
Phone: 773/509-8093
Sudan,( how's that for original?) actually I didn't know that Phil Colin's song until untill college, three years after it came out! Guess you can imagine the type of high school I went too. I’m gonna take a pass on the last Uncritical Pageant Parade Mass. The current critical mass reminds me of what Cornel West said about America “It grows old, but refuses to grow up”
But hey you must be around 25 so its probably all cutting edge and radical for you.
But you should check out and maybe even cover the Wicker Park local ride, one of several starting. The local rides will continue the critical legacy and tradition
sounds like same-old, same-old to me: aging "activists" resent the younger generation, want things to return to how they used to be. what were you fighting for, the right to have a small, polite bike ride where you can bitch about the young'ins? or a massive, undeniable display of the joy of bicyling?
feel free to start your own ride, no hipsters allowed. the ride has grown by several orders of magnitude in 10 years, i'm sure, and all the better: what is it really about but a bunch of people riding bikes together? the more the merrier. the beauty of CM is its no-agenda. come one, come all -- old recumbent sourpusses and neon-rimmed hipsters alike. list-servs be damned!