Critical Mass 1

While walking down to Reckless tonight, I saw a commotion on Broadway. Looking in the distance, I saw all these helmeted heads moving across the intersection. Dozens of them. When I got closer, I broke the camera out and saw that the Critical Mass folks out for a ride.

They were up to their usual hijinks, like blowing red lights (and bragging about it over their megaphone), stopping traffic, pulling in front of cars that tried to muscle their way through the convoy.

What got me was when they harrassed the pedesterians for trying to cross the street. "We're trying to get home from work" one biker said.

"So are we," said the lady he nearly ran over.

Here's the thing I don't get: the ostensible goal is to make people aware of bikers and their right to coexist on the same roads as cars. That's cool. When I ride my bike, I hope that people notice me and on those rare occasions when I drive, I make it a point to give bikers leeway. However, blocking traffic for 10+ minutes, taking up the entire road and shouting at motorists really isn't a good way to endear yourselves.

I recall looking up the law on how far to the right a bicycle should be and it was something like, "as far as conditions permit." Now, AFAIK, this doesn't mean "when you're in a group of hundreds of people who are taking advantage of the opportunity to be complete assholes."

I dunno, maybe I'm just getting old. To be sure, it did kind of look like fun and I'll have to remind myself to try to get in on their next ride. You know, for research.