Just back from a great visit to Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo. In Porto Alegre I was a guest of the First World Bike Forum there and wrote about it over on my blog.

Here’s a video of the biggest ever Critical Mass in Porto Alegre that took place on the evening of Friday Feb. 24, 2012:

 

Massa Crítica do Fórum Mundial da Bicicleta 2012 from Rodrigo Langeani on Vimeo.

I went to Sao Paulo and visited friends there, and had the pleasure of visiting the Praça do Ciclista on Avenida Paulista, the original starting point for Sao Paulo’s Massa Critica or Bicicletada, meeting up with dozens of local cyclists, and riding to Mano Na Roda, the local equivalent of our Bike Kitchen.

I gave a bicycling interview to TV Globo and they said they’d air it on Friday at the noon national newscast, but the lead story was the morning’s tragedy: another woman cyclist crushed by a bus on Avenida Paulista. As it turns out, four other cyclists were killed on Brazilian roads the same day. Bicyclists across the country were finally pushed over the edge. Over 1,500 cyclists showed up in pouring rain to stage a massive die-in last Friday night at the spot where the woman was killed. Today, March 6, mass rides were held in many Brazilian cities, and in Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil by far, thousands of cyclists jammed the main street and demonstrated in front of the municipal government offices too.

Brazilian cyclists are at a climactic moment. Solidarity and love to everyone down there, condolences to the loved ones lost—all too many…

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