What is Critical Mass?

The Welcome Committee for the 20th anniversary has started meeting and planning. I want to give a brief overview of what we have in mind here, so folks can make their own plans, add to ours if you feel like it, and generally get the ball rolling towards an amazing week in September to celebrate 20 years since we rode in our first Critical Mass in San Francisco.

First off, if you’re interested in getting involved with the Welcome Committee, or volunteering for any of the numerous activities that will be going on during the week of September 24-30, 2012, write us at critmasssf@gmail.com.

April 2011, San Francisco Critical Mass at Lands End.

Riders gather at coast after riding for two hours to admire Pacific Ocean and the sun, April 2011.

Three of us, Hugh D’Andrade, Chris Carlsson, and LisaRuth Elliott, have been working on a new book for the anniversary. We have passed the deadline for submissions and I’m glad to say we have some amazing essays in hand, and dozens of photos and posters from around the world. The international, no INTERSTELLAR quality of Critical Mass will be fully demonstrated by the breadth and depth of this book’s stories of Critical Mass from Italy to Brazil to Hungary to Mexico. We will have them ready for you in September.

We are also planning to produce some commemorative posters, with Hugh and Mona Caron both agreeing to make new art, building on their fantastic work of a decade ago. We invite all artists who want to make art for the big anniversary to feel free to do so! The more the merrier! Sticker designs, postcards, posters for the city’s walls, everything is welcome! If you can get the printing done yourself, all the better, but if you need help, contact us and we’ll see what we can do.

In this spirit, we’re also inviting the world’s Critical Mass artists to send us art digitally to include in an upcoming gallery of worldwide greetings for the 20th birthday. Send your images and photos to us at our email: critmasssf@gmail.com, and we’ll put together a gallery on this website as the summer progresses.

We are expecting dozens, hundreds, maybe a thousand friends from around the world to arrive in San Francisco during the anniversary week to help us celebrate. We are working to set up a system for house-sharing, couchsurfing, camping, etc. If you have housing to offer we will soon have a webpage where you can list what you have and people coming to town can write you and figure it out with you directly if you’ll be a good fit for each other. Similarly, we’re looking for hidden fleets of loaner bikes. If you have a garage full of 2-22 bikes that you’d be willing to lend out-of-town visitors for the 20th anniversary, we’ll have a webpage for you to sign up on too.

In the meantime, if you have housing, bicycles, or other resources to offer the celebration, feel free to write us at our email. We are hoping to have a “convergence center” open from 1-5 Monday-Friday of that week and we’ll need volunteers to help staff it to meet and greet incoming visitors.

Riding west along the north shore of San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge just visible at right (April 2011).

We are planning to offer two rides each day from Monday Sept. 24 to Thursday Sept. 27, one in and around San Francisco, another going out to the many wonderful rides in the region (from the Marin Headlands to the East Bay shoreline, Montara and Half Moon Bay to the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge in the South Bay, etc. etc.). In-city rides will include following themes like lost freeways or ice cream parlors, future shorelines or ridge-top tours, all to be determined. On Tuesday Sept. 25 we will open a Critical Mass Art Show at the Diego Rivera Gallery at the SF Art Institute at 800 Chestnut Street. On Wednesday, Sept 26, we hope to have a panel of authors to present the new book at the Main Library (to be confirmed), and on Thursday, Sept.27 we have a big party and concert scheduled at Cellspace. Friday the 28th is of course the big birthday, the Interstellar Critical Mass ride, which we hope will be a giant, crazy, awesome evening ending in a big party under warm skies in a public spot to be determined. On Saturday Sept. 29 we are planning to hold a symposium at the Art Institute that will give us all a chance to sit and talk together in various discussions about the roles of Critical Mass, bicycling, urban social movements, etc. And on Sunday, September 30 we plan a big finale ride to the beach for a potluck bbq and all-day party.

September 2011 Critical Mass goes out Market Street...

... and then up Page Street! One of the steeper hills we've ever climbed!

For every mild or serious uphill...

... There is always a better and easier downhill!

Give us a holler if you’d like to join the effort!

Some friends of this blog organized a “concept” ride for the Critical Mass here in San Francisco earlier this evening. A flyer was prepared and hundreds were distributed before the ride.

A lovely ride to Cayuga Park, park of mystery and amazing scupture!

As has been the case when passing out proposed routes over the past year or two, some folks get pretty hostile (weirdly, they usually look like they’re middle-aged guys, maybe over 50, who have some kind of self-righteousness that they *know* that Critical Mass *never* has any proposed routes!). But most folks I handed it to were eager for a good suggestion and excited to see a map.

Well the ride took off  before any of the co-conspirators could get “in front” so up Market it went. Who knows who decided to go, or to go *that* way (again!), but so it was. A bunch of us rushed to the front and managed to get it turning south on 4th Street. At 4th and Mission I made a bunch of noise and convinced the front to stop for a full light cycle (to allow everyone behind us to catch up and mass up again), after which I felt I’d done my part to make the plan happen.

Down 4th Street I jumped on to a bus platform and took these photos:

Southbound on 4th Street near Brannan, July 29, 2011, San Francisco.

Critical Mass San Francisco, July 2011.

A good time was had by all...

We rode across the 4th Street Bridge and when we tried to cross the empty baseball parking lots, a fair number of folks decided we were escaping the predictable patterns of past Critical Mass’s more than they could reasonably tolerate. Thus, they turned back and proceeded northward on 3rd Street, while those of committed to the route carried on southward on Terry Francois Blvd. Drama solved! Around 100-120 of us were going to Cayuga Park! That was plenty to have a good time, and enjoy a “real” Critical Mass experience.

For those who went back to the city center (and thanks for taking the cops with you, by the way), I hope you had a good time. I’m sure you went around Union Square, through the Broadway and Stockton Tunnels, circled up at Market and Van Ness, and eventually just melted away through attrition… Just like nearly every ride for the past few years! Geez! Some of us are bored to death with the predictability of that experience, and the empty posturing of those delusional few who actually believe they are being “more political” or “most radical” by pushing Critical Mass into endless traffic jams in the heart of the City (no, there is no “class war” between cars and bikes–they are inanimate objects!–nor is there one between motorists and cyclists, who are all workers of one sort or another at the end of the day). Read the rest of this entry »