Performance Art Vs Critical Mass
I’ve never taken part in a critical mass event. Heck, I’ve never even seen one first hand, so what I’m about to say could just be me talking out of my backside.
I have a bit of a problem with the idea of critical mass. The anarchist within me says, “Yeah! Right on! Let’s really stick it to them, and get some payback at last. We’re really going to show them that we’ve got rights. And while we’re at it, we’ll blow some whistles! Woooo!”
When it comes down to it, I think it’s just too confrontational. Taking over a huge area of a city centre, really being a massive pain in the bum for a bunch of motorists and making them late home to tuck their kiddies up in bed, just doesn’t seem like a great way to convince people to ride a bike. It seems like a great way to make people who don’t ride bikes utterly convinced that people who do ride bikes are a bunch of f**k-wits.
Anyway. Today.
It was the last day of the BikeAbility Instructors course, and we were learning about teaching more advanced road features to Level 3. This involved ten of us riding in pairs around junctions with traffic lights & filter lanes, and roundabouts. One would act as the student, and the rider behind as the instructor. The thing is, this was done at busy junctions, and we were dressed like this: (If you ride a bike in The Netherlands or Copenhagen, or anywhere else where riding a bike is ‘normal’, look away now)
When you’ve got five pairs of riders doing circuits of a busy junction, dressed like this, it creates a special kind of mayhem. It was very like the final scene in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art from the remake of the Thomas Crown Affair - the one with all those guys in the bowler hats walking around. There were only ten of us, but to anyone watching, it would have looked like there were far, far more.
It was like having a bunch of performance artists take over a road junction. Not in the swamping-it-with bikes way of critical mass though. No, it was more subtle than that. Drivers, passengers, and pedestrians were all agog. As a result, the driving around us was (mostly) first-rate, probably as drivers were convinced that somewhere among these hundreds of day-glo cyclists, there was either Peirce Brosnan hiding with a stolen masterpeice, or some TV cameras.
So what I’m wondering is, how many people in normal clothes on bikes would it take to swamp a junction like we did, while just being part of the traffic, and not really impeding anyone’s progress as such? And might that be a better sort of critical mass than the we’re-taking-over-this-entire-road kind?
Interesting.
I’m torn on the idea of Critical Mass rides. I like the original idea, to simulate the critical mass of cyclists needed for cycling to take off, but I don’t much like the end product.
I like the idea of the critical manners rides that I’ve seen online.
I think getting a bunch of riders together in normal clothes and all setting off at 30 second (?) intervals to ride a pre-determined route could have a big impact.
During the first London Freewheel, I was one of the bike marshals, escorting groups of riders from various outlying areas into the closed off central area - a ride of about 3 miles. We went in pairs, about twenty of us with two marshals. The route had been fairly carefully worked out but tackled some major junctions. Every one rode two-by-two - no blocking allowed.
It was my best ride through London, ever. Better than the event itself. After the cars have seen their 20th bike in a row, they start to get out of their way. Who knew?
I think that group rides like that, ‘autobus’ style commutes, would be a very powerful way to get people onto their bikes and not have them scared to death in the process.
@miketually, I have never heard of “critical manners” it sounds awesome… I am going to look it up. Maybe we can get our local bike advocacy group to participate in organizing it.
It should involve Tweed.
Agree on your thoughts re: “Critical Mass”. Unfortunately, I oftentimes just shake my head at their shenanigans, seeing how it actually encourages hostility instead of understanding.
My view of Critical Mass has been documented before. I don’t think it’s helpful in the overall scheme of things, and what’s more it somehow misses the point of what mass cycling is all about. There are more bikes here than I’ve seen anywhere else ever, but those riding them don’t need to shout “woohoo” as they go along, or otherwise draw attention to themselves. Cycling is normal, not a spectacle. It’s for everyone, not just a counter-cultural minority.
The contrast between the two Ted White films - first the one which documented real mass cycling and inadvertently named the movement and then the one which documented the movement, is quite stark.
Thanks for the warning about the photo. I had time to get my welding googles out before scrolling down. The clothes are not the aspect of it which you wouldn’t see here. There is also the matter of the funny bicycles that they’re riding which aren’t terribly practical for everyday use.
It’s all part of the tragedy of cycling in the UK. There are no role models. The removal of cycling as a normal activity in the UK in the 1970s and its replacement by “mountain biking” results in even experienced cyclists getting it wrong.
I’m not a fan of critical mass either - (although I do chuckle when my friends point out that motorists have their own critical mass, twice a day…)
Dressing like a radioactive poundshop shouldn’t be a requirement for cycling as such, but like it or not, the hi-viz colours do “work” in fog and the sort of dusky conditions most of us are riding in at commuting times around this time of year. They also make insurance claims against the doughnuts that hit you despite a plethora of lights etc far more straightforward - sadly I speak from experience.
Dave Moulton makes a few points about bike clothing on his (sadly no longer updated) blog here; http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com/blog/2008/4/25/what-to-wear.html To précis for those of you not wanting to read the whole thing, you *can* ride hundreds of miles in non cycle specific clothes - and this is what people did when cycling clothes were expensive and uncomfortable. DM points out that he wouldn’t do this now though - a ride over an hour is done in lycra, a nip to the post office in “street” clothes.
To address the second point that seems to be being made here, a “utility” bike is whatever you have to hand capable of doing the job you want it to do. I ride a Giant SCR2.0 on my commute - I also ride it for my “fun” rides at the weekend. The “utility”/”sport” bike dichotomy is true only at the extremes of usage - you can’t lug bags of cement around on your carbon superbike, and you can’t compete in your local time trial league on a bakfiets. (Or rather, you can, but you’re not going to enjoy either very much, imo). In between, the extremes, the best bike to use tends to be the one you like riding if you’ve more than one, or the one you actually have where n+1 has yet to take hold of you.
I wear normal clothes for normal riding, though my jacket is a cycling jacket. I went for an orange one, rather than “Bike Yellow”, so it doesn’t look too bike-specific. I also got an orange rucsac (Alpkit Gourdon - very good and very cheap) for visibility. I wear brighter clothing on my bike in the same way I wouldn’t walk about dressed like the Man In Black when walking to work of routes I shared with traffic.
There was a ride from Darlington to Stockton recently, to mark the opening of the new Sustrans route. The only photos from it showing people wearing ‘normal’ clothes were of myself and Richard (chair of Darlington Cycling Campaign). Everyone else were reflective vests and helmet mirrors sorts.
Not a fan of CM, but I am a fan of Courteous Mass — same idea but they follow the rules of the road and demonstrate they are good citizens of the road.
http://www.bikerumor.com/2008/12/16/atlantas-courteous-mass-ideas-for-all/
Sounds like your little group managed for the briefest of moments to reach the legendary cycling tipping point. At which there are enough cyclists on the streets that motorists have no choice but to adapt their behaviour to us.