May 25th Critical Mass in Montreal

[Daijoubu]

Anyone have uploaded pics or vids? I was there but forgot to bring my camera :)

[Treker]

I've read about these CM on other threads. I'm curious about what was the purpose of the Montreal CM rally? Advocacy or confrontation? And please don't flame me for asking. I'm interested to learn more about these CMs.
Cheers

[defrag]

http://montrealfreakbikes.blogspot.com/2007/05/montral-masse-critiquecritical-mass-25.html

[Jinker]

CM gets a lot of criticism from various different groups. IMO, it ranges from the wholly unfounded/unjustified, to completely justified critique.

That being said, you can't paint all CM rides in all cities with the same brush. This one sounds organized, positive, and not overly disruptive:

I must give credit to the bicycle officers of station 20 who stayed with us for the entire ride, securing intersections as we went along. If this kind of cooperation remains, the mass can only get bigger and better. Somebody took the time to sit down with the SPVM and explained the concept to them and the dividends of that meeting paid off. Congratulations to everyone!

Getting local police on side and cooperating with them to avoid making their lives unnecessarily difficult seems like a very logical move.

The situation might be different in some cities (NYC for example) where the police have a very serious bias against CM rides (not commenting on the validity of this bias), but I think the MTL CM ride should ensure they stay on the cops' good side as it only helps them get this message across: That cyclists are regular people with every right to be on the road.