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05-03-04, 10:34 PM
I got this on a local list serve and thought I'd share. NYC has apparently embraced CM in a way that Portland never has....
-Randy
_________________________________________________
Hi all.
It's finally consistently sunny and warm here in New York, and after missing it last month I was determined to catch Critical Mass this month. It meets at Union Square, which is just a few blocks from my job. It was the best Critical Mass I've ever ridden, and, like anything to do with bikes and good people, all the great stuff I saw just can't be described.
Some highlights:
Well, for one -- Chunk 666. I'm not sure if they have a permanent contingent out here, but they're definitely here right now. I saw a bike at the Brooklyn Central Library a few weeks back with a Chunk sticker, so I left him a note about how Portland bikers were the best and yay for Chunk 666, and he left me a note saying "We'll be at May Bikefest. Come see. -- From the Blue Bike." I just saw one of their double-deckers today ride by Union Square in evening traffic, so I hope they'll be here for a while. They had some fine bicycles this time, and the Black Label NYC bike possee was right there next to them with long-fork bikes, double-deckers, and other completely inadvisable modifications.
the Fire Engine Bike -- a middle-aged gentleman had a gleaming chrome-and-red cruiser with a piston horn. He'd shove down on the handle, and you could hear the thing for probably ten blocks.
The subwoofer bike. Made by a member of Times Up -- www.times-up.org --, it consisted of a car battery, car amplifier, and a whole set of speakers mounted in a tow-behind bike cart. Really well done. The line-in cable ran from his handlebars so he could control the music from his iPod while he rode.
The skull-makeup, twiggy goth with a skirt of plastic hanging skeletons and a boombox playing Peter Murphy and classic rock. What else is there to say?
The cute girl who got into a grammar fight with me:
Her: "MORE BIKES, LESS CARS!"
Me: "MORE BIKES, *FEWER* CARS!"
repeat.
The Today-show-level-chipper All-American rollerblading girl. She led the pack most of the way sashaying back and forth on her rollerblades, waving a huge American Flag and smiling the whole time.
The hipster wearing a really dirty white shag fake fur coat, drinking a beer rather than holding his handlebars. About half a block after I saw him toss his mostly-empty beer can over his shoulder, he got in a three-bike-pile-up.
----------
We started at Union Square, which is at 14th st and sort of in the middle of Manhattan at that level. The Hungry March Band -- tuba, trumpet, snare, saxophone -- played jazz and ragtime for the accumulating bikers, and by the time we left, we were probably about 250 strong. The group energy was really great, and everyone seemed very happy. Very little
police presence -- I only saw a few bike cops at the beginning, though I know they rode with us the whole way. At one point when a few corkers were arguing with a livid driver at an intersection, I heard them say that we actually had a police escort. I don't know if that's true, but it was clear that New York has embraced Critical Mass. I don't think one person was ticketed. The guys at the front were very well organized -- most of them were with Times Up, I think -- and communicated with walkie talkies. When we got too thin, everyone slowed down, we stopped twice to let emergency vehicles through (and I think it took less time for them to pass than in normal traffic, from what I've seen), and lots of people joined up as we rode.
We looped down through part of the financial district and came back up 6th ave. I don't really recall the exact route, but it took us past a battleship on the western shore of Manhattan, commanded most of 6th ave, looped through two tunnels on either side of Grand Central, passed through another tunnel, stopped for a bike-lifting in Times Square, and finished by taking over Park Ave up to the New York State Armory, where the NYC
Bicycle Show was waiting for us with a sign saying "Critical Mass Welcome."
The first booth by the door was a >gasp< bike-powered smoothie maker. He was pedaling all night. Lots of cool booths, from insanely-light titanium frames made in Italy to clearance bike wear.
And here was where it got fun. The Brooklyn Brewery was serving dollar beers. Chunk 666 was gleefully demonstrating their various monsters on half a basketball court while a DJ in a white-fur bunny suit (one leg shortened gangsta-style) spun hip hop and 80's hits. Then Chunk 666 started letting *anyone* ride their bikes. I felt like I was back in Portland -- here was something clearly impossible happening with beer and bikes that should not have worked for a minute, yet continued for more than an hour. I've never seen strangers so happy to be running into each other before, and so willing to be run-into. I rode, but I got one of the least-dangerous bikes. I only had my camera phone, but I got a couple pictures which I'll post in a day or two.
So, yeah, it was terrifically fun, but it also really made an impression on me for a few reasons. I feel like the experience underscored some of the most basic bike-lessons which can begin to sound like propaganda after a while. Like:
Traveling by bike is a different and more human experience of geography than by car.
This seemed impossible not to notice to me. I'm still getting used to New York, and while I can get around just fine in Manhattan now, it's so constantly clogged with cars and I pretty much rely on the subway, so the only way I've begun to understand how it all gets put together is by walking very long distances or coming up on a spot where two neighborhoods meet that I didn't understand before. But when I rode Critical Mass, we covered a good 60 or 70% of Manhattan, and I felt like I finally understood -- really understood -- how the city goes together. And I realized that, especially the way lifestyles segregate themselves in New York, there were countless non-bikers who might never really share that sense. There's little horizon in Manhattan, and when you rely on public
transit or barely-functioning traffic routing, I just don't see how you can get it. On a bike, it's different.
also
Critical Mass makes an important -- and effective -- statement.
I have to say, I lost a little faith in that unconsciously with all the flak PDX cops have given it and how it didn't seem to get anywhere. But New York is a powerful place, and it really reached me to watch how a few hundred people, independently deciding that they would ride their bikes at this time in Manhattan, could completely transform the place for a couple hours. It was even more powerful of a feeling than I got from the insane midnight ride I went on through downtown Detroit in a thunderstorm last fall. You could really see the amazement in the reactions of the usually-unreachable New Yorkers looking on. Plus, once it became obvious that the City of New York allowed -- if not encouraged -- this, I really felt like something was being accomplished.
Harder to sum up was the feeling I got in the crowd of bikers, but it was clear. It's much easier to find back in Stumptown, and I'm addressing a whole way of doing things very generally here, but it was just this sense of a way of life that stood out dramatically from the constantly-rising mash of overtaking bustle of Manhattan. Much in the same way trees stand out against urban blocks of buildings.
and, most importantly:
Bikes are a goddamn good time.
-Randy
_________________________________________________
Hi all.
It's finally consistently sunny and warm here in New York, and after missing it last month I was determined to catch Critical Mass this month. It meets at Union Square, which is just a few blocks from my job. It was the best Critical Mass I've ever ridden, and, like anything to do with bikes and good people, all the great stuff I saw just can't be described.
Some highlights:
Well, for one -- Chunk 666. I'm not sure if they have a permanent contingent out here, but they're definitely here right now. I saw a bike at the Brooklyn Central Library a few weeks back with a Chunk sticker, so I left him a note about how Portland bikers were the best and yay for Chunk 666, and he left me a note saying "We'll be at May Bikefest. Come see. -- From the Blue Bike." I just saw one of their double-deckers today ride by Union Square in evening traffic, so I hope they'll be here for a while. They had some fine bicycles this time, and the Black Label NYC bike possee was right there next to them with long-fork bikes, double-deckers, and other completely inadvisable modifications.
the Fire Engine Bike -- a middle-aged gentleman had a gleaming chrome-and-red cruiser with a piston horn. He'd shove down on the handle, and you could hear the thing for probably ten blocks.
The subwoofer bike. Made by a member of Times Up -- www.times-up.org --, it consisted of a car battery, car amplifier, and a whole set of speakers mounted in a tow-behind bike cart. Really well done. The line-in cable ran from his handlebars so he could control the music from his iPod while he rode.
The skull-makeup, twiggy goth with a skirt of plastic hanging skeletons and a boombox playing Peter Murphy and classic rock. What else is there to say?
The cute girl who got into a grammar fight with me:
Her: "MORE BIKES, LESS CARS!"
Me: "MORE BIKES, *FEWER* CARS!"
repeat.
The Today-show-level-chipper All-American rollerblading girl. She led the pack most of the way sashaying back and forth on her rollerblades, waving a huge American Flag and smiling the whole time.
The hipster wearing a really dirty white shag fake fur coat, drinking a beer rather than holding his handlebars. About half a block after I saw him toss his mostly-empty beer can over his shoulder, he got in a three-bike-pile-up.
----------
We started at Union Square, which is at 14th st and sort of in the middle of Manhattan at that level. The Hungry March Band -- tuba, trumpet, snare, saxophone -- played jazz and ragtime for the accumulating bikers, and by the time we left, we were probably about 250 strong. The group energy was really great, and everyone seemed very happy. Very little
police presence -- I only saw a few bike cops at the beginning, though I know they rode with us the whole way. At one point when a few corkers were arguing with a livid driver at an intersection, I heard them say that we actually had a police escort. I don't know if that's true, but it was clear that New York has embraced Critical Mass. I don't think one person was ticketed. The guys at the front were very well organized -- most of them were with Times Up, I think -- and communicated with walkie talkies. When we got too thin, everyone slowed down, we stopped twice to let emergency vehicles through (and I think it took less time for them to pass than in normal traffic, from what I've seen), and lots of people joined up as we rode.
We looped down through part of the financial district and came back up 6th ave. I don't really recall the exact route, but it took us past a battleship on the western shore of Manhattan, commanded most of 6th ave, looped through two tunnels on either side of Grand Central, passed through another tunnel, stopped for a bike-lifting in Times Square, and finished by taking over Park Ave up to the New York State Armory, where the NYC
Bicycle Show was waiting for us with a sign saying "Critical Mass Welcome."
The first booth by the door was a >gasp< bike-powered smoothie maker. He was pedaling all night. Lots of cool booths, from insanely-light titanium frames made in Italy to clearance bike wear.
And here was where it got fun. The Brooklyn Brewery was serving dollar beers. Chunk 666 was gleefully demonstrating their various monsters on half a basketball court while a DJ in a white-fur bunny suit (one leg shortened gangsta-style) spun hip hop and 80's hits. Then Chunk 666 started letting *anyone* ride their bikes. I felt like I was back in Portland -- here was something clearly impossible happening with beer and bikes that should not have worked for a minute, yet continued for more than an hour. I've never seen strangers so happy to be running into each other before, and so willing to be run-into. I rode, but I got one of the least-dangerous bikes. I only had my camera phone, but I got a couple pictures which I'll post in a day or two.
So, yeah, it was terrifically fun, but it also really made an impression on me for a few reasons. I feel like the experience underscored some of the most basic bike-lessons which can begin to sound like propaganda after a while. Like:
Traveling by bike is a different and more human experience of geography than by car.
This seemed impossible not to notice to me. I'm still getting used to New York, and while I can get around just fine in Manhattan now, it's so constantly clogged with cars and I pretty much rely on the subway, so the only way I've begun to understand how it all gets put together is by walking very long distances or coming up on a spot where two neighborhoods meet that I didn't understand before. But when I rode Critical Mass, we covered a good 60 or 70% of Manhattan, and I felt like I finally understood -- really understood -- how the city goes together. And I realized that, especially the way lifestyles segregate themselves in New York, there were countless non-bikers who might never really share that sense. There's little horizon in Manhattan, and when you rely on public
transit or barely-functioning traffic routing, I just don't see how you can get it. On a bike, it's different.
also
Critical Mass makes an important -- and effective -- statement.
I have to say, I lost a little faith in that unconsciously with all the flak PDX cops have given it and how it didn't seem to get anywhere. But New York is a powerful place, and it really reached me to watch how a few hundred people, independently deciding that they would ride their bikes at this time in Manhattan, could completely transform the place for a couple hours. It was even more powerful of a feeling than I got from the insane midnight ride I went on through downtown Detroit in a thunderstorm last fall. You could really see the amazement in the reactions of the usually-unreachable New Yorkers looking on. Plus, once it became obvious that the City of New York allowed -- if not encouraged -- this, I really felt like something was being accomplished.
Harder to sum up was the feeling I got in the crowd of bikers, but it was clear. It's much easier to find back in Stumptown, and I'm addressing a whole way of doing things very generally here, but it was just this sense of a way of life that stood out dramatically from the constantly-rising mash of overtaking bustle of Manhattan. Much in the same way trees stand out against urban blocks of buildings.
and, most importantly:
Bikes are a goddamn good time.