Northeast - Boston Courteous Mass, Friday 9/9/11 (inaugural ride)

I'm helping to organize the first-ever ride of Courteous Mass Boston. This will be like Critical Mass, only we follow all traffic laws. Or perhaps I should say it *won't* be like Critical Mass. Cross-posted on the rides and events forum (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/765334-Boston-Courteous-Mass-Friday-9-9-11-(inaugural-ride)).

We're working on getting City of Boston bike cops and EMTs riding along with us. The ride will be age 16+, slow, and pretty short. We'll be doing a figure-8 with start, middle, and end at the Common, so those who would prefer a *really* short ride can bail after the first loop.

Meet at the Boston Common Gazebo at 6:30pm. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=244412858923962

I'm helping to organize the first-ever ride of Courteous Mass Boston. This will be like Critical Mass, only we follow all traffic laws. Or perhaps I should say it *won't* be like Critical Mass. Cross-posted on the rides and events forum (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/765334-Boston-Courteous-Mass-Friday-9-9-11-(inaugural-ride)).

Meet at the Boston Common Gazebo at 6:30pm.

Power to the Polite!

sounds like a great idea. wish I could be there. the few critical mass rides I've seen have been less than polite.

If I am in town I will definitely be there and do the ride along with you. Thanks for the notification.

Completely forgot about this! And I was downtown at the time! How'd it go?

Sorry you missed it. I should have sent out a last-minute reminder. Come join us next month! Should be the second Friday again -- October 14th.

It went extremely well. Somewhere between 50 and 100 people were there -- I think closer to 100. Captain Danilecki of the Boston PD rode along with us, and is putting a couple of Courteous Mass spoke cards in his cop bike, so if you see a bike cop with orange spoke cards, that's him!

The route was surprisingly good in some places and surprisingly hard in others. It took about as long as I expected it to -- basically, twice as long as it took us to do the dry run. We only did the first loop rather than the two loops we'd planned out so as to avoid dragging the ride on too long. One A-hole driver in a white pick-up truck screamed something incoherent at us, and the large number of double-parked cars necessitated a lot of gratuitous lane changes which broke up the group a but more than we would have liked, but by the time we got to Comm Ave everyone was together and stayed together the whole way back to the Common. Having Captain Danilecki there, and using radios for the disparate ends of the group to stay in touch, was extremely helpful. Next month, I think we're going to choose a different starting/ending point, since the park ranger in Boston Common pointed out that we were supposed to have a permit. The new starting/ending point will somewhat dictate what our new route will be.

Police Ctp. > Park Ranger. Get the permit. Good publicity.

It went extremely well. Somewhere between 50 and 100 people were there -- I think closer to 100.

That's good news.
Thank you for your efforts, and it is good to get police familiar with the advocate cycling population in a less confrontational event.
I've always liked the few times I've used FRS radios for keeping up with the status of a (much smaller) group. Good idea.

Courteous Mass! What a neat idea! I hope both of you have a fun and safe ride.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.) If I weren't on the other side of the Island, I would absolutely make it. Good luck!

Police Ctp. > Park Ranger. Get the permit. Good publicity.

I've been told the permit is $300. But now I'm skeptical about the accuracy of that information, because I found the permit instructions at http://www.cityofboston.gov/Images_Documents/Guide%20to%20special%20events_tcm3-12561.pdf . This document says there's "no fee," except for "costs associated with some events" including "ranger detail." I could imagine the city might want increased ranger detail if they know in advance there'll be a mass of bicyclists gathering in the park, but it would be worth asking. But I think we still want to do a different starting location for next month anyway.

Regardless of starting point, next ride will be either Fri Oct 14th or Sat Oct 15th. We're thinking of trying Saturday for this month as an experiment at least, so we can try starting earlier to have more of the ride in daylight.

It's set: Courteous Mass Boston is going to be this coming Friday the 14th, at 6pm at Franklin Sq in the South End:
http://tinyurl.com/courteousmassboston-oct2011

Hope to see lots of people there!!!