While many are getting on their high horse here and dismissing CM as a bad thing lets look at some of the alternatives and what bike advocates normally do. Typical large group ride, TOSRV for example, thousands of riders assemble downtown and promptly break traffic laws all over until they get out of town and can get strung out into various single file groups riding on rural roads. Then there's the typical weekly group rides that happen locally. I dont know what its like in other cities, but in Columbus at least ALL these rides happen outside of the city proper, mostly on rural roads. So, as a rider unless you ride solo, there's absolutely no outlet or way to be visible in large numbers to traffic where it counts, in urban areas where the cars are. I am aware not everyone avoids urban areas like the plague, but lets be honest here, the majority of riders do, and most group rides certainly do. I ride for a living downtown, I know exactly how many of the same riders I see all the time, groups bigger than 2 or 3 is pretty rare unless it CM. More to advocacy than just preaching it, it involves doing it, best place to do that is where the traffic is, not avoid it. My 2 cents.