critical mass attack?
 

somehow i don't think that paper told the whole story.

was anyone on the board actually there and know what happened?

Hi All-

Critical Mass is a front organization for anarchists. Bicycles and bicycling are an afterthought to them. Pete Fagerlin has lots of interesting things to say about CM by searching on other recent threads.

~ Blue Jays ~

A slightly more balanced report:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGFAP353S1.DTL

tapped the tire my ass... no one on a critical mass would do THAT much damage unless the deserved it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...87801720&hl=en

WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?

I'd argue otherwise, although I haven't been to a SF critical mass.

Seriously, I know some kids that are just itching to throw U-Locks. Those types of people also tend to congregate at critical masses.

I like how her version doesn't include her hitting anyone.

Fat ****ing ***** with her ****ing overprotected brood.

this just seems, at best, like a driver who got really confused about seeing hundreds of bikes on the street and forgot how to drive.

either way, who the heck throws their bike at a car? i mean, i guess if it's a beater. but how are you going to get home?

this is what a "hit and run" driver looks like.http://sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/04...iticalmass.jpg

No way a rear windshield for that minivan costs $5,000.00!

cough cough photoshop cough cough

i never rode in SF's critical mass, but ive been downtown plenty of times while one was taking place. and ive seen more than a few cyclist bumping into cars on purpose, and trying to start confrontations or running lights and getting pissed when a car or pedestrian is going the right way obeying the traffic laws.

i don't know what happened that night but i agree with onetwenteight, smashing up a car and terrifying little kids is just wrong.

yeah, no one can really know except for the few people involved- both sides of the story seemed a little coached- i liked the CM lady who said it was terrifying to watch the car careening through the crowd- you were on a f***ing street! thats the point of cars on a street. however, i could totally see that lady who drove the minivan freaking out and tapping a rider or two- she doesn't seem to be the most emotionally balanced of people.
however, it is our role as cyclists, and the original point of CM, to take the high road and let people know we are out there, but do it peacefully. here in SD there have been a few instances of CMers harrassing and acting like idiots. but smashing a rear window out? c'mon.

maybe the person who through the bike saw his bike reflected back at him, and realized that it didn't have enough njs parts on it, flipped out and through it away in disgust, and accidentally hit the car?

i agree that there's no way that much damage would be done from tapping the wheel... i've seen people come a lot closer to injury, or actually get hit, on a critical mass ride and there isn't even any damage done. but then again, i've never been on a san fran critical mass.
a critical mass ride of 3000, if that first report is true, seems huge to me. even the biggest ones i've been on in philly haven't even come close to that. i can see how in a crowd of 3000 a few kids with itchy u-lock arms could turn a situation bad and the level heads might not be able to do anything about it.

the daughter in the front looks like she's about to run over a bicyclist or two

well sadly i don't think these people are going to become any more bike friendly.

if they could shut up their sobbing mouths for a second and realize that they were caught in the middle of a political statement and should have acted accordingly, maybe they could realize that their car's windows and sheetmetal can and will be repaired under insurance coverage, no one was hurt(cept the magic dissapearing bicyclist who everyone says she hit) and she should just think twice before she snakes her way out of another critical mass.


seriously.

people need to chill out and stop playing the victim when your minivan is the only thing worse for the wear.

don't get me wrong, i'd be pissed if bicyclists in a CM smashed out my windows for no reason, but it doesn't seem like the attacks were unprovoked.

check yourself before you wreck yourself, catholic school mom.

i don't go to a black civil rights march and start yelling my favorite rap lyrics.

Igneous Faction, it's the dented body panels on all four sides of the vehicle coupled with the rear glass replacement that drives the costs of the repair drastically upward...

The things you post really don't seem to jive with your little "Rock Hard - Ride Free" tagline. What's up with that?

come on. CM has long since departed from being a statement about anything. at best its just a big messy slow group ride, and at worst its a bunch of self righteous idiots trying to start beef that doesn't advance any cause, and just makes cyclists look bad.

show me a CM that just obeys all the traffic laws, then you can start talking about making statements. but its never gona happen.

if it was a legit hit and run the cyclist would have come forward, and plenty of witnesses would have had corroborating stories. sounds fishy if you ask me.

I reported on a CM ride for a small Sydney newspaper about 12 years ago - riders blocked a street in Newtown. What many people there didn't see was that a group of riders refused to let an ambulance with its lights flashing pass through. It was hard to see the event as great for increasing awareness of cyclists when that sort of thing happens.

Yeah, I believe that sort of thing can happen but as with drivers the outcome of a situation depends on the individuals involved. I was at a Critical Mass ride in Chicago where the group was slowly filtering through the Milwaukee/Damen/North Ave. intersection, one that is known for its gridlock. An ambulance rolled up with its lights on and within seconds a path was cleared and the ambulance went on its way. I somehow doubt that would have happened as quickly if the intersection was filled with cars as it usually is.

I think Critical Mass has potential but it also attracts the type of people who want to make trouble for no reason.

CM is so tough for me to justify sometimes. I think it has such great potential, but I have more trouble with it every month-- doubley so because I'm one of the few organizers for our monthly ride here in Blacksburg. While we've had a few large ride (60ish riders) the majority of our rides lately have been at most twenty people and even with that few people we've had to expressively state on our flyers "agitators and instigators not welcome".

Its so tempting-- I won't lie, I've taken so much guilty joy in the few times I've had to cork a lane to make sure a car didn't attempt to snake into the middle of us; you're trackstanding and looking that pickup driver down for everytime you've been tapped, beeped at, yelled at, or cornered off the road. It isn't his fault though and as every minute passes I always end up feeling guilty.

Some of the people have posted about how blowing stop signs, red lights, and/or corking lanes is one of the reasons people are so uneasy about CM. While I can only speak for our rides, these methods are used to insure the safety of the riders and to keep us as a pack. When you're only riding with 20-30 people its tough to break up at every red light and even more dangerous for those few riders in the back who would only ride in traffic if its in a group. Corking the lanes simply keep cars out of the mass, which (as illustrated by the incredibly unfortunate event in the article) keeps both the cars and the bikes a lot safer.

And still with every ride-- its becomes tougher. I understand everyone's want to fight back-- you finally feel completely comfortable on the road and completely empowered. Its so easy at that point to stoop to the same level as the ******* who cut you off this morning or those frat mother****ers who threw a beer at you last Friday night.

Its events like the one in the article, though, that makes organizing these events so difficult. The bike co-op here had to recently stop even using the term as some of our sponsorship felt very negatively about the word. We could have as many group rides as we wanted, but if we put CM on any of our flyers our sponsors were ready to pull the plug.

I'd love to hear more thoughts about CM, as its obviously been a huge internal debate for me. I see both sides and no easy solution.

i think it sounds fishy too.


but you're assuming that a protest or political statement has to be properly executed or it ceases to be a statement at all. that's ridiculous. let's go back to my (obviously problematic) racial civil rights analogy.

just because a number of the protesters are guilty of some crime, does that mean they aren't making a political statement by protesting racial injustice? what if they beat up a white kid in highschool for calling him a racial name? even if the protest itself is poorly executed or problematic in nature, even if the protest is "down with whitey" or "the man is keeping us down", does that make the political statement less valid? is racism suddenly not a problem anymore? does the political meaning of the protest disappear because of the quality or rhetorical angle of the statement?

let's look at it from another view...

if the CM riders weren't riding bikes, but instead in smartcars and protesting all vehicles that got less than 30mpg city epa ratings... would their lane violations and other such disqualifying actions make the message non-political?




don't pretend your logic is flawless... say what you mean. if you mean to say that critical mass is a problematic and unconvincing political statement because they're so unruly and anarchical ... well that's fine... but don't act like this woman wasn't doing something she knew was not going to be well liked. the reporter said she was weaving between bicyclists. if she had simply played the role of the victim she's so expertly perfected now and done what most defensive people would have done... flashers on, slowly slow down and slowly move to the shoulder/curb and slowly stop until the mass had passed and it was safe to drive again... if she had done that i don't think they would have killed her minivan.

but yeah, maybe she's some random victim of a violent and entirely unprovoked act.

'that sounds a lot like blaming the victim!'

you're damn right i am. her actions made her the victim just as much as the attackers actions made them attackers. did she do anything wrong? probably not - but that doesn't mean she did anything right. does she deserve the sympathy she got? hell no.


the solution is simple. fix her car, require CM rides to be organized properly.

oh wait, that's the reality of what will happen. yet CM will continue to be unruly and cars will continue to get busted. unless people start acting differently and more carefully / respectfully, ****'s not going to change.

i really don't think it deserves a sob story. if it were a man who got his car beat up i would have the same view of the situation, i doubt the media would be handling it similarly.

Ambulances get through in no time, even in rush hour. Lights + siren + horn + other lane = open traffic.
Speaking of CM and that intersection though, there was an incident bigger than this one in SF just last year.

its civil disobedience 101 that you have to play by ALL the rules for your cause to get any sort of traction. in the very rare case where breaking a rule could advance your cause you have to be very somber and serious about it.

look at the civil rights movement. if blacks went up into "whites only" diners and started dancing on the counters they wouldn't have gotten anywhere. people get all upset about bikes not getting any respect on the road and then they just go and breed more resentment out of motorists by acting like morons at CM.

once you start doing that kind of thing, your cause looses all political relevance. its not a protest anymore, its just hooligans.

i wasnt trying to say that the woman was inocent. it was a bad combination irritable bike mob and clueless suburbanite. i really cant say who is at fault, but the cyclists could have taken the high road and not retaliated.

thats all

^ hit the nail on the head right there. CM is all about us riding around on bikes, throwing molotov cocktails into capitalist chain stores, smashing the state, and burning all those evil cars. hell, sometimes we don't even use the bikes.