Chicago Critical Mass

I don't see any posting in the "Upcoming Rides and Events"

I didn't see any ride reports or information about the January ride.

Has the Critical Mass movement been discontinued, just like the Auto Show Shutdown?

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Permalink Reply by Gort 12-mile Pinklegneep on February 26, 2020 at 4:44pm

a lot of the protest and disobedience was more intense when there was like zilch-ass bike infrastructure. we've made some gains in that area, which has made us less rowdy 

Permalink Reply by Sabrina Bosch on February 16, 2020 at 3:47am

Critical Mass. How 12 times a year 1 day a month undoes the other 30 days of cycling advocacy. 

If some cagers were to come up with a scheme to convey that cycling advocates were full of BS and operating under a false flag of safety while pretending to argue for fair treatment and accommodation, then Critical Mass would be it. 

It convinces the public, specifically motorists and observant kids in the back seat, that cyclists lack the skills and stake or standing in society to conduct themselves in public with more grace than skateboarders or any other impolite driver who is just on 2 wheels instead of 4. 

For your few hours of spite once a month, I have to endure on all of the bad PR you created instead of the goodwill, common sense and normalcy I’m trying to instill with my bike on the road. So maybe give it a rest and stop deliberately portraying cyclists as fringe misfits who can’t get along instead of as normal people who just want to use a bike for transportation. 

Whenever you do this you prove to everyone that cycling is just like what Alderman Reilly and John Kass and Alderman Cardenas says it is. You are helping them to destroy cycling more than any letter to the editor or campaign donation ever would. Stop helping them to win.

Permalink Reply by Gort 12-mile Pinklegneep on February 26, 2020 at 4:45pm

it's strange then that we've made steady progress since this started somehow 

Permalink Reply by Sabrina Bosch on February 16, 2020 at 4:16pm

The issue has little to do with how I perceive myself as a cyclist nor anyone being meek. You may have missed the point a bit there so I'll give it another effort which is that Critical Mass does the opposite of building cycling's popularity which is what profess to want while behaving in the opposite.  If you are concerned with a motorist speeding past a cyclist let's consider what they are more likely to do once they clear a traffic jam and have been delayed getting home as you say.  More likely to run a yellow light or stop sign or encroach on a bike during the rest of the trip now that they are running late?  Of course.

Do you figure out if some of the people you are trapping (again your word) or delaying getting home are not a minister, a hospice worker, a dad trying to take his kids to their grandparent’s house, 4 people car-pooling on their way home? Someone driving to a Metra station so they can go out to the suburbs without a car, who will now miss their train and then just drive the whole route? 

What this illustrates is you have no idea who you are actually inconveniencing, whether or not they spend more time in a week on a bike than you do, or if someone's mom’s furnace has gone out and that you want her to wait longer for the repair man to show up all for your need to feel something "empowering" as you put it?

This bad PR does the opposite of increasing cycling's popularity and politicians and columnists are aware of this.  Better would be for motorists and others to observe that cyclists are great and to want to be part of all that, and perceive cyclists as improving traffic flow not impeding it.  Obnoxious people presenting something dysfunctional to other people isn't the best way to get to a favorable majority.  Sure, there are fringe elements who will join up but not enough to reach a functional productive tipping point that some of us would instead like to create when instead Critical Mass portrays cycling a dim light.     

Permalink Reply by Jim Reho on February 16, 2020 at 6:22pm

Bob, CLP, Sabrina, I think you all have legitimate points. I have always been a bit conflicted about Critical Mass, including having gone on a few rides with them. It is a legitimate concept, but for sure there are some participants every time whose goal is simply to antagonize and goad drivers. I have seen this as both a rider and a driver. It is not helpful.

I have a problem with the term "cagers". I understand perfectly what the term means. But in any negotiation, which I think has to occur between cars and bikes, acknowledgment of the legitimacy of each side by the other is important. As a cyclist, I have been called plenty of names, emphasized by a few whiskey bottles. I do own a car. I do not believe that derogatory characterizations on either size is helpful. Both sides are going to continue to exist, whether the other likes it or not. 

I think that right now, a lot of Americans are angry and embittered and confrontational for a lot of reasons. Sometimes this spills over into driving and riding habits, far more significantly into driving habits that endanger people far more than cyclists can. I do try to behave with civility even when I think it is unearned by others. I do absolutely believe that the more bikes are out there in general, the more they become familiar to and accepted by drivers.

I know and acknowledge that I am one of those boring centrist people.  

Permalink Reply by ketoguychicago on February 17, 2020 at 3:23am

+1 Sabrina

+1 Jim Reho

There's nothing boring about being rational, so no need to back away from that Jim.  Right on. 

The analysis of the word cager is right on too.  That sort of "othering" terminology does't do anyone any good.  

Permalink Reply by Sabrina Bosch on February 17, 2020 at 8:20am

No offense intended PJC but did you even read the posts here?  Such as

-And, I actually stopped doing CM because it absolutely IS about intentionally trying to cause congestion, if not confrontation.

-Setting out to prove to everyone that cycling causes congestion - by intentionally causing such congestion like this - is not in the interests of cycling.  

-Trapped drivers may be pissed at the delay; but for most, it is a wake-up call!

-you have no idea who you are actually inconveniencing, whether or not they spend more time in a week on a bike than you do, or if someone's mom’s furnace has gone out and that you want her to wait longer for the repair man to show up all for your need to feel something "empowering"

-for sure there are some participants every time whose goal is simply to antagonize and goad drivers. I have seen this as both a rider and a driver. It is not helpful.

So PJ these examples are not people in community with each other as you put it and as these comments reflect and as I have seen first hand.  While you may have experienced that a majority of CM participants may be well-intended and I appreciate your point, then we should recognize that this is true for car drivers as well and not go out of our way to inconvenience all of them especially when so many of us are trying to make cycling a normal and compatible aspect of everyday life.  But what these comments reflect and what I and others see reflect the reality of Critical Mass and it isn't good. 

Permalink Reply by Juan 2-3 or more mi. on February 19, 2020 at 1:15pm

Critical Mass, from what I understand, has always been a ride in protest to car sick culture. it's never been about advocacy, although in the warmer months it's been sold as such.

The teachers union protest is a good example of just how much more horribly traffic can get snarled as compared to our insignificant little evening ride with all the "little bike people" as that Kasshole cager newspaper mouthpiece creep would like to call the fringe of cyclists.

Not sure this ride will ever stop convening at Delay Plaza every month, perhaps cycling advocates can show up to educate or even try and protest a protest so that this bad press they are irritated by can be mitigated. 

Maybe it will eventually cease to exist as more and more people choose to drive a car for transportation like "normal people". For now there is a great feeling of taking over entire streets in poorer neighborhoods with children running towards the group enjoying the rare spectacle of taking back the roads for one day out of the week from the machine that is ruining the environment.

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on February 19, 2020 at 1:33pm

Critical Mass, from what I understand, has always been a ride in protest to car sick culture. it's never been about advocacy,

It's not a protest ride.  It's not an advocacy ride.

It's just a bike ride.

Permalink Reply by Juan 2-3 or more mi. on February 19, 2020 at 2:03pm

YAY! let's go for a ride :)

Permalink Reply by Brian S on February 19, 2020 at 4:08pm

I have not done Critical Mass for a long time. I loved it: it made me feel a lot safer riding the streets with a lot of other cyclists.  It was amazing to have the street be safe and filled with a feeling of joy.

I think the focus on the inconvenient side of it is noticed by other bike riders, not by car drivers. I have never had a person who drives downtown even mention it.  

I have been biking for transportation for a long time and have never felt that Critical Mass detracted from any progress. For example, it really doesn't seem to have impacted at all the implementation of bicycle infrastructure. If anything, it means there are more bike cops downtown on Fridays.

Permalink Reply by Filka Bean on February 21, 2020 at 5:53pm

That most people are laughing and excited as the CM rolls by has always been my experience too. I love it. 

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