This officer was subsequently stripped of his badge and gun. The rest of story is at the New York Post site. (Thanks to Karen for the tip!)

Dozens of friendly people, all on bikes.

What’s not to like?

Since I moved to Albany, I’ve been working a lot and socializing very little. Tonight, I met a huge gang of fun folks all at once at Critical Mass. Much like Rochester, this CM is a very laid-back affair. All different types of cyclists on all different types of bikes, including two guys on unicycles with 36″ wheels. Amazing!

We met at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Washington Square Park. There were about 30 riders, ranging in age from 1 or 2 to … um … older than that. Experienced. Then again, I was probably in the top 10 in terms of age. When the hell did that happen? Ah well, we pudgy Pillsbury Doughboy types gotta have our day, too, right?

The weather was drop-dead gorgeous. Perfect temps, late enough that the sun was very mellow, a light breeze. It was everything you could ask for in cycling weather.

Before the ride started, we were approached by an Albany cop who was wondering what we were up to. He was alerted by the presence of the Red Bull crew — two young women who travel in a car with a huge Red Bull can, distributing canned joy for free to all takers. The officer was concerned because there was a run/walk happening in the park, and he didn’t want us colliding with the participants. We told him we were about to split, and he couldn’t have been nicer, so all was well. A few minutes later, we were out on the street.

I won’t recount the route, but we covered a decent amount of territory — maybe 10 miles up Central, through Pine Hills, down Clinton through Arbor Hill, up State (which, as Gavin said, “sucks every time”). By the way, if you’ve never been passed by a unicyclist up a steep hill, it’s something to see. One wheel. No gears. Faster than me. Oy!

At one point, going north on Hackett, we spotted another cyclist maybe a half-mile ahead. A cyclist named Carolyn and I hammered up to 22 or 23 miles an hour to catch up to the guy (and believe me, hammering on the Packet Boat/Xtracycle is quite a challenge). When we got there, I asked if he wanted to join us, and he nervously declined. We looked back, only to realize that the entire group was turning off onto another street. So it was hammerfest number two to catch up.

We also went on a tour of all the homes a cyclist named Marylou lives in or has lived in, including her folks’ place. It was very charming, although we didn’t get to meet her parents.

I was happy to import one thing from Rochester — the tradition of yelling “Happy Friday!” to folks along the route. It really seems to have a positive effect on the folks who see us pass by. Plus, I just like yelling in public.

After the slog up State, the mass had split into two groups. A bunch of us waited at the corner of Lark and Madison in front of the Dunkin’ Donuts, which is a hangout for motorcyclists. I chatted with a guy named Louis who struck up a conversation because of my Silver Surfer t-shirt. After a while, the gang caught up and we headed to the Palais Royale. They don’t have food, though, so about half the group went to The Madison instead, where we feasted on pizza, fries, onion rings, burgers, soda and beer.

Eventually, that group broke up and I rode up Madison toward home. On the way, I ran into Tom, one of the CM riders. He said a bunch of cylists were at Mahar’s on Madison, and he offered to show me the way. Eric, another CMer, joined us, and we met up with the gang at Mahar’s, which is really worth visiting if you’re into beer. And pretty cool even if you’re not.

After Mahar’s, it was off to Randy’s House Of Bike Porn. This is a lovely house just a few blocks north of where I’m living. It features a basement with maybe 30 bikes — tall bikes, tandems, every kind of road and street bike. It’s amazing. Some of us sat outside and chatted while the rest ogled the bikes and took them for test rides.

All in all, it couldn’t have been a better intro to this part of Albany’s bike culture.

I think I’m going to like it here.

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I think there’s something special about a bunch of quasi-socialists riding to the mall on bikes on busy shopping days to wish everyone a happy Friday. And of course, we’ll be gently confronting people about mindless consumerism. We’ll have leaflets, a bike trailer sound system, and a route that takes us through all the major strip malls and shopping centers in Henrietta.

For those in Rochester who’d like to promote this event, here’s a PDF of a flyer for you to paste up all over town!

Tonight was the Critical Masquerade — Critical Mass with Halloween costumes. Although, as it turned out, only a few of us were in costume. I wore my black-and-white Walz cap and most of my typical costume from my vintage baseball days at Genesee Country Village. I didn’t get any pictures of myself, but I looked a bit like this:

It was about 57 degrees and raining when we started out. It got colder, but it never stopped raining. I arrived on the Xtracycle with a metal bucket full of candy strapped on the back. A few minutes after I showed up, though, Team RocBike member Adam Durand came and suggested that he ride on the back of the Packet Boat and leave his own bike locked up downtown. That was fine with me because: (a) I dig Adam and (b) I was excited to take an adult on the X for the first time. (At least, it was my first time. Adam borrowed the Packet Boat a few weeks ago and took a friend on it for 20+ miles.) Stopping and starting is a bit of a challenge, and the slow speed of the Mass certainly didn’t make it easier to balance 300 pounds on the bike, but we did just fine for the 15 or so miles of the ride. Midway through, Adam hopped off the Boat and his significant other, Kristine, hopped on. She took all the road photos that are in the video and in the gallery below. Thanks, Kristine!

We had a good turnout despite the stinky weather. I’m terrible at estimating crowds, but I’d say we had 40-50 riders at the height of the ride. We rode through downtown, then up past the High Falls district to High Falls Blvd, eventually coming back down Hudson Ave and back into the city. It was a lot easier to ride with an adult passenger than I’d expected. There was a bit of wobble for the first few minutes, but I got more stable fairly quickly. (You can ask Adam whether he agrees…)

Adam and I did have one scary moment right after we dropped off his bike on Gibbs St. As we were crossing on the Packet Boat at the corner of East and Main to join the Mass, a car nearly ran into us. Half of Team RocBike was almost killed! Luckily, even had we been smeared across the front of the guy’s car, Jack Spula was on the ride to carry on the RocBike name.

The ride ended at St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality, where the Massers watched Jesus Camp. While they were watching the movie (and bagging up some free swiss chard courtesy of St. Joe’s), Adam and Gary Young and Caitlin Holcombe fixed a flat that Caitlin got toward the end of the ride. (Caitlin’s first submission to RocBike.com is on the way … or else! Don’t make us get all spindly and vegan on you!)

Here’s a video recap of tonight’s ride. Adam will have another one of his own soon. This video runs about 6 minutes. It features video of the start of the Mass, photos from the road, and an incomplete but wonderful how-to segment on patching a punctured tube. With Adam. In a dress.

And here are my photos. These are all in the video, too.

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I hope to see you this Friday at 6pm for some Rochester Critical Mass!

For as many bicyclists that love Critical Mass, there seem to be just as many who oppose it. Some feel it angers motorists and reeks of hypocrisy. Others see it as simply an outlet for liberal aggression. The event certainly doesn’t seem to be winning over Minneapolis newspaper columnists.

In a column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten comes down hard against Critical Mass and recommends serious police crack-down. She implies that all protesters in modern social movements are only interested in venting their aggression, not in making the world better. She says that like “petulant children,” leaving Critical Mass participants’ misdeeds unpunished will only result in more serious trouble down the road.

Kersten is an advocate of corporal punishment, which makes her child-punishment analogy/fantasy even more disturbing.

In order to bring some clout to her arguments that massers ride to exert power and seek to boost their reputation by adding to their arrest record, she calls in Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. He shares his vast knowledge of the narcissistic and aggressive nature of “’60s-style radicals” and draws a connection to Critical Mass.

But he seems like an odd choice for a source; according to his own biography Lichter is an expert on the news and entertainment media. Maybe he used to study hippies before his current gig, but his activities prior to CMPA seem somewhat biased against social justice - he has earned himself a page on SourceWatch for his past associations and statements.

Regardless of the column’s accuracy, it’s pretty clear where the readership stands. A poll on the StarTrib site, asking “Should police crack down on ‘Critical Mass’ events?”, with almost 3300 respondents at the moment, results in 66% Yes and 32% No. Although the poll is unscientific, I’m not surprised at the results.

Critical Mass is an event, a statement, a celebration. It’s not a strategic attempt to get motorists to respect bicyclists. I’ve probably said this a hundred times to my friends. My favorite essay on the subject, by Adam Kessel, argues that Critical Mass as an event has a neutral effect on the state of bicycling. But it’s an amazing tool for energizing people into action, participation, and advocacy. People who ride in Critical Mass develop the confidence and motivation to move bureaucracies towards change.

Some see the humor in columnists getting so bent out of shape over a bike ride. Wonkette, a DC political news and satire site, mocks Kersten’s column, and commenters there make some fun points:

She should stage her own right-wing protest. She can get all of her friends to clog sthe streets of Minneapolis with gas-guzzling SUVs to really show those damn hippies….

Of course, that already has a name: rush hour.

I like the way the photo she used for her piece shows an orderly enough procession of bikes riding on the correct side of the street.

Now now…we all have a common enemy. Rollerbladers!

I can attest that Portland is the epicenter of two-wheeled terrorism. I see scores of them every morning on my drive to work. Some of the little tree-hugging bastards have the termerity not to get out of the way when I blow my horn and aim my Escalade at them.

The official Star Tribune blog post has already drawn over 350 comments so far, not nearly as insightful or funny as Wonkette’s.

If the Star Tribune site asks you to log in, username:idontthinkso password:bugmenot worked great for me! Thank you, bugmenot!

I decided to drop by the first Tuesday Night Urban Assault of the season last night. It was the first group ride I’ve been on that wasn’t Critical Mass, and I was most interested in experiencing a different style of group riding. As its name implies, the group meets on Tuesday nights at the Adams St. Community Center starting at 6:15pm from October through March. The Adams St. Community Center is on my way home from work, making things quite convenient.

As I approached the rec center, I saw numerous people dressed in cycling clothes getting out of cars and pulling bikes off of bike racks. Soon after arriving, I saw a young man named Joey who I had met at last Friday’s Critical Mass. We were a duo of plain clothed bike commuters in a sea of LYCRA®-clad recreational and sport riders. I happened to have a backpack strapped into a milk crate on my back rack, and was wearing a bright yellow T-shirt with “Bike Commuter” in large letters on the back. I overheard a couple riders talking about how TNUA draws all kinds, knowing that they were referring to me.

Scott Page of Full Moon Vista fame pulled up right next to me and told the group to gather round. He asked who was new, and up went Joey’s hand and my hand. He told the group that we didn’t own the road and we’re not out there to anger motorists. We were told to share hazard information with each other by yelling it out to the people behind us - turns, potholes, and parked cars were all things to make note of. He said something about having a reputation for yelling at cyclists who don’t follow the rules - and there were some knowing chuckles from the group.

Scott was quite obviously the long-established leader of TNUA. People looked up to him. He spoke as if he was the model of a dedicated cyclist. He belittled others in a joking way, almost like a high school jock. Although he didn’t make a positive first impression on me with his statements and attitude, judging by the 45 or so enthusiastic riders there, he’s doing something right with the ride.

He assigned us each numbers (he was number 1, and because I was standing next to him he assigned me number 2) which the group would call off at various stops during the ride to make sure we didn’t lose anybody. And then we were off, heading towards a nearby traffic circle. I expected us to clear out of there pretty quickly but we circled around for a good few minutes. The motorists trying to pass through the circle seemed confused. I was happy when we moved on.

As my bikepooling buddy Caitlin will attest, I’m a stickler for stopping at stop signs when I’m not on group rides. This group blew right through them, probably for the better, in the interest of safety and keeping the group together. On certain roads we went single file, but we spread out to claim a full lane in low traffic or two-lane areas. Sometimes with group momentum going we’d hold back a car that had the right of way, but most motorists reacted with enthusiasm and humor as they mostly do during Critical Mass rides.

As far as I could tell, the group universally followed traffic signals, which caused the group to split if a signal went red as we passed through. At times when the forward group got out of sight, a couple bikers would stay behind to help the isolated back group find their way. This is in contrast to Critical Mass, which tries to preserve the mass as safely as possible even in the face of traffic signals changing.

Near the beginning of the ride, one cyclist’s tire popped with an amazingly loud sound. We looped around for him and he was still working on it and told us to go ahead without him. I believe that later that evening, a rider went back to get him, as he was later reunited with us.

On long, straight stretches of road, the group would ride at around 17 mph, much faster than the 8 mph or so that Rochester Critical Mass travels at. I carried on conversations with other riders when the group was stopped but I found it difficult to talk at faster speeds.

I headed out a little over an hour into the ride, after riding the hill repeatedly at Maplewood Park Rose Garden. I unintentionally popped a wheelie heading up a steep part of the hill, and figured it was time to leave to avoid too much wear and tear on my bike and my legs. Scott said that the early rides are easier than the rides he starts holding in December, but my legs were certainly remembering last night’s ride during my 9 mile commute this morning.

So Tuesday Night Urban Assault draws a different crowd than Rochester Critical Mass. I’ve never seen someone park their car near the RCM meeting place and pull their bike off a bike rack. But the folks at TNUA had just as much enthusiasm as RCM for riding on the city streets, just a different way of doing it. And although I have way more fun at Critical Mass than I did at Urban Assault, I could see the joy in it.

As far as bike advocacy goes, I doubt that seeing a bunch of riders in a large group does much to convince motorists that bikes belong on the road. But like RCM, TNUA’s strength is in empowering riders to feel comfortable on the streets. The outdated “About” page I found here captures the infectious spirit of the ride, and its goal to turn apprehensive riders into confident ones.

As someone who uses a bike mostly for transportation and never for recreation, I certainly felt out of place at TNUA. And yet you may very well find me there on Tuesday nights. Maybe I can come to enjoy recreational bike riding with enough exposure. I’m even considering a visit to Goodwill to see if they have any LYCRA® around. If you don’t mind injecting a little bit of sport into your utility riding, I highly recommend checking it out. Don’t expect the spontaneous leaderless moving social club that is Critical Mass, and expect to use those leg muscles, particularly later in the season.

Bruce Wilbur, a local cyclist, is a huge fan of TNUA and has a post up at his Scenic Route blog about last night’s ride. And be sure to visit Full Moon Vista Bike & Sport, official sponsors of TNUA (Jason gives the shop an A+).

Are you a union cyclist, or a cyclist who believes in worker justice? Then this is for you:

Hey Folks,

Last night a majority of the critical mass crowd said they would be interested in being apart of the labor day parade. Therefore, there will be a bicycle/skateboard/inline and rollerskating contingent in the anti-war portion of the labor day parade.

Let’s meet at East Ave and sibley place (across from the boy scouts) where division 6 is meeting. Division 6 is the division that has rochester against war in it.

The parade starts at 11am.

Noise makers, costumes, et al are very welcome!

<3 and bikes,

Ted

Adam Durand shot some fun video during our Critical Mass on June 29. You can also check out audio and photos from the ride.

Enjoy!

Tonight I took part in one of the most exhilerating things I’ve ever done with a group of people — my first Critical Mass ride. What is Critical Mass? Here’s one definition:

Critical Mass is a monthly bicycle ride to celebrate cycling and to assert cyclists’ right to the road. The idea started in San Francisco in September 1992 and quickly spread to cities all over the world. Critical Mass has no leaders, and no central organization licenses rides. In every city that has a CM ride, some locals simply picked a date, time, and location for the ride and publicized it, and thus the ride was born. CM is an idea and an event, not an organization.

More than 50 cyclists came out tonight for the ride, riding everything from fixies to road bikes, mountain bikes to hybrids. There was also an inline skater and a skateboarder. It was wonderful! We cruised through the lights, taking an entire lane and reveling in the rare feeling of security and confidence that is sometimes hard to find when commuting by bike here in the Flower City.

Before, during and after the ride, I interviewed riders using the Hipcast mobile audio blogging service, which allows you to post instant audio clips to a blog using your cell phone.

• I also took pictures.

Please send me your pictures, and please post your own comments on the ride using the comment form below this post. Thanks!

For your listening pleasure, here are the interviews, many conducted while riding. Enjoy!

#1: Adam Durand

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#2: Ally, Ray & Jenna

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#3: Dave Skinner

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#4: John Cuminale

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#5: At the Liberty Pole

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#6: Monroe Ave, while riding out of the city

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#7: Dawn Zupelli, while riding

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#8: Paul Fuller, while riding

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#9: Monroe Ave, while riding back to the city

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#10: Culver Road on the way to Park Ave

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#11: Main St, post-ride

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Remember to post your own stories from this ride using the comment form below. See you on July 27!

p.s. — You should also check out these brilliant Critical Mass leaflets from Rochester’s past!