Juana Barrera was the first one to arrive.
J. Hadley Hooper
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She pedaled up to the fountain pond in Civic Center Park last Friday, propped her mountain bike against the stairs and sat down to read and wait for the others -- if there were any others.
Finally, about twenty minutes later, Shawn Kumar rode up, still in the pressed shirt and jeans he'd worn all day at his job. He was followed by three more riders and then a pair.
"Last week there were only four of us," Kumar says, "so we didn't do it. You need a minimum of fifteen; otherwise, it doesn't have any effect -- it doesn't do anything."
Otherwise, he says, there's not a Critical Mass.
Critical Mass rides have become the primary way for bicyclists in other cities to tell a world full of cars that, as their fliers cry, "The Revolution Will Not Be Motorized." On the last Friday of every month, cyclists roll into the streets -- and sometimes onto the highways -- to raise bicycle awareness. Some are protesting the sprawl that has led to traffic gridlock, some are pressing for more bike lanes, others want to promote the ecological, health and social benefits of bicycling. Most just want to have fun.
The rides are well-known in Seattle, Chicago, Toronto and especially San Francisco, where they began in 1992 and where an estimated 10,000 people ride their bikes to work. Critical Mass riders in those cities hit the streets in groups of several hundred to several thousand, blocking traffic, clogging the streets at rush hour and, when that's not enough, running red lights or disobeying traffic laws as a mellow form of civil disobedience -- one that occasionally leads to arrests.
In the summer of 1997, San Francisco mayor Willie Brown threatened to crack down on the riders -- who had previously been escorted by police -- because of the traffic jams. But his fuming only created a larger turnout, and a July ride drew nearly 7,000 people and ended with about 250 tickets or arrests. A few months earlier, three people had been arrested during a Critical Mass ride in Seattle after a scuffle with police. This year, citations or arrests have been dealt out in Toronto and in Asheville, North Carolina. In Santa Fe, an angry motorist rear-ended a Critical Mass rider and pushed him off his bike. The cyclist was uninjured, but he was cited for riding on the street.
Kumar participated in several rides in San Francisco where "they block cars and cause traffic jams and go through red lights." He moved to Denver last year and discovered that there was no Critical Mass ride, so he called a few friends, printed fliers and sent e-mails to as many people as he could think of. "We hit the coffee shops and the bicycle stores and some restaurants, and we put fliers right on people's bicycles," he says. The first ride was scheduled for August 27.
Four people showed up.
"Denver's a tough city because it's more conservative than San Francisco or Boulder," Kumar says. "And the bike clubs say that although they support the idea, they can't sanction it or be associated with it because it's semi-rebellious."
In a letter to Kumar, Martha Roskowski, the executive director of Bicycle Colorado, wrote that the last time her board of directors discussed Critical Mass, "they decided not to officially affiliate or sanction the action, as some felt that the events antagonize motorists and encourage illegal behavior.
"Personally," she added, "I figure that anything that raises awareness of bicycle issues is a benefit, and given the current 'build bigger highways' mentality, bicyclists need to be more active and visible. Critical Mass may be the way to go. I'll put a notice of your activities on our Web site, though we'll probably have to include a disclaimer that Bicycle Colorado is not officially affiliated with CM."
For his second attempt at organizing a ride, Kumar used a guide called How to Make a Critical Mass: Lessons and Ideas From the San Francisco Experience, written by some of the ride's San Francisco originators. (Proponents of Critical Mass rides claim that there is no official organization and that the movement has no official leaders.) "Whether they are commuters, couriers, or ride just for the fun of it, every city has a population of bicyclists that are marginalized and threatened by the current transportation system," the guide reads. "Beginning the ride in some downtown area is obviously a good choice...You want to meet early in the evening to gain visibility by making sure Critical Mass is part of the rush-hour traffic." The guide also suggests tactics for dealing with traffic rules, cops and motorists who "aren't amused" and try to force their way through the riders, creating the possibility of an accident or injury.
Kumar had also asked for help from the four people who'd shown up that first day, including Barrera, who had just moved here from Chicago and had seen a flier at Turin Bicycles. She'd been disturbed by the death of a boy in Chicago who had been run over while he was cycling on a bike path in an alleged act of road rage by the driver of a sport utility vehicle. "The license plate was stuck right to his body," she says.
