First-hand account of July 25 1997 Critical Mass ride


Fri night I went on the SF Critical Mass bike ride.  Really exciting! 
Many more people than last month because the mayor had been criticizing
Critical Mass for weeks beforehand, and he pissed off so many people that
more decided to show up to challenge him.  The mayor even showed up at the
beginning of the ride, but when he tried to address the crowd he was
roundly booed and thousands of people just started riding off.  (He did
have time to get a photo opportunity -- donning a bike helmet for the
press). 

A few days before the ride, the mayor had negotiated a compromise with
self-styled "representatives" of the group (which is completely
leaderless, and makes all decisions through participatory democracy).  The
compromise included leaving later and following a route developed by the
Mayor's office to minimize traffic disruption. (This was big news in SF --
front-page stories in all the newspapers every day for a week before the
ride.)  The crowd of bicyclists was clearly going to ignore what had been
negotiated.  Everywhere I walked through the gathering crowd, people were
saying what bullshit it was that just a few people had said that they
represented the group as a whole.

The ride was great.  Well over 6,000 bicyclists (some say 10,000) riding
through the streets of SF, and the cars having to stop for US!  It was
a real high.  Kept running into (metaphorically, not physically) people
I hadn't seen in many years. 

Interesting tactics, too.  At every corner a few cyclists would stand
blocking cars from entering the intersection.  (These were like monitors
at a demonstration, but people would just take turns doing this
spontaneously, would tire of it, and someone else would take over.  This
even has a name now -- "corking".)  But every time a motorist would
get beligerent and begin to push past the blocking bicyclist, a huge
group of people would swarm around the car yelling and screaming
at the motorist.

One of the most memorable sights was at a freeway on-ramp blocked by about
half a dozen Highway Patrol.  As the cops started feeling threatened by
the huge crowd of cyclists stopped in front of them, they raised their
batons at people.  The crowd started shouting back at them and people
started raising their bikes over their heads holding them straight up like
battons, mocking the cops.  It was a beautiful sight, hundreds of bicycles
raised in the air as people shouted.

The ride was just a great feeling of freedom and solidarity for about 2
1/2 hours (punctuated by a few skirmishes with cops and motorists) --
until the cops suddenly just blocked off two intersections and arrested
all 100 bicyclists in that block.  I was one of the unlucky ones.  Bikes
and bags confiscated, handcuffed, poloroids taken, then put in a paddy
wagon, and carted off to jail.  At jail fingerprinted, better photos
taken, and they took all our belongings.  Even made me take off my belt
(for my own protection, to keep me from hanging myself).  Except for a
number of REALLY good jokes and banter, pretty boring couple of hours
waiting in the holding cell -- in sharp contrast to the 2 hours penned in
on the block where they arrested us, which was a really fun time full of
chants, discussions, and people getting to know one another.  Being
outside is much more conducive to having fun (particularly with bikes)
than sitting in a holding cell with 50 others.  Also, being
gender-isolated makes a big difference in the spirit of things.

So in general, the fun of the ride and the wait-to-be-arrested on the
street far outweighed the boredom of the holding cell.  The biggest
problem was that I didn't get out until way after BART stopped running,
so I ended up having to hitch home in the middle of the night which took
ages.  For a while I thought I'd just end up sleeping on the streets, then
a young hippie couple picked me up and when they heard about what I'd been
doing, drove me right home.


Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 09:20:35 -0700 (PDT)