Concepts in the Paradox

Friday was Critical Mass, and I decided that it would be an excellent time to try out my bike on a long bike ride. Upon showing up to the site at 6pm, I found over a thousand cyclists, with a constant stream of of new arrivals from Market St.

I don’t remember the exact route that we went, but at some point I took a look back onto Market St, and there was nothing but a sea of bikes. Maybe 8-9 blocks worth of all sorts of people on all sorts of bikes. Some people brought their kids along, others were riding fully custom bikes, and some were just using their regular commuter bikes.

The head of the pack chose the direction we should go, and people further in the back of the group would yell forward what direction we should go next, or if we needed to slow down to prevent the mass from getting too thin. We went up, down, and around: going through the Haight twice. That’s when trouble started brewing.

Most motorists and pedestrians waved, cheered, and even stopped cyclists to ask what this mass cyclist event was about. Even stuck in a flood of bikes for 15 minutes, people in cars would smile and wave. Cabbies seemed to take it the hardest though. I saw an incident where a female cabbie was upset a cyclist was block her, as some people in the mass would do to prevent cars jumping in at intersections. The cabbie got out, tried to remove the bike blocking her, and the other cyclists would circle around to watch what happened next. In this case, the cabbie sulked and got back into her cab.

Around Haight street was a different story. An irate pedestrian pulled a random cyclist from his bike, causing him to careen into the side of a parked car. This guy looked exactly like Fabio, a tall, built, and long blonde haired man, dressed like he was going out for a night on the town. Per usual, cyclists swarmed around him to see what the fuss was about. With over 300 people surrounding him, this muscle-bound man declared what the cyclists were doing was “stupid”, “no one cares” and we were only there to cause trouble. Sure, some people were, but the vast majority were enjoying their urban disobedience against cars.

The man yanked off his button-up shirt, with buttons flying every which way, just like in the movies. Underneath you could see that he went to the gym every minute of his life, and he wasn’t one you’d want to try to fight. He continued to created a fuss, tried to get people to dismount their bikes and fight, but luckily an SFPD bike cop came by and told Fabio to chill, to which he stalked off, grumping all the way home.

Our ride took us all the way up to Hyde and Lombard, famous for being the most twisted hill in San Francisco:

We also went both directions through the Broadway tunnel, yelling and screaming as we passed through. I have to admit that I was taken in by the whole scene, and found myself also screaming; joining the protest against the cars that dominate the city. We then headed through the Stockton tunnel, which after I decided to retire. The whole ride was three hours for me, and there was still a group of 200 or so headed back toward market.

I think that Critical Mass is an important monthly demonstration in the city, and for anyone from the outside world looking in. People take their cars for granted, and ignore the many social and economic problems they create. Oil prices are high, people are out of shape, and transit is almost non-existent or non-functioning. I hold CM has an example of people doing something, instead of complaining.

I’ll be there next month.