Thursday, June 19, 2008

My Critial Mass Response

Below is my response to an original Critical Mass bulletin from this morning.


----------------- Original Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Alison
Date: Jun 19, 2008 5:38 AM

Friday June 27th at 5pm, meet in Monroe Park at the corner of Main and Belvidere for a sweet group bike ride!!

Please Repost this!

The last Friday of every month = Critical Mass ride, so lets do it in June too. We can meet at Monroe Park, at the Corner of Belvidere and Main and decide a route.

Promote bike culture.

Promote bike safety.

Promote environmentalism.

Anti-war.

Anti-car.

Pro-Fun.

2 wheels good, four wheels bad!!!

Tell your friends, make your own fliers and post them around, this won't be big unless everyone becomes an organizer!!!


----------------- My Response -----------------

Critical mass isn't about "2 wheels good, 4 wheels bad". It's about sharing the road with those who choose to drive and educating them about bicycles on the road. I also don't think critical mass was ever about "anti-war". It shouldn't matter if you believe in war or not as long as you ride a bicycle. You know that army's in the past have had bicycle infantry's. The U.S. army still uses bicycles during war time.


Now I'm not putting down having critical mass again in RVA but the politics is why it stopped in the first place. I just think that we should leave the anti-car and anti-war politics for another time and place. I wouldn't mind having a completely different anti-war ride. As far as cars go, I have one and don't plan on giving it up so you wouldn't find me on that ride.

2 comments:

ponyheart said...

Thats funny; political bull shit within our Critical Mass is one reason i dont participate anymore. I am not critical mass, but its got out of control where people are only pissing motorist off and not getting any sort of point across - especially not in a positive manner. Good to see its a common occurance - or bad to see I guess.

Anonymous said...

Glad to see other cyclist who recognize the negative aspects of recent critical mass rides, we each have to share the road with other traffic be it car or bike. These rides can be very beneficial to the community with the right attitude and intent.