LexRides

[illride]

So I have some friends out in LA calling me and making me all jealous about their Critical Mass rides...and it had me wondering, has the potential for a critical mass died in Lexington? I've heard no word on it in a long time.

[Rowbear]

Lexington was doing Critical Mass rides way back in 2001 way before it was cool and now other cities are just trying to be like us. Anyone else, other the Shane, a part of the Green Thumb critical mass rides that left from WT Young and had a bike cop escort down euclid?
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[taylor]

I still dig on the idea of something like critical mass - but as history tells us, the same set of rules doesn't apply everywhere. bikes aren't the same in Lexington as SF or NY, so we need to play by different rules.

when we did the ride during Earthdays in the Bluegrass this year, we had some pretty strict groundrules that essentially included the caveat that if you get out of line, we'll whip your ass. not that anyone disruptive was there anyways, but I'm sure that the threat of an ass whipping didn't hurt.

while most of our bike culture has progressed from critical mass to alleycats to polo, I think there is still an important place for group advocacy rides. I don't think we should call it critical mass and I don't think that we should be so lax about the rules of the road during the rides. and while there is a philosophical argument within CM crowds that there is no reason to respect the rules because they weren't made for bikes yadda yadda yadda... the only way to get something positive done is to keep yourself from appearing like an asshole who just wants to get in the way and throw bikes into car windshields. or for that matter, actually being that asshole. and that means obeying the law. you don't have to break the law to make a statement on a bike.

I had been planning to organize an event at UK, wielding all the 'power' that I do, and show the movie "StillWeRide", which is another CM documentary, and then organize a group ride either right after or on the Friday after the Thursday showing. it's probably too late for that this semester. maybe in the spring.

regardless, I'm 100% down for group rides - so long as we do them the right way

[illride]

I completely agree with that philosophy. There's no good in doing it if it's not done right. Looking like a bunch of assholes would do nothing as far as continuing progress and growth in the bike community.... I really think it could have a lot of appeal with what seems like a large increase in riding lately. I'm curious to see how well the word would get around and what kind of turnout it would get.

And yea, I've rode out in LA and it IS a totally different ballgame (so to say)

[brokebike]

One of the logistical problems with Lexington's CM rides is that even on a good turnout, we still don't have enough riders to be a solid moving mass of bikes that can skirt the normal traffic rules like most cities CM rides can. therefore, we almost need to enact some sort of rules for the ride; staying in one lane, keeping the group from splitting into different clusters and getting fucked by traffic lights, corking from beginning to end of the group, etc.

The larger group you get, it actually becomes easier to pull off, no matter how many different factions of riders and ideologies come together for it. When you have less than 30 - 40, even 50 riders, you need to keep it together and keep it tight - otherwise, we all look like a bunch of assholes who don't know what the hell we're doing.
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[chadwick2wheels]

If we get one together I think we need to advertise about it a little more. I mean more than just this forum. Because alot of people that come to the alleycats show up because of seeing a flyer hanging in the window at Bourbon n Toulouse or on a light pole. I know us cutters jump at the opportunity to be traffic on our bikes, but more "civilians" would come if we just spread the word beyond our cycling community. I think.
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[mattypichu]

I agree with you all and would add that having some type of planned route would make the staying together easier, make us more cohesive. I would gladly post something at PedalPower and talk it up to customers.

[willard]

Mr. 2wheels, you mentioned the idea of bringing in the "civilian" population into the ride which leads into an idea I've had for a while.

What if we framed the ride as an event to get people more comfortable riding in the road?

A friend was just asking me the other day if I could give her riding lessons because she just wasn’t comfortable riding on the street yet. We could have a short presentation (like five minutes) before the ride to discuss tips for safe riding and then take off.

I don’t think any of us would complain about the possibility of fewer sidewalk jockeys and I’m having trouble coming up with other ways to get them on the road.

There are lots of kinks to be worked out, but I figured I'd throw the idea out there.

If only we could get the Lexington Police Dept to come to ride….

[chadwick2wheels]

Willard, i bet if we simply told the head person of the "cops on bikes" we were doing a critical mass, a couple of them might show up. We could stress that we're not doing it to be annoying but rather to be traffic and ride with cars. I noticed some new bike lanes on campus today. I think we could almost plan a route that only uses bike lanes. Although, there would be too many riders to fit inside one single bike lane (hopefully) at least it would show we are all law abiding citizens (at least while police are present). I don't know why they wouldnt be up for it. Hell there might even be some of the cop bikers on duty that night and they could even get paid for it. And in return that would also draw more "civilians" out because it might appear to be safer to them.

While I'm here I just wanna say how proud I am of the way we are trying to incorporate more people who normally wouldnt ride with us. A few years ago when we all first got into riding our insane fixed gear bikes with no brakes I think some of us (including myslef) didnt want other people catching on to our culture. I think through our actions over the years we've really shown Lexington we care about alternate ways of transportation and arent just riding in the road to be assholes.
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The sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked. ~Amy Webster

[illride]

I was chatting with a bike cop earlier in August who was nuts about bikes. I'm sure there would be a few guys on the force that would be down with some good friendly road-riding education.

[willard]

When I made the reference about the police I was really just calling them out on riding on the sidewalks all the time. But I certainly agree that having them there could change the dynamics of the ride, I'm still not sure if it would be for better or worse.

On one hand, it would scare away most the hooligans that were causing trouble in the past because they have issues with authority. At the same time, blocking traffic to get the whole group through a light under police escort makes us more of a parade, which I'm sure requires paperwork and approval. Getting approved could prove to be difficult because I've talked to officers about how many calls they used to get during critical mass events from people wanting them to come arrest us all.

[david]

I think having a bike friendly cop in critical mass rides would be nice. Informal is good. Hopefully, the cops could say they were simply riding home and decided to join a few friends. Weekday rides around 6pm are convenient and fun for commuters like me.

[mattypichu]

The police with bikes are in the shop almost daily, I'll talk to one about the ability to be informal and desire to participate. Some of them that I've talked to are really good guys and would probably be down. On another point, I think stopping traffic to let us through intersections would be the type of thing that would start to cost money and also would not really give folks that wouldn't ride normally, the expierence of being traffic like we are expected to be. Let's start talking about dates and times!
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[chadwick2wheels]

Well the Halloween Alleycat is coming up and after that I'm not aware of anything else major going on. So why dont we do it around the mid of November just before Thanksgiving before it gets too cold? That way we could do one last thing before the holidays hit.
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The sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked. ~Amy Webster

[politicalhero]

I am glad to see folks are showing interest in this again. It has been a long hard struggle in lexington. CM used to be weekly and sometime there would be only 2 or 3 people... how critical or mass is that? Then there were the 16 people days and we thought we were huge... then came the 75 people days and we thought that was the magic number, nope, it lead to an explosion of different philosophies of change, bikes, etc.

The CM is Lexington has usually been different from other rides. As long as I have been apart of Lex CM we billed it as an advocacy parade and a chance to get comfortable on the streets. Yes, it was also about celebrating the bike and damning the car but it was non-confrontational.

I am not sure how I feel about the idea of cops. Especially since they have threatened to ticket us in the past. A cop lead CM ride would be uncomfortable for all parties. When we did the bike lane protest lap downtown last year a bike cop was there but he was not allowed to ride with us because it would "show that the police force was endorsing the event and we don't make political stands." So he had to ride on the sidewalk and stay back away from us. If something happened between the bikes and cars then he would get in the mix.

I think we should leave the police lead rides to Bike Lexington, the trail rides, 2nd sunday, etc and stick with our style.

I like the idea of still having a leaderless ride and all decide on a route at the beginning of the ride. I also like having the conversation of expectations at the beginning of the ride. This has happened in the past at various degrees of success.

That was a ramble of thoughts!