What is Critical Mass?

Critical Mass is a mass bicycle ride that takes place on the last Friday of each month in cities around the world. Everyone is invited! No one is in charge! Bring your bike!

Next San Francisco Critical Mass: March 29th, 2024, 5:30pm, at Embarcadero Plaza (foot of Market Street).

Your Week Begins: Sun-Tue Schedule

September 23rd, 2012 by Russel

Welcome to the Critical Mass 20th Anniversary Week. Hope you can make some or all of these great activities!

Welcome Center
Opens: Monday, Sept. 24 at 1pm
Closes: Friday Sept. 28 at 5pm
Hours: 1pm-5pm every day
Location: 518 Valencia St. at 16th St. (Map)
Public Transportation: BART: 16th St. Mission :: MUNI: 14, 22, 33, 49 (also J, 12, and 27)

Here are some of the upcoming events early in the week:

Sunday, Sept. 23
2 pm
Art/Freak Bike Ride. Normal bikes welcome. Waterfront to the Mission. Slow pace. Meet at Hi-Dive, Pier 28, 1:30PM. Ride leaves at 2PM 3-4 hours. Post ride BBQ to follow.

Monday, Sept. 24 
6pm
Welcome Center Opening Night with Art Exhibition Opening, 518 Valencia (at 16th), FREE

Tuesday, Sept. 25 
7pm
Critical Mass @ 20 Screening at ATA, 992 Valencia (nr. 21st), $6

DAILY BIKE RIDES (M-W)

Mon., Sept. 24
11am: San Francisco to San Mateo and back again… join an expert trail rider who will take you on a scenic tour down the bayshore and through some hills (depending on riders’ preferences), finding the nooks and crannies south of San Francisco that even most locals don’t know about! Meet at Welcome Center, 518 Valencia… bring lunch and water!

Tues., Sept. 25
1:30-3:30pm: Chris Carlsson leads a 2-hour “Transit History” tour: Discover lost freeways, ghosts of train routes, and a vivid account of how San Franciscans moved around this peninsula through time. Hear about the violent strikes that shaped public transit, the graft and corruption that conquered the Outside Lands. It’s a social, historical and critical tour through the city’s transportation past and present. Meet at Hayes and Octavia (“Patricia’s Green”), we will leave promptly!

Wed., Sept. 26
12 noon: Susanne Zago (fluent in English and Italian) will lead a ride along theeast shore of the SF Bay, from West Oakland BART to the Rosie-the-Riveter monument in Richmond, California. It’s a fantastically scenic, beautiful bayshore ride, with easy return by BART. Meet at West Oakland BART at 11:45 a.m.

12 noon: NOIZ Ride: meet at the  McKinley statue across Baker street from the Dept. of Motor Vehicles on the Panhandle Park.  Bring eatables, drinkables, extra layers to wear,  and your ears.  There will be Three Bands!!! – we will ride around town exploring and stopping very often for some tunes and merriment.  Ride will last several hours and will not be strenuous with probably no hills.  We will probably intersect with the book opening.

A Bay Bridge for Everyone

September 23rd, 2012 by Russel

A Bay Bridge for Everyone

Next year the new east span of the Bay Bridge will open. Thanks to the diligent and dogged efforts of cyclists and sustainable transport advocates in the 1990s, Caltrans was required to build a bike-and-pedestrian path as part of the new structure.

Caltrans (known as the California Department of Highways for most of its existence) has always been biased in favor of automobiles and freeways, and has never shown any interest in providing bicycling infrastructure. It’s obvious that Caltrans bureaucrats were angered by the requirement to include a bike path. How could it be that in 2012 the primary statewide agency in charge of transportation infrastructure neglects its responsibility to provide fair and equal resources to California’s cycling citizens? Are they trying to prove that nobody wants to cycle across the bay by making it unpleasant? So it seems.

Instead of being put on the north side of the new span, with great views of Marin and the North Bay—and the steady rush of clean fresh air that generally comes with the prevailing northwesterly winds, the new bike lane:

  • • has been placed on the south side of the new bridge,subjecting everyone to car exhaust
  • • faces the old bridge until it is demolished
  • • will face the hazy view south toward the Port of Oakland

Worse still, the new lane arrives in mid-Bay at Yerba Buena Island with NO current prospect of continuing to San Francisco.

Read the rest of this entry »

Transformations: Bicicletada in São Paulo (Shift Happens! excerpted)

September 19th, 2012 by LisaRuth

Shift Happens!: Critical Mass at 20 takes a ride through 31 cities.  We’re profiling them all here! For some macro- and micro-views of the effects of Critical Mass in São Paulo, Thiago Benicchio and Tatiana Achcar take us through that car-congested city.

Thiago Benicchio’s “Critical Mass is Dead. Long Live Critical Mass!” gives a great account of the rise and fall of Critical Mass in São Paulo:

Critical Mass, called Bicicletada in Brazil, has been going for a decade, but was never that big in São Paulo, except for on annual World Carfree Days. In São Paulo, Critical Mass was the “Big Bang” for all the public and private initiatives concerning urban cycling, and also a significant inspiration to many other cities in Brazil. From the idea that regular people do use bicycles to move around, to the recent public spaces opened by the city, it’s undeniable that this small and creative crowd was responsible for starting real changes in a car-centric city with 12 million inhabitants. On the other hand, São Paulo’s Bicicletada wasted a lot of its power as a social movement, and in recent years suffered from the boredom of becoming just another bicycle ride without any deeper political, cultural, or artistic expression (even those related strictly to bicycles).

The Internet was a very important tool for the growth of Bicicletada in a huge city that’s also short of public spaces. Articles, photos, and videos published first on the Indymedia website, and later on corporate social media sites … helped to spread the idea. …When I joined Bicicletada, I started a blog called Apocalipse Motorizado, with a monthly report advertising the ride, and following up with multimedia coverage of the rides.

The Internet, of course, is just a medium used to spread ideas; the noted websites were in fact supported by dozens of citizens taking pictures, shooting videos, or writing articles about the monthly rides on social networks and in email groups. The street actions and the strong group of people willing to participate and promote Bicicletada every month were the main reasons for its growth and importance.

Whether in New York City or San Francisco, the moment when Critical Mass lost its early aura perhaps was due to police repression. In São Paulo the moment in which the Bicicletada substantially lost its transformative potential perhaps took place in 2007, and has very different roots. As traffic congestion continuously worsened, especially in the expanded center of the city, the little ant-like work done by some dozens of individuals during Critical Mass and on our blogs and social networks caused the number of bicycle riders to grow substantially, at least among middle-class people…

For the reasons behind the “death” of Critical Mass in São Paulo, pick up a copy!

And Tatiana Achcar recounts her personal journey of “Inventing an Autonomina,” or how she created an autonomous life through getting on a bike and participating in São Paulo’s Bicicletada—to start…

On the first bike trip I took through the center of Brazil, a truck driver, from way up on his enormous truck, shouted rather loudly as he passed our group: “Buy a car!” That phrase somewhere between a joke and an expression of disgust, made me think that the man simply couldn’t imagine how we were enjoying ourselves tremendously in the process of transporting ourselves with our own bodies.

I was caught up in the sense of freedom on two wheels and my bicycle took over larger and larger parts of my life. But I have to admit that the daily struggles of being a cyclist in São Paulo were depressing. I felt very insecure, like an alien, and I didn’t know how to behave in traffic or how to ride safely. A bike activist friend, Eduardo Green, took me along and I discovered the Bicicletada and joined the group, rather small at the time. I didn’t understand exactly what it was: A ride? A protest? With what purpose and what destination? There was a spirit of resistance there and the slogan menos carro, mais bicicleta (“less cars, more bikes”), shouted along the huge avenues, was proof of that. Through this crowd I also discovered some anarchist collectives that I found interesting… São Paulo had become too small for me. I needed to carve out a sense of autonomy and see the world. By undertaking a journey, I recalibrated my life forever. I packed my bags, gave up my apartment, and left. Thus began an intense and unforgettable series of firsts.

Find out where Tatiana traveled to and the discoveries she made along the way when you order your copy of Shift Happens!

Roma!

September 16th, 2012 by ccarlsson

Both submissions to Shift Happens!: Critical Mass at 20 from Rome—from the Network of People’s Bike Kitchens of Rome and by Rotafixa—speak from the difficulties of confronting the seemingly fixed car culture in that city of world wonders. To add to the wonders, they’ve inserted Critical Mass into the mix.  And Marco Pierfranceschi, in “Critical Mass Meets Italian Cycle Touring” recounts how applying a Critical Mass style of organizing to Italian Cycle Touring transformed it and increased the participation and fun immensely (no excerpt of this piece included, sorry!).

“Let’s take back Rome!: Critical Mass, Ciemmona and CiclOfficine Popolari in Rome” gives us a look at the origins of the People’s Bike Kitchens:

Before 2002 [when Critical Mass Rome began], bicycles in Rome were found only in basements and garages, and as decorative objects. Urban cyclists were rare animals: poor, unlucky, unimaginable relatives of the sport cyclist, the kind only normally seen on Sundays on Roman boulevards.

In this urban landscape, with an average of one car per inhabitant, Critical Mass Rome reclaimed the right to be part of traffic and to go beyond that. To be effective in pushing people to use the bike everyday, it was necessary to create support centers aimed at giving information on the use and maintenance of the bicycle in an unfriendly city like Rome. This meant also creating a social space where people could teach each other how to repair bikes used as means of transportation, by sharing mechanical knowledge.

In 2003 to fulfill this need, two “bike kitchens” were created inside two squatted social centers. …The bike kitchens immediately produced a new political voice in Rome, critiquing transportation models based on the dictatorship of automobiles. These groups used the bike on a daily basis as a form of direct action. A new political subject appeared in Roman demonstrations and social movement spaces: the biker activist—always with one pant leg rolled up and one down, and black grease on her/his hands.

Social centers started organizing events with the bicycle as a lifestyle theme. The bike kitchens became places where everyone could learn and contribute her/his capabilities, whether using the welder or becoming metal parts fetishists. The first monster bikes were created including two-story bikes, recumbents, long johns, rickshaws, and carts. The explosion of creativity took place on a foundation of everyday bicycling, leading to the formation of a community of cyclists and mechanics. It started to spread like wildfire, shaping a new kind of political awareness. The community centered around this daily struggle—but also with a monthly celebration in the Critical Mass ride—became more participatory, fun, and effective. Soon two bike kitchens were insufficient to satisfy the growing demand to learn to fix, disassemble, grease, polish, and improve bikes. In 2004, some Don Quixote mechanics opened another kitchen in the social center Angelo Mai next to the Coliseum. Rome, by then, had bike kitchens covering all the main areas, providing a self-made infrastructure for urban bikers’ safety and service, making cyclists more aware of their presence and strength in numbers.

Rotafixa muses about “Political Critical Mass in Rome”:

Critical Mass in Rome created a new way of acting politically. In less than a decade, it taught us to resist the hegemonic politics that have dominated Italy for decades. With Critical Mass we (re)discovered a way to relate to the world around us, and rediscovered the point of connection among all human beings. We even became reacquainted with the key to what makes us human, things like the opposable thumb, nomadism, communication, and an ability to connect the individual and the collective. Our species has these qualities, which are especially effective if used together.

During the last few decades we haven’t been living well. We depend too much on cars, and those who want to move by other means are struggling, especially bicyclists. Critical Mass emerged out of this need, establishing that roads are not just for motorists, but are actually much better without cars.

Not know where the Critical Mass rides go has a deeper resonance; humans don’t know where our species is going either! Supporting each other, sharing an intention, joining something we have only heard of, perhaps going because your beloved mentioned the idea to you. This “thing” called Critical Mass embodies many different motivations. it is so refreshing to become part of a community of people you don’t know, and find that group acting together effectively. In Critical Mass we share an intention to engage in the simple act of riding bicycles through the city streets, once a month. These meetings nourish a dream some of us cultivate in solitude: What if we were a really huge mass of bikers? The dream comes true in Critical Mass.

São Paulo has also had to fight against an über car-centric attitude in that city.  Read about what the bicycle movement has done to break through, and how one individual’s move toward autonomy came through Critical Mass and biking in our next installment!

We just sent off books today to all who have ordered them online!  Buy one from us and get your very own copy soon too!