THANKSGIVING MASS

I am among the 10% of NYC Critical Mass participants who had a great ride last night.

I knew it was time to leave my apartment a little before 7 when I heard the helicopters. There looked to be about 400 cyclists assembled Union Square, but what dominated the scene was the police presence. In addition to there being a lot of them—both inside the park and lying in wait a block away in each direction with their orange nets, disposable handcuffs, and vans to hold our bikes—they were playing this obnoxious recorded message on loudspeakers about how we were required to have a permit (lie!), we didn't have one (true!), and that if we rode our bikes in a "procession," we would be arrested, and our bikes would be seized.

I was lucky to run into a friend, Eric of Interactivist Network (Rad Ref's web host), because it wasn't a situation I wanted to be in by myself. Someone he knew came up to us and told us that a good plan would be to leave the park in small groups and reconvene at the Cube at Astor Place. We stayed in the Park until just about all of the riders were gone and then made our way to Astor Place. The only wheels at the Cube were attached to skateboards. There are skateboarders who participate in Critical Mass, but these weren't among them. I checked in with James and ShinJoung, and Eric called his pal who writes for the Times and makes it his business to know what's going on. The new word was to meet at Washington Square Park at 8, but we were reminded that there is no bike riding allowed in Washington Square. Whatever. It was only about 7:45, so we stood around the Cube a little longer until about half a dozen cyclists rode by and said, "Join us," so we did.

There were lots of cops on the north side of Washington Square. We followed one of them who was on a scooter around for a while, figuring he knew where the action was. There was also the fun of chasing a cop, rather than vice versa. We lost him around Bleecker Street and LaGuardia and headed back up to the Park. There were about 20 people hanging around the fountain waiting to do something, and as we approached, one of them said, "Let's just go," so we did.

En route it was decided to head downtown on Varick Street. After we managed to avoid entering the Holland Tunnel, another group of riders caught up with us. We rode around for quite a while, and now that our number was closer to 50, we were a real Critical Mass. We passed a couple of cops here and there, but they seemed uninterested. There were a few scares, like when we passed a ConEd van that we at first took for a police van and later when we heard the scream of a siren that turned out to be an ambulance, but ultimately we were unimpeded. Because we were a smallish group, the sense of cooperation was greater than I'd experienced before. When folks at the back shouted, "Slow down!" or "Tighten up!" those at the front actually did.

The ride ended at the Times Up space on Houston, which was heavily guarded by a Pig Mass (Eric's term that got a giggle from some upscale pedestrian passersby) of police on bikes and scooters. Riders were careful to lock their bikes at least a block away from Times Up since at last month's afterparty lots of locks were destroyed and bicycles stolen by the protectors of our freedom.

We had a good time debriefing at the party, but I was disappointed to learn that our group was the only one that had a decent ride. We heard about 7 arrests, and I read in the Times this morning that the total was 17. Considering that the police had arrived at Union Square prepared to pop hundreds, I think we did pretty well. All in all I think both sides can claim victory. My group had a hot ride, which the cops were unable to disrupt because they'd concentrated all of their staff power in just one or two areas. Even with their damned helicopters, they never found us. However, they did succeed in preventing the Mass from leaving Union Square en masse.

I'm glad that at least one large segment of the ride prevailed, as I felt a responsibility to Critical Mass rides all over the world that could be impacted if the NYC Mass gets squashed. It would also be embarrassing and give smug west coasters another reason to look down their noses at us!

Vivan las bicicletas!