Fuck you Critical Mass. You acted like a old Trucker Convoy, a whole goddamn mob of you guys blowing through the red lights. I was held up at the intersection for 10 minutes, wondering what the hell your deal was. So, I checked your website:
“There is no official purpose to the ride, but it feels pretty good to be the dominant force on the road for a change.
CM has no organization, officials, or leaders. We’re just a bunch of people riding around together.
We pride ourselves on riding around in a slow and peaceful manner, although it might not seem so peaceful to an observer (what with all the car drivers honking and yelling).”
I suggest you need some leaders, dammit. YOU IGNORED ALL TRAFFIC SIGNALS! Next ‘I Biked Halifax’ T-Shirt I see, I’m pissing all over your spokes / gear assembly.
This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2008.
Ha ha, awesome. The shitty side of CM. I cringe to think that next car passing me while I’m on my bike is road ragin’ becauser Critical Ass fucked up his life for 10 seconds (or 10 minutes).
Wow, that makes me wish I still had my old ’70s Park Avenue. That thing was as big as a tank and so beat that you could use it as a weapon. Maybe a few of those CM morons needed to be strained through the Buick’s grille to get the message that cyclists will always lose in an argument with a car.
Oh, Keith. Poor, silly Keith. I can just see you, shaking the Angry Fist of Anger, enraged with impotent rage, because you could so easily win that argument by plowing your ’70 Park Avenue into that mass of impudent cyclists. Except, well, then you’d go to jail. And then you’d get to spend a couple of years in a little concrete room, gloating about how you won that argument. It’s so unfair. Poor, silly man.
Having said that, best bitch title of the year, DTA!
The first time I encountered Critical Mass I was driving a car stopped at a stop sign on a side street on Oxford Rd. as a parade of bicycles and skateboards went by for about 5 or 10 minutes. They had the right of way, and just like I would have waited for my turn if it were car traffic, I waited for the parade of bikes to pass. I shut off my car so I wasn’t just sitting there idling and enjoyed the scene, people of all ages on bikes, some towing trailers holding people playing drums. Good times. I figured that the point was to raise awareness of bicycles on the streets of Halifax, and alternative forms of transportation. Both noble causes I can support. The second and most recent encounter I have had with critical mass was much different. I was driving on a 2 way street in the opposite direction to the passing bicycles on the other side of the street. Ahead of me I could see the parade blowing though a four way stop as they turned onto the street. As they spilled onto the street they were taking up both sides of it, and some people were not even looking up to see my car as I approached them in my lane. I was slowing down and waiting for them to look up, but I had no intention of yielding my right of way to them. Then a couple guys started waving arms violently at me as we passed each other. Road rage, and mob mentality clear on their face. How dare a car drive on the street that they were illegally turning onto without stopping, and illegally occupying both lanes of. Dear critical mass, Fuck you. If you truly have no official purpose maybe you should stop and consider the consequences of what you are organizing. You are not doing any favours for the population of cyclists in Halifax. You are raising an awareness that is negative towards bikes in Halifax. You are teaching the young cyclists in the mob of bikes all the wrong ways to ride a bike on the street with cars and traffic laws. Some one is going to get hurt. Maybe an enraged motorist like Keith will intentionally mow you down, or maybe there will be an accident as you disobey the rules of the road and an unexpecting motorist will hit you. I don’t understand why you are being permitted to carry on in this way. Surely you have been spotted by numerous police as hundreds of bikes roll through stop signs and red lights and drive on the wrong side of the road. I hope you get pulled over and fined just like I would in my car if I did the same thing.