Hippies own bikes now? Damn, isn’t anything cool anymore?
Trying to drive around the city, especially downtown is hard during Friday’s rush hour. Everyone is trying to get home to start their weekends, and since it’s late August the last of the tourists are still driving around trying to find parking to get into the Robson Street Roots’ store to buy something that says Canada on it, so everyone is a little aggro. What a perfect time to throw in a few hundred self-righteous bikers trying to make a political point.
Dynamic Critical Mass Vancouver [dcmv] is a political movement that has managed to set up a Blogspot account and give to the world run on sentences and no capital letters. Their purpose? To let the world know that they ride bikes, and if you drive a car oh boy you’re as bad as Hitler. Worse because at least Hitler knew he was evil, whereas you car driver/rider have been hypnotized by the big corporate powers that be to drive a car and kill the enviroment and sit in traffic and just to prove that you spend all your time sitting in traffic and that we the bike riders are free we’re going to bike around the city whenever we want and we’ll stop traffic and you’ll sit in your cars and watch us bike past and then be free from the corporate powers and maybe you won’t be hitler anymorebecausethatsreallyallwewantispeaceandamericaoutofiraqnow…
Sorry, their blog did -24 damage to my grammar skills. Blame it on Stockholm Syndrome.
Anyway the point of their “CELEBRATION ON WHEELS” (their words not mine) is that they’re going to bike around Vancouver at odd times and stop traffic just to cause more traffic and show us that there is a lot of traffic in the city. To which I’d like reply, “Really. Thanks, now fuck off.”
Okay so the guy in the car ahead of me who got out and started trying to hit one of them in the head probably was not the best representative of the car driving public, and his actions only made the bikers happier because they could better look down upon the car drones, but come on. We get it, cars are bad. I take the Skytrain to work all but maybe three days a month and my car sits in the garage largely untouched. But if you want to win people over to your side, then please find another way to do it.
Being an annoying pain in the ass isn’t about to get anyone to believe what you’re saying. Nor is never ending sentences, bad grammar and the sort of midway through Political Science 111 drivel that your blog is giving us. Please, you’re giving biking a bad name.
Edit: Sorry, misread their blog. I know how could that happen, it’s so coherent. Anyway “APOCALYPTIC STREET WAR FANTASY” is what people who ride in cars do. “CELEBRATION ON WHEELS” is what biking to block traffic is.
Update: Thanks to Karen [jkp] in the comments for a link to the Wikipedia article [wp] which addresses in a far more lucid manner the ideas behind Critical Mass than their own leaders manage to. The issue I have with the event is shared by many, at least according to Wikipedia, and is called corking [wp]. Conflicts with motorists is a somewhat regular occurrence.
“the last of the tourists are still driving around trying to find parking to get into the Robson Street Roots’ store to buy something that says Canada on it”
Yeah. The same tourists who pay your ridiculous PST and GST taxes and keep the money spinning in the city for guys like you enjoy your laidback life in Vancouver.
Such a bad comment on that. I assume you would never go abroad and buy a t-shirt with the name of the country on it.
Wow, that wasn’t the angry comment I was expecting. Just pointing out that tourists exist and that they like shopping at Roots which sells a lot of Canada stuff isn’t exactly a “bad comment”. I mean I could have gotten a lot meaner about tourists, as opposed to just saying that they exist.
Also though I’m not sure about PST, GST is refundable for tourists like Europe’s VAT is for us when visiting.
And no I don’t have any shirts that say Spain, though I did buy a few football kits while in Europe. However I’m quite sure that locals in Spain, France and England found me just as annoying as I can find tourists here. It’s part of deal when you live in a city with a large tourist economy. I’m sure if they’re honest with themseleves other citizens of other cities would share my viewpoint.
Having said all that, I don’t think I was at all negative, at least torwards tourists during this post.
Ok, I’ll give you the angry comment you were expecting. ;)
The point is not to tell drivers they are “evil” (although I’d question the sanity of anyone who chooses to commute into the downtown core by car rather than take transit at least partway…)
The point is to educate drivers about the fact that bicycles have just as much right to roads as they do!
Granted, that blog is likely run by the more vocal and aggressive of the local Critical Mass crowd. But I’ve been on a few rides and the majority of the cyclists are polite and non-confrontational. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that a lot of the motorists we encounter are also polite and happy to spend a minute or two hearing about our cause while they wait for the roads to open up again.
If you want a slightly more balanced story on what critical mass is all about, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass
Thanks for the WP article link. My issue with it isn’t that bikes should have as much right to the road as cars. I agree with that, I don’t ride my bike on the road, but I used to and I enjoy not being run down as much as anyone.
My problem, and clearly if you’ve read the WP article you’ll see I’m not alone, is with what I learn is called “corking” the stopping of traffic in order to allow the bikes to pass. That seems to a) contradict the message that bikes are just like cars because I can’t get out of my car and stop traffic to allow myself to drive through a red light when ever I like or even once a month and b) it seems specifically designed to cause conflict with motorists who are stuck in the resulting traffic flow.
I have mixed feelings on the whole corking thing. It’s not an ideal solution because it pisses people off and is is of course against the law (running red lights and whatnot).
In the end, though, I think it prevents the ride from blocking traffic for even longer. Imagine if the hundreds (thousands?) of cyclists in CM were separated into several groups. This is what would happen if we stopped at red lights and stop signs. Traffic would be a mess!
Coincidentally, I have just been reading a CM-related thread at Metafilter: http://www.metafilter.com/64338/Critical-Mass-Arrests
There’s lots of input from both sides - including a fairly eloquent explanation of why corking is necessary.
Thank you for bringing such nice posts. Your blog is always fascinating to read.
Love my bike, but the smelly hippies give us all a bad name with their antics.
I think Karen has said everything that needs to be said. The only thing I’ll add is CM is an awesome party and anyone with a bike should join the fun.