Bicyclists smiled widely, waved and shouted “Happy Friday!” at motorists paralyzed by their progress. Some drivers honked or inched forward, though most resigned themselves to wait until the throng passed. A couple, along with several pedestrians, asked what was going on.
“Critical Mass,” was the common reply.
Even at 5 m.p.h., passing cyclists didn’t have time to explain in more detail. Even if they had, there wouldn’t be much more to say. The Mass is not an organization, a protest or a movement, just a monthly group bike ride that flows unannounced and unobstructed through streets clogged with rush-hour traffic.
“I think that when people see that bikes are fun, they’re more likely to get on a bike,” said Alex Wilson, who publishes Derailleur, the unofficial magazine of the unofficial ride. “Even if you’re commuting to work, it’s still more fun on a bicycle than being stuck in traffic.”
Chicago Critical Mass, one of the largest of roughly 300 such rides around the world, bills itself as a celebration of bicycles, a party on wheels in keeping with the oft-repeated theme “Bikes Are Fun.” But it’s held together by a common political belief that bicycles should have just as much right to public streets as cars do.
“There’s no protections in the Constitution for an automobile over a human being in terms of our right to publicly assemble. There’s no speaking to the priority of the automobile, though that’s what our cities have come to look like,” said Travis Hugh Culley, who wrote a book, “The Immortal Class,” about his experiences as a bicycle messenger that also touches on Critical Mass.
Many riders do not own cars and use bicycles as their primary means of transportation. Some actively oppose cars, passing out fliers at the recent opening of “Matrix Reloaded” beseeching motorists to “unplug [themselves] from the car matrix” and supporting groups such as Forever Free And Clear, which seeks the depaving of Lake Shore Drive. But most don’t speak out on these issues at Chicago’s Mass rides, choosing to focus on the bicycle experience.
Riders, about 150 of them March 28 but as many as 800 in summer months, spill out of Daley Plaza into downtown traffic around 6 p.m. on the last Friday of every month. They occupy the width of at least one lane at all times, and sometimes more on wider streets, though they never cross into oncoming lanes.
“We have a right to be in the street. Frequently when I’m a rider alone, I get a lot of flak from automobile drivers,” Rita Walter said. She mentioned two occasions in which drivers got out of their cars and pushed her. “I ride a lot, and it’s that kind of mentality and behavior that made me realize we need to be a little bit more visible to people, and for people to accept that we belong on the streets just like they do,” said Walter, who has ridden Mass for about 3 1/2 years.
Brian Steele, a Chicago Department of Transportation spokesman, said the city agrees with the message but not always the methods.
“In many ways, the city and Critical Mass share the same goal,” he said. “And that goal is to improve bicycling in the City of Chicago. To be aware of bicycles, to promote bicycling and to improve conditions for bicycling.”
One of the issues that draws scrutiny is the practice of maintaining unity even if it means blocking traffic. The front of the group will stop at red lights, but if a light turns red during a crossing, the group will roll through. Often three or four riders will break off and stand in front of cars to allow others to pass in a practice sometimes referred to as “corking” an intersection.
In March, one cyclist who repeatedly blocked intersections calmly explained what was happening to impatient motorists, keeping them talking throughout the crossing. (He and others who blocked streets asked that their names not be used.) When a red light turned green on Belmont Avenue, he zipped across the street to block the westbound lane so the group could turn left. Cyclists streamed onto Clark Street, riding four and five abreast, completing the turn in minutes.
“One person on a bicycle can take over the street as long as the person in a car behind you is not willing to run you down. You just get in the middle of the street, and there you are. You occupy the space,” Todd Gee said after the March ride. “It’s obviously much easier to do with 60 or 70 people, or 100 or 200 or 1,000 or whatever. … And certainly, on a bicycle, you can fit a significantly higher number of people through the street, so it’s just a testament to the fact of how well bicycles fit together.”
Though rides are held to speeds of 5 to 7 m.p.h. to keep everyone together, the largest rides take only three to five minutes to pass through an intersection.
“There’s a lot of people, especially in the colder months, who do the Mass rides who are just practiced at it. People who cycle every day; it becomes an automatic response,” Gee said.
Chicago police spokesman Dave Bayless said the police approach to the Mass “has been flexibility.” He said the rides haven’t caused significant traffic backups, and police don’t receive many complaints.
“Technically, multiple people riding in a bike ride need to ride single-file. Given their numbers, we know that is not realistic,” he said.
Bayless said there have been no recent arrests. Longtime riders say roughly a dozen people were arrested in the September 1998 ride, but most or all were released a few hours later with no charges filed. Bayless said he did not know anything about that. The Critical Mass Web site also has photos of riders taking lanes of the Eisenhower Expressway last year, but Bayless said that would be the state’s jurisdiction. (Wilson, who began riding on the September ’98 Mass, said he’s not aware of anyone being seriously hurt on a ride.)
Riders acknowledge that their relationship with police has grown cordial as officers became more aware of the ride, which has taken place in Chicago every month since September 1997. In March, two passing police cars escorted riders for about two miles, even blocking cross traffic for them.
And riders eschew the notion that the Mass is an act of civil disobedience.
“When the Mass sticks together through an intersection, it’s just about keeping the cohesion of the ride, it’s about the safety. If it’s a statement of anything abstractly, it’s a statement that having the right of way [at a green light] is not a license to kill for a motorist,” Culley said while eating lunch on the Sunday after the March ride. His T-shirt bore an insignia memorializing Thomas McBride, a bike messenger killed in a 1999 road-rage incident in which the driver who hit him was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
“It’s common sense, and civil respect needs to take place on our city streets. It’s not an act of civil disobedience at all. It’s a civil outcry for respect and cooperation.”
Riders draw up zigzag routes that prevent any one street from being blocked for an extended period and quickly abdicate their space to let emergency vehicles pass. When the March ride was at its height, stretching more than a block down Clark Street, the group emptied its lane in a matter of seconds after the first cry of “Pull right!” went up.
Mass riders are adamant about keeping the rides as random as possible, and as such there are no officials, no rules or helmet mandates, no fees and almost no planning. Riders meet on the last Friday of the month, regardless of weather. Anyone can draw up a route before a ride. If more than one person does, others vote by cheering for whichever they like. In any case, no one feels compelled to stick to the route.
Though many riders seek only to co-exist with cars, there is anti-car sentiment. Jeff Coufal said he has never owned a car and sees them as a social and economic nuisance. “One of the things of Critical Mass is to get in cars’ way for one day out of the month,” he said.
Critical Mass began in San Francisco in September 1992 as a backlash against car traffic. Chris Carlsson was one of about 50 cyclists on that ride, who had been regularly riding home from work.
“We needed to recognize that we weren’t alone as individuals riding in the confines of the far right lane,” he said. People began to realize that together, they could take up a lane of traffic and control it for bicycle use.
“That basically took place, and it was a magical and euphoric moment when it happened. It far exceeded anybody’s expectations,” Carlsson said.
Several Internet sites credit Carlsson as the founder of Critical Mass, though he says the idea grew among the group on that first ride. In any case, San Francisco has the largest and most prominent Mass, regularly drawing more than 1,000 riders and as many as 7,000 for last September’s 10th anniversary ride. The San Francisco Mass is so large it often splinters into smaller groups that reconnect or cross paths.
Gee, who has ridden Mass in San Francisco, Chicago and smaller cities, said street crossings in San Fran can take 15 minutes or longer. He also said other Masses feel more like a protest, whereas Chicago has a primarily festive atmosphere. The frequent shouts of “Happy Friday!” to passing motorists and pedestrians are unique to Chicago, he said.
The celebratory nature also is reflected in what people ride. Culley did the March Mass on a children’s bicycle, in bright orange sweatclothes with the words “One more bike” in black letters on the back. Cigdem Tunar, who won the 2002 International Veterans Cycle Association women’s high-wheel championship on a trip to Europe, rode her high-wheel bike.
“It’s really, really comfortable. The seat takes your shape,” said Tunar, who’s been riding the old-fashioned bike for three years.
Al Schorsch rode a “high bike,” a custom that has a second frame welded on top of the first. “I’m taller than you!” he shouted down to a full-size sport-utility vehicle passing in the other direction.
“The kids enjoy it because it’s like a circus,” said Jane Healy, who often brings her 3- and 5-year-old children, towing them in a standard kiddie trailer or a trail-a-bike, which attaches to an adult bike to form a tandem. “People ride on silly bikes and Penny Farthings [a type of high-wheel bike]; some people bring boom boxes playing music ranging from Calliope tunes to the theme from `Shaft.'”
On one ride, a bike was towing a canoe to give kids a ride in a park fountain, and on another a rider had a palm tree on a back bike rack.
People have even been known to ride naked. Sean Reynolds said there was a man and a woman in the buff on the same ride as the palm plant. “I don’t think it was intentional, but we had Adam and Eve and a palm,” he said.
Different spokes for different folks
Other groups conduct large-scale bike rides in Chicago and pay more deference to traffic laws.
Bike The Drive and the Boulevard Lakefront Tour, annual events run by the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, draw thousands of riders each year.
Bike The Drive, which drew 12,000 for its inaugural ride last year, closes down Lake Shore Drive for several hours early on a June morning to give cyclists access. Riders of the BLT, a 35-mile ride through Chicago neighborhoods, are expected to follow traffic laws, but the route is mostly on four-lane roads and starting times are staggered so riders fit next to car traffic.
“We’ve found that with up to 5,000 riders we can run an event under normal requirements,” said Randy Neufeld, executive director of the bike federation, which plans the events with city cooperation.
The Chicago Cycling Club conducts rides virtually every Saturday and Sunday, and on many weeknights, from April to October. Club President Steve Kramer said 90 to 95 percent of the rides are on city streets but cyclists stop at red lights and never ride more than two abreast.
“We basically follow the rules of the road and follow the tenet that cyclists fare best when they behave like a vehicle,” Kramer said. When groups get split up by red lights they usually catch up at another light, he said, and just in case groups ride with guides at the front and back.
“Critical Mass represents just one cross-section of Chicago’s bicycling community,” Steele said.
Though no club has an official connection to Critical Mass, there is considerable overlap throughout Chicago’s cycling community, and members of several clubs ride the Mass. Neufeld and Kramer said the Mass is good for the cycling community. “It gets [across] the idea that a lot of people are riding bikes,” Kramer said.
Critical Mass riders they their objective is to convey that message in their way.
“It’s not bike advocacy in the formal litigation sense, and it’s not bike advocacy in the militant sense,” rider Travis Hugh Culley said. “It’s bike advocacy in the form of pure fun.”
Hoisting bikes a real corker
In addition to being one of the largest, Chicago’s Critical Mass lent its name to a feature of the rides.
Those who “cork” intersections, or block traffic, at any Mass sometimes raise their bicycles above their heads.
Theories on what the stance means range from a symbol that bikes are superior to cars to a signal for stopped drivers away from the intersection that bicycles are crossing.
It’s impossible to tell where the practice started, but it’s known as a Chicago Holdup.
“It’s probably a pretty common instinct for bicyclists to do that,” rider Travis Hugh Culley said. “But Chicago got good at it, and Chicago got the name for it.”
