Horns toot and sound systems blare as 2,000 bicyclists take to the streets — earnest environmentalists, adrenaline-fueled sports nuts, hard-working activists, Dumpster-diving anarchists and party animals of all kinds.
Tourists hold up their cell phones to snap pictures.
Hipsters, in on the joke, call out, “Happy Friday!”
Senior citizens smile as they ask, “What is this?”
This is Critical Mass, the monthly bike rally that takes over downtown streets, running red lights, snarling traffic and turning small stretches of roadway — 2 miles at a time — into an urban biketopia where cars disappear, cyclists ride without fear and carbon emissions bow to a sea of pedal-churning feet.
With Chicago Critical Mass approaching its 10-year anniversary ride Sept. 28, the utopian eco-cyclists who pioneered the party/protest/prank in this city point to numerous achievements, from offshoot groups such as Cycling Sisters and Chicago Bike Winter, to friendly relations with the police who escort the ride, to increased cycling in the city.
“For me, it changed my life totally. I owned a car about 10 years ago,” says longtime rider Michael Burton, 42, an affordable-housing developer.
“Just being outside and having power over your transportation [is great]. And my wife and I, we don’t own a car and because of that we were able to buy a three-flat building in Logan Square. If we had a car payment, we wouldn’t have been able to do that.”
But there’s also trouble in bicycle paradise, with a handful of key insiders, including Burton, who now support a network of neighborhood mini-Masses, complaining that Chicago Critical Mass has become too big for its own good: too impersonal, too prone to drunkenness, too aggressive toward hostile motorists, too frivolous and too mainstream.
Many Massers strongly disagree, and one key aspect of the Burton faction’s agenda — a plan to make the Sept. 28 ride the last citywide Critical Mass, or the Grand Finale — is widely regarded as a publicity stunt by the local biking community.
Still, it’s clear that the Daley Plaza Critical Mass, which began with 150 riders in 1997, is experiencing some growing pains, with longtime rider and ardent citywide Mass supporter Steven Lane, 39, saying he has heard the term “fair-weather riders” used to describe rookies who don’t ride in the winter.
‘Are you real?’
“There are a lot of internal distinctions going on in terms of, ‘Are you real? Are you the real deal? Or are you just somebody who shows up to drink Old Style and blow bubbles and play loud music?'” says Lane, a Web designer.
In an effort to find out for myself whether Critical Mass has lost its way, I rented a bike at Millennium Park and headed over to Daley Plaza on the last Friday of August.
The atmosphere was half-circus, half-church-tent revival, with rider Matt Bone, 23, a graduate student in computer science, saying, “I always tell people that Critical Mass is my religion. I just like bikes. They’re practically free, and when you ride them — I don’t know. For me, I just feel like I’m king of the world.”
As the ride began at 6:15 p.m., veteran riders and police officers blocked traffic so the Massers could stay together, running red lights and forming an impromptu parade complete with a Goth warrior with a huge Barbie head affixed to the front of her bike, freak bikers riding six feet off the ground, and a white Maltese named Chanel who sat in her owner’s wicker bike basket.
There was indeed a lot of beer drinking, and some motorists did seem to be put out, including a white-haired man in a large sedan who argued, red-faced, with the earnest young man who had “corked” his intersection by planting a bike in the road.
“You want me to respect you — well you have to respect me!” the motorist said to the Masser. But the Masser stood his ground, stating his case calmly, and a few minutes later the motorist was smiling fondly at the young man and reaching out to shake his hand.
Not every conflict on the Mass was resolved so easily. At Halsted near Cullerton a sanitation truck driver, blocked by the Mass, got out of his vehicle and screamed that the bikers were blocking an emergency vehicle, apparently the silent ambulance to his right.
“I can have you all arrested!” the truck driver screamed, repeatedly.
Still, I didn’t see any fights or littering, the vast majority of cyclists were well-mannered and, as a 42-year-old basement cycler — I fear busy streets and ride an exercise bike exclusively — I reveled in the freedom to explore downtown in relative safety, a cushion of 10 cyclists at my side where ordinarily there would be swinging car doors or screaming sports cars.
The sensation of roaring through skyscraper-lined caverns of the Loop and shadowy expressway underpasses was exhilarating, as was the knowledge that I was burning zero oil. I found myself fantasizing about a city of bikes, where I could ride this way every day and, together with a few million of my closest friends, show the world how to stop global warming in its tracks.
The big standoff with police came at about 8:15 p.m. at Canal and Roosevelt, with bikers pushing to go east on Roosevelt, toward downtown, and police wanting the crowd to go west, avoiding Jazz Festival crowds.
Some refuse to compromise
After about 10 minutes, some of the veteran riders started peeling off, refusing to compromise with the police, but a few hundred people later gave in and went west, passing a red-faced police officer who was yelling, sarcastically, at an unhappy cyclist: “Happy Friday!”
“Sad Friday,” several bikers called as they rode off into the darkness.
Nine cyclists were arrested on misdemeanor charges during the ride, most at the Roosevelt intersection, according to Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond, who said the department generally works very well with Critical Mass.
I rode with the remaining cyclists, leaving most of the police behind. We doubled back up Halsted, turned right on Lake Street, and, with little fanfare, swarmed onto Michigan.
Lights twinkled red and gold in the velvety darkness, cars parted to let me ride like a conquering hero up the Magnificent Mile, and for the first time I was one with the crowd, knowing, by instinct as much as anything, where it was going. My rented bike had to be returned by 10, so I regretfully peeled off at Ontario, sweaty and famished. I ate the tired bologna sandwich I had in my backpack, and it tasted like filet mignon. My lukewarm bottled water was as refreshing as a sip from an icy mountain stream.
I stood among the glittering cathedrals of consumer culture — Burberry, Neiman Marcus, Escada — and, for once, I didn’t want a single thing.
Except to get back on a bike, and to do this again. Really, really soon.
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Glossary
Critical Mass: Officially, a monthly bike “celebration” that originated in San Francisco, and has occurred in hundreds of cities and towns worldwide; in practice, a street rally that disrupts motor vehicle traffic.
Cork: Block a road so the Mass can move forward undivided by car traffic; often done by standing in the street with your bike at your side.
Chicago holdup: A move in which Massers lift their bikes over their heads in a gesture of solidarity, defiance or spontaneous joy.
Grand Finale: The campaign by a few insiders to make the 10th anniversary ride on Sept. 28 the last citywide Critical Mass. Many Critical Massers say it’s a publicity stunt or a hoax.
Delay Plaza: Daley Plaza, where the citywide Critical Mass starts.
Xerocracy: Rule by Xerox. Anyone can make a route map, pass it out and campaign for it when a vote is held at the Mass.
Sources: ChicagoCriticalMass.org; www.Critical-Mass.org; interviews with local Massers Steven Lane, Payton Chung, John Greenfield and Michael Burton.
