Last night, I was out riding my Specialized mountain bike for exercise (and fun) and as I was riding through Balboa Park, I saw San Diego's Critical Mass had just begun. I joined in immediately. It was my first Critical Mass ride.
Critical Mass is held the last Friday of every month, in cities all over the world, bicyclists in mass take to the streets, err... take over the streets they are riding on, to promote cycling.
We rode from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. We went from Balboa Park and headed north to and through Hillcrest, down a very steep hill into Mission Valley, over to Pacific Beach (west), rode south on Pacific Coast highway into downtown and then back (north) to Balboa Park.
I'd say there where 300 - 400 cyclists (or more?), most people were in their twenties and thirties, more guys than women (but there were many women), not too many biking helmets, many different types of bikes, and most bikes had lights. I met several people who were on their first ride and one guy was celebrating his third anniversary of riding in Critical Mass.
I have a helmet, riding gloves, lights and a butch storage bag that sits on a support that juts from the back of my seat post. I was in the middle of the pack for the first half the ride, then I moved forward (to almost the front of the pack) for the rest of the ride.
If you read about Critical Mass online it's defined as activist stand on the benefits and importance of bicycling (equality on the road with cars) or it's a spontaneous celebration of cyclists. I think people who rode last night had a mixture of both people.
When I rode last night, I first thought of this as an activist event and then I quickly realized it was just a hell of a lot of fun bicycling on streets with lots of other bicycling enthusiasts. The icing on the cake was when cars had to make way and usually stop for us
It was AWESOME!
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