Chicago Boyz: Despite The A-Holes, Miami Critical Mass Is Decent

After spending a paragraph slamming Critical Mass participants...

These guys always seemed to be a bunch of juvenile, self-righteous assholes who enjoy the fruits of a modern transportation system while pretending to be above it all with their bicycles and simpleminded cultural leftism. The core of the Critical Mass experience are the massive traffic-fouling group bike rides on urban streets. By now CM is mainstream and tolerated by the powers that be with, I assume, the understanding that any daring transgressions will be restricted to off-peak hours. So it becomes just another annoying street event like the parades and art fairs and filming the hot TV show that are given dispensation to block traffic and inconvenience drivers.

...Jonathan Gewirtz, Miami photographer and contributor to the extreme right wing blog, Chicago Boyz,  finds out that gee, Miami's Critical Mass isn't that bad, despite the a**holes...

Once the ride really gets going it is a lot of fun. You ride through interesting neighborhoods including some that you might avoid if alone — there is safety in numbers. A lot of the fun comes from not having to worry (much) about auto traffic. The mass of riders fills streets and volunteer assholes engage in traffic “corking” to intimidate drivers at intersections. The police assist in some places. The car/bike interactions seem less tense than you might expect, but it also seems like maybe a good idea to stay towards the middle of the crowd where encounters with angry motorists are less likely. Also, if you stay in the main crowd you get to ride with the pedicab with purple lights and boom box, the guy with the sideways bike and other entertaining fauna.

I'm not sure how Jonathan manages to lower himself to the low level of these Miami Critical Mass riders, but given that they're such asshats, I'm thinking that he doesn't have to travel too far.



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