Critical Mass: Southbound

So while most of us will still be fuming from the post I put up earlier today we can still appreciate the fact that our own (albeit much smaller, yet growing) Critical Mass was celebrated this past Friday with little police fanfare.

The crew met up for the standard pre-ride libations and found the riverfront well flooded...

We sat and watched the river race by full of debris from upstream and waited for it to wash away Will's ride...

After a little while we headed over to the park and gathered our ranks.

Click "Read More" because there is much more after the break!!!

The weather was gorgeous and we looked to have the solid 30+ riders we have averaged the past couple months (tell your friends folks we'd love to see more!)

Joe agrees!


So does Ben!

After everyone was assembled we headed South out of Bushnell Park onto Elm St. and into Pulaski Circle. Its always fun to do things on your bike that people only usually do in cars so it was inevitable that the crew would have a good roundabout in the rotary...

Around...


And around...


And around...

Until we took a quick glimpse at the street signs. Lets see, New York, New Haven, Springfield, no thanks. The Bushnell, Hartford Hospital, and Trinity, yes please.


We headed down Hudson St. Turned onto Jefferson, and then cut across to Maple Ave.

When I first saw this shot I thought Medusa was chasing me but realized through the blurriness that it was only T.J. looking super mean on the tandem.

After rolling down Maple Ave. we turned onto Franklin and made our way through the South End...

Your standard over-the-shoulder-shot (yes mom I wore my helmet)...

And what this? A bike lane?


I do appreciate the attempt but the whole lack of connectivity of Hartford's bikeways is at times frustrating. We headed down Franklin Ave. until we neared the Hartford line where we turned onto Victoria Rd. This little residential street headed straight into Goodwin Park and was lined with people who waved and honked cheerfully as we passed.




After heading down Victoria we cruised through Goodwin Park (check another Hartford Park off the list)...



We promised blurry pics... I think im just moving so fast the camera can't pick it up.

After departing Goodwin Park we turned South on Maple Ave. and headed into Cedar Hill Cemetery.


Its a gorgeous cemetery equal in aesthetics to any of Hartford's parks.

Here is Ben soaking in the views of the pond.


Dead people. Not a bad final resting spot (if your views are in accordance with this belief).

We rode around Cedar Hill for a bit traversing up and down the rolling hills. The living parted from the dead and we cut through Trinity...


and popped out on Broad St...


One of my favorite parts of Critical Mass is getting a bunch of poeple into parts of the city that they might otherwise never get to go to. As such, I loved seeing this picture of the crew at the intersection of Park and Broad...


We headed back towards Bushnell park and caught a glimse of a group taking wedding photos, nice spot!


And finally cruised under our own Arc de triomphe.


Par usual post-ride drinks were held at a local watering hole which always appeals to the anti-auto, biking crowd...

While I cant support their beer choice, I like their argument.

We even caught a glimpse of two Hartford bike cops NOT riding on the sidewalk but rather in the middle of the road, perhaps carrying out their own mini-crit. I think they were jealous.


After a few beers Kenny's bike, which hadn't been locked, took off and climbed into a tree. we were kind enough to throw a u-lock on it so it would attempt any other shenanigans.


He explained that this happens a lot and that we shouldn't worry about it. We tossed back a couple more beers and faded on our individual ways into the night. See you all next month!

Read more!

Police Brutality

So waking up this morning I had planned on finally posting all the pics and beta from Critical Mass this past Friday only to come across this article. As many of you know NYC's Critical Mass and its barbarous police force have increasingly clashed over the event and it has gotten to the point where inclusion in the ride is grounds for immediate and unquestioned arrest. As the article states, however, and as the Youtube video shows, these hosilities are also manifested as physical violence on the part of police. As can be seen in the video a cyclist participating in this Friday's ride was selected from the crowd and bodychecked from his bike onto the sidewalk and immediately arrested. The brutal calm in the officer's behavior is enough to make one sick.

On a positive note this singluar event just happened to be captured on camera and a sliver of justice was served as the officer was "stripped of his badge and gun." The article notes, however, that the officer remained on police duty relegated to desk work most likely until this event falls out of media attention. As of publication the charges to the cyclist still stand. Read more!

Get out and ride somewhere!

The beatbikeblog’s day by day, play by play calendar for a mad busy week of great events. Wow. Summer is in full MF’n effect! Lots going on, great rides, parties, food and people. Check it:

Tuesday

Bicycle Commuting Clinic
July 22, 2008, 7:00 to 8:00 PM REI West Hartford
Want to refresh the basics of commuting on your bicycle. Enjoy the
summer weather and reduce the amount you drive your car by commuting to
work and around town on your bicycle! This July 22nd from 7-8pm will be
reviewing safety, equipment, rules of the road, defensive riding, and
how to pick an appropriate commuting route with Central Connecticut
Bicycle Alliance member Dave Enos. Please join us for this very
important clinic that is geared to keeping you safe on the roads.
Space is limited please call REI customer service to reserve your spot today
860-233-2211. This clinic is free and open to the public.Bike Commuter Clinic


Wednesday

Critical Splash @ Goodwin Park Pool 6-7:45pm
Julie sez, “Celebrate adult swim hours and assert our adult swimmers’ rights!”
Organized by Julie from liveinhartford.com cool off, swim laps, chit, chat, enjoy the hot summer night with some new and old friends. There’s no charge and be prepared to hand over all belongings to an attendant of the storage area.
More Details here!


Thursday

Farmers’ Market @ Billings Forge 11am – 2pm
Broad St. 2 buildings south of Capitol Ave.
buy fresh! buy local! Corn, pies. fruits, meats, eggs, cheese,
and live music too!
Farmers' Market at Billings Forge

Friday

Bike to Work @ the Old State House 7am – 9am
A free monthly breakfast organized by the CCBA for bike commuters in the middle of downtown that attracts about 100 people. Wake up with coffee, drink some juice, make a bagel or eat some fruit. There’s always a great spread and lots of mingling, smiling and stories to share. There’s a raffle too with great prizes like tents, sleeping bags and other goodies. Don’t forget to grab some flyers, stickers and schwag.
This month’s sponsored by Healthy Gears
Bike to Work

Critical Mass. meet at 5:30pm, Bushnell Park Carousel.
It’s the last Friday of the month! Celebrate with riders around the world for this global, grassroots celebration. Join a hundred of your newest friends on a ride around the city at a chill pace for about an hour and a half. Check old posts to see past rides. This summer’s rides have been wonderful, especially last month’s meandering through Keney Park.
Anything can happen!
http://critical-mass.info/

Saturday

Wear Yer Rubbers! alleycat race.
5:30pm register for race, volunteer for checkpoints @ Bushnell Park Carousel.
6:00pm race starts
This will not be a short, fast race; expect to pedal fast and long!
prizes include: messenger bags from Manhattan Portage, Ghostship clothing, schwag, condoms, water bottles, and special love for DFL.
race ends/afterparty backyard 364 Laurel st.

Bike Everywhere! to Bloomfield
Meet at Elizabeth Park at high noon and seek out some lunch. Then pedal to Bloomfield to tour to the Hooker Brewery and sample some tasty beverages. The tour costs $5. see links for more info.
Bike Everywhere!


LoRes Fest 3.0
A whirlwind weekend of community video fun in Connecticut’s Capital City.
Make your own short video in Hartford! In 24 hours! No experience or equipment needed. Watch yours and other LoRes videos at the 3rd Annual Hartford InternationalFilm Festival in November!

Friday, July 25 to Sunday, July 27 LoRes Fest ‘08 Headquarters: Red Rock Tavern, 369 Capitol Avenue, Hartford. Registration- $50 ($60 after July 23)-includes video equipment and LoRes Fest ’08 DVD

For more information and to register contact info@capitolcinemacollective.org or (860) 830-6222.

don't read more...ride more! Read more!

"Heeeeey…..White People?!??" Critical Mass June 2008

The sweet, light rain really cooled things off a bit before blue skies began appearing along with the sun. Mother Nature appears to be down with the ride, good lookin’ out! The beat crew met up after work by the river to trade flyers, brews and bullshit a bit. We arrived at the Carousel to 20 people milling about; chillin’, meetin’, greetin’, hydratin’ and wrenchin’.


There was a floor pump courtesy of Dave and a few bikes were getting tubes swapped out and hubs debated. Rick! Another flat dude!?!?!? Super cool to see everyone helping each other out and sharing beta. Caresse's hands are blurry fast when she's working on a bike! Dang! Breck seems to be trying to pump with Jedi mind tricks whilst Dave handles the valves! Also super cool to see a banana seat! I really should have taken more photos, but this ride was just too much fun.

A few more riders arrived. Brendan returned from the portapotty. And then my dream came true… Critical Mass left for Keney Park! Woo-haa! There are a lot of lights between Bushnell Park and getting’ onto Main Street and we worked out the kinks of dealing with traffic lights. We quickly forked left on to Albany Avenue.


Yep, we took The Avenue!



Most everyone cheered and yelled as much as we cheered and yelled. One 'round the way dude looked up in honest bewilderment and a smile, “heeeeyyy…White People?!??!” We took a right onto Woodland and left on Greenfield. I corked the Woodland/Greenfield intersection and had a great conversation with a family in a mini-van, waiting at the green light for the bicycles to pass through safely as a group. I thanked them for waiting and keeping people safe and talked about the ride. I invited them to come next month and they seemed interested in coming! Right on! I saw them two more times with the pops giving us the thumbs up out the window. They were following us! I had a great time talking to drivers all along the ride and most were receptive, patient and super nice. The drivers of the North End were much friendlier than the drivers we encountered on last month's ride into West Hartford!


The ride through Keney Park was a mix of roads and car-free greenway. We saw the skyline of Hartford overlooking lush grass meadows, passed through dense forest and pedaled alongside a golf course. This is a great park. I always love spending time here on a road bike or exploring trails on mountain bikes. We didn't pass the pond and fountain though...this time.

We exited onto Rt. 159 and pedaled south on North Main, Windsor Street, left over the railroad tracks and crossed Weston Street; entering into the mess of traffic due to Pearl Jam and some jack-ass drivers. We got onto the riverfront via Riverside Park and continued south along the river to the Colt Building and Colt Park. Ahhh...riding along the river is always a good idea!


We passed the remains of the Virgin Mary Shrine and returned to Bushnell Park on Wethersfield Avenue.

more funny photos after the jump from the afterparty that happened afterwards, Read More!



After regrouping at the park the group split a few ways. We had already lost a few people needin’ to get to the concert and a few chilled in the park for a bit. A group stayed in the park and went to the Bushnell Park Café and another to Kenney’s (Red Rock Tavern) a few minutes away on Cap Ave. There’s some serious mileage of iron patio fence there, perfect for bike locks. The always-friendly Donnie keeps the show runnin’ smoothly and really makes sure everyone’s always got a smile on their face.


Check the reflection of the view of the skyline from our patio seats!


Check it. The rule of three people in a photo = weird shit continues!


I have absolutely no idea what the hell I am doing. Hi Joey Barber! I owe you a bell!


Brendan is a triceritops! And i just realized i never spelllchecked this before posting.

We really stepped things up on this ride as far as corking and Joel enjoyed sweeping and ensuring no one was left behind. Many others stepped up too! Thanks to everyone for making it such a great ride.


Read more!

Idiots

I don't know why this image quality is so bad, nor do I know why I decided to take a picture of my bike in front prayer flags. I hope no one makes fun of me.

I am angry. Some asshole stole the bag and light off the back of my bike last night when it was locked up in Will's back yard. If you see someone with a red light and a black Gary Fisher bag, which looks less pixelized than in this picture, do something not nice to them.

That aside, Critical Mass was a lot of fun last night. It actually kind of felt like a bike ride instead of a mass of people standing around confused at stop lights.
Read more!

7 days to Critical Mass

Next friday! Meet at Bushnell Park 5:30pm. Leave about 6ish.

Print, copy, hand out! Make yer own. Make it happen!

don't "Read More" Read more!

Blog post and video from NYC Critical Mass

BikeBlog (NYC) has a great post about the May Critical Mass in NYC. Reverend Al Sharpton showed up and either made a great, quick speech or hi-jacked critical mass; depending on how you see it. There's some great ideas to think about in the post, especially as the Beat's mass grows and has to deal with new issues and differing opinions on how things should go and what the ride is about.

There's some interesting twists and turns to the NYC story and i think if he had done a few things differently, he would have been embraced; but sending out press releases saying he was working with the bicyclists for a "slowdown" protest....not cool! Not true. We should all be united, i'm down with that, but you can't unite when you also alienate and divide by saying things that aren't true. Then we all loose and divided we fall.

Here's the LINK to the post. Give it a good read and definetly watch Chris Ryan's video.

I also have to give mad props to both BikeBlog(Michael Green) and Chris Ryan for lots of great reading, videos and inspiration. Its a great site! Check it often. Thanks guys!

Please also know, the NYC CritMass has had a long(and documented) history of serious police harrassment since the 2004 Republican National Convention when some serious stuff went down. Much serious stuff has happened since then as well. Google it and check it out. Lots of videos and posts from the two guys above.

More Critical Mass Reading
CM Tickets

Critcal-Mass.info

Team Spider

Wikipedia


Check this movie out! Ted White makes some great films. i got many great quotes for my flyers by the original organizers in their interviews.
We're Not Blocking Traffic, We Are Traffic

Eastern Mountain Sports in West Hartford will be showing the above movie and a second bicycing movie on Friday, July 18th. I'm not sure if the second movie will be Return of the Scorcher or a documentry about the August 2004 CM in NYC with the RNC crackdown.


There isn't more to read,
so click it, but you'll get no ticket!
(i have no idea what that means) Read more!

Movie Night Tonight! Free! Critical Mass movies.

Critical Mass Movie Night at Alchemy/The Green Vibration
The CCBA Bike Everywhere Program and Alchemy Present:

Movie Night tonight at 7pm.

FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! even i can afford it!

we're showing three short movies about Critical Mass.

Join us in celebration of the Bike to Work Week (May 12th - 15th) sponsored by the Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance

The movies being shown:

We Are Traffic (1999, 50 min.) chronicles the history of the Critical Mass bicycle movement, now a monthly ritual in over 100 different cities in 14 different countries since its genesis in San Francisco in 1992. The movie tracks this leaderless, grassroots movement, which has brought together complete strangers in an exuberant, commercial-free public space filled with creativity and unpredictability.


Return of the Scorcher (1992, 28 min.) discovers an inspired and evolving bicycle renaissance. Filled with inspiring scenes of bike use filmed in China, The Netherlands, Denmark and the USA, this is the movie that gave us the term "Critical Mass".


Still We Ride! (2005, 37 min.) This action-packed documentary is a glimpse into the shocking showdown between the monthly Critical Mass bike ride and New York City police in the months after the Republican National Convention in August 2004.


http://www. thegreenvibration. com/calendar/fridayfreefilmbike/

www. beatbikeblog. blogspot. com
riding in hartford
And here is the rest of it. Read more!

Critical Mass and Afterparty April 2008

Meet at the Bushnell Park Carousel at 5:30, last Friday of every month.

Brendan and I left the Hook & Ladder happy hour at 6pm and arrived early to the meeting spot. Some time later, about 18ish of us left the park and spun through the traffic circle heading to the south end. Cars weren’t really hatin’ on us too much, but a few groups of people were real assholes. One group of about a dozen latino boys hanging out on a porch at the beginning of Maple went wild talkin’ shit about getting BB guns and shooting at us. They were way too excited and enthusiastic! I think they were trying to scare us, but it was more sad and depressing than anything else. A few other groups just yelled dumb shit, but not much.


On a brighter note, there were the usual cheers and the random round-the-way person joining us for a short bit. Kids waved and pointed, we waved back and woo-haa'd!Other peoople shouted happily and we all had a good, but kinda short ride.

Hopefully the mass will continue to grow and someday become critical! I also wish we rode longer, a bunch of people were ready to continue on. Keney Park woulda been nice. Maybe next month the ride will grow bigger and longer and lots of people will enjoy a great ride!

After the ride, people and groups split up with a bulk of people planning to converge on Evergreen for a post party and Shane’s slow race. A bunch of us headed over to Kenny’s for a few pitchers and some beer to go from the bodega across the street. There was also a stop at my spot for whiskey and greens. Gotta get that roughage! We finally arrived at Evergreen to a small fire that much later would be bigger and have people hopping 180’s over it.


here's a sexy pic of footdown with a fire and holes in the ground. i think this was somehow safer than later in the parking lot next door!



I remember playing footdown pedaling around the fire avoiding holes and soft dirt and later the circle moved to the parking lot. TJ ended up with more dollar bills than a stripper, but I think Shawn out rode him backwards. I think. I dunno; it was late, it was dark, and alcohol is a hell of a drug! The slow race did finally happen. Who won? I don’t freakin’ remember. I know I passed out a bunch chocolate chip cookies though.



TJ isn't riding towards the fire. he riding backwards towards the camera after hopping over the fire and bustin a 180! woo-haa! having a mountain bike, which all the fixies LOVED during footdown, allowed brendan to just ride rightthrough the freakin' fire!
Read more!