Critical Mass bike ride video online

A lot has been reported and written about the monthly Critical Mass bike rides in New York City, where city officials are still smarting over mass bicycle protests during the Republican National Convention in 2004. The police say cyclists need a parade permit or face arrest, an advocacy group has been muzzled, and bicycles are confiscated.

The New York Times Magazine weighed in earlier this month with a piece about Critical Mass, asking whether it “has squandered its fame: instead of converting any public sympathy into specific improvements for New York cyclists, it has simply become known for defiance and arrests.”

It's all very contentious, but it all should be fun too. I've picked up some images off of Flickr that show Critical Mass bike rides in Atlanta (above), New York City (right), and Austin (below) where people seem to be enjoying themselves. They don't look like urban anarchists to me.

A video about San Francisco's Critical Mass bike ride is available online at the Current TV website. Apparently if enough people vote for this four-minute video, it will be broadcast on Current TV, the Al Gore television product.

The video contains an interesting comment from one participant: “A bicycle is a toy. A car is a weapon of mass destruction.”

That might be true in terms of their relative sizes. But as a commenter at the Gristmill pointed out:

“Bikes aren't toys. That's a logical fallacy. Kids ride bikes. Kids play with toys. Ergo, bikes = toys. Wrong. Read some John Forrester for more on vehicular cycling and the toy bike syndrome. A bike is weapon of mass destruction. It kills fascists, just like Pete Seeger's banjo.”

There's also a documentary, “Still We Ride,” about the bicycle protests during the RNC in NYC. A trailer can be found at the website.