This is not to say that people who engage in dangerous activities ought not to be censured for doing so.   But as members of a group that is identified by the activity, “bicycling,” there is little we can do about people who bicycle dangerously, any more than the average driver can do much to stop red light runners and street racers.

Any questions?

Also, when you start out a comment about X by saying “I have no experience with X,” it leads the astute reader to wonder why you bothered commenting about it at all.

get casual cyclists to start feeling like a movement

people who hadn’t previously identified as “bicyclists”

I don’t want to feel like a movement, or identify as a ‘bicyclist’, (or be a part of ‘bike culture’) I just want to ride my bike, and for it to be considered nothing out of the ordinary.

I don’t have any direct experience of Critical Mass, but it does sound like it’s marginalising rather than normalising cycling.

Where I ride in Lodz, Poland, yes, there are rules. People who break them get yelled at. We post the route a good week before the event, have the city’s permission, are registered as an official demonstration, have police and city watch riding along on their own bikes, and it’s absolutely amazing.

Yes, we block traffic. It takes about ten minutes for the Mass to ride past. But public demonstrations, rallies, and protests ALWAYS block traffic and make noise. That’s the point! Our CM  blows the repeated ‘well, cyclists are a minority so there’s no need to spend any money on their infrastructure’ argument out of the water regularly, once a month. It does its job.

And the housing bubble burst, the start of a global economic depression, global warming warmed up, and George Bush got elected twice.

Same sort of causality in action.

Although, CM does attract an aggressive rider. If you want to change that, grab your friends and start doing it your way!

20 years ago, there seemed to be a mindset of “roads are for cars” that needed disrupting. Even before CM, I’ve had motorists throw things at me, swerve at me, shout “back on the sidewalk,” etc.  I think CM did a good job of exposing that it wasn’t just bike messengers and a few nutters who wanted to ride in the city, but rather a substantial and diverse group.  

Fast forward to the present, and things are a lot better for cyclists in SF and the US in general.  There are many, many more of us out there. There are bike lanes, facilities, and the civic government actually considers bicycles.  But, we have a public image problem. There are an extremely visible minority of cyclists who ride very badly. I’m not talking about Idaho Stops, but real red-light-blowing, wrong-side-of-the-street-riding recklessness.  There was recently a pedestrian death in SF where it seems likely that the cyclist who caused it was quite reckless. 

In 20 years, cyclists in SF have gone from being ignored to having a seat at the table.  As a community, we need to modulate our actions from getting ourselves noticed (which CM did quite well) to demonstrating that we deserve to have this seat (which we do).  Last year, I rode by a SF Bike Coalition Booth that was handing out free lights to commuters. Great!  I would like to see the next 20 years of CM characterized by an emphasis on education — educating cyclists on riding safely and courteously, educating motorists and pedestrians about what to expect from cyclists, and educating the community on how we can accomodate cyclists and pedestrians in what still is a very car-oriented streetscape.

I ride a lot and have commuted in Knoxville TN, Phoenix AZ, Santa Fe NM and Portland, OR for about 20 years. I ride with traffic and conduct myself as such. I have come through mostly unscathed, the altercations mostly verbal, so I claim some experience in the matter. The last reason I’ll give is CM denies the fact a cyclist can be just as bad or worse as a motorist. “Hey, I’m riding a bicycle! I can do no harm!” is a common theme in many a cyclist’s head and it’s just not true…

 I can not even count the number of times I’ve been flipped off as I nearly wreck trying to avoid a bicyclist running a stop light. It must happen at least once every time I drive in San Francisco.  

Pissing people off by this kind of behavior doesn’t endear you to anyone.

It’s true that there is some backlash from self-righteous motorists toward CM, but when I used to ride in the Bay Area around the time that CM got big, I didn’t notice a particular increase in jerky behavior on the part of motorists—it was pretty common to begin with.

What I have noticed in the intervening 20 years is a lot more bicycle infrastructure, and a lot more awareness of the rights of bicyclists to be on the road.   I wouldn’t want to claim that CM has been responsible for all of this, but I think it has played a major role, precisely because of it’s ability to get people who hadn’t previously identified as “bicyclists” to do so.

You can jam those laws where the sun don’t shine.

Luckily, where I live, cycling for transportation is nearly unheard of

That’s lucky, huh?

You can keep where you live. I’m happy to live in a city where this supposed scourge exists.