Critical Mass: The Mass ends here.
Critical Mass is incredibly fun. I wish I had gotten a chance to do it in San Francisco, but it tends toward anarchism there and rides are very hard to detect until they are already happening, even when you are a member of the sfcriticalmass listhost (I am). In that case all you get are random messages on Tuesdays wishing you a Happy Friday! and blabberings about a Critical Mass prom. Chicago works much differently. Rides are on the last Friday of every month, and each month several routes are proposed and one--or many--are followed, depending on which routes' champions are most enthusiastic. Today's enormous Mass (several hundred people were in attendance), for what many of my Critical Mass devotee friends was the first time in memory, was broken up by the Chicago police. Strangely, they were quite helpful in keeping us safe throughout most of the ride, holding back traffic and guiding confused riders back to the group. The ride began at Daley Plaza and headed a bit north to God knows where, east to the lakefront, west to Daley Plaza again, and then south (yay!). At Roosevelt, half the ride turned north and the rest of us kept going, raucously exploring the South Loop, riding through the center of Chinatown, and heading up to Greektown. We attempted to turn east, but found a veritable cavalry of city vehicles blocking us from entering the loop at Clinton and Randolph. After a brief scuffle between a biker and a cop and a bit of shouting, the group turned around and headed south again. On Clinton, some cops drove an ambulance through the crowd (somehow) and arrested people and seized bikes pretty much indiscriminately. After waiting around for ten minutes to see if the ride would recover, a loose confederacy of UChicago kids defected to Pilsen and took delicious, delicious refuge in Nuevo Leon and a case of Tecate. I'm definitely going again next month.