Category: Action Reports

While there was a notable absence of police on the Sep­tem­ber Crit­i­cal Mass ride in Lon­don, we did have one unpleas­ant encounter with a very aggres­sive group of offi­cers from the TSG unit.

Trav­el­ling between Vic­to­ria Street and Buck­ing­ham Palace Road on Fri­day night, we ran into a van load of police dressed in over­alls, fleeces and base­ball caps. Their van was an odd sil­ver grey colour and appar­ent­ly was not equipped with a siren or flash­ing lights.

To com­pen­sate for their lack of ade­quate appa­ra­tus the offi­cers, led by # SX 836, attempt­ed to force their way through the mass by knock­ing rid­ers to the ground, and drag­ging oth­ers to the side of the road and dump­ing them on the pave­ment.

At one point SX 836 encour­aged dri­vers of oth­er vehi­cles to ram the mass, telling them “Just dri­ve at them, they’ll get out of the way!” despite the fact that we were all in the mid­dle of a traf­fic jam at the time. Anoth­er offi­cer involved whose num­ber I man­aged to note down was QA 232.

Pho­tos::
http://18hz.deid.net/2008/septembermass/vikings03im.jpg
http://18hz.deid.net/2008/septembermass/vikings01im.jpg

High­er res­o­lu­tion ver­sions of my pho­tos can be fund at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29703759@N08/sets/72157607617808713/

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One hel­l­l­l­ll of a mass (lon­don)

crit­i­cal mass lon­don | 01.10.2008 23:33 | Cli­mate Chaos | Lon­don
And there’s plen­ty more dra­ma to come …

I got out of work at about half past five, so i came down to the south bank ear­ly; the tide was out, so i spent a while strolling on the beach of the Thames. It’s an amaz­ing place — a beach in the mid­dle of a city of sev­en mil­lion peo­ple, and desert­ed except for me and two or three oth­ers. Like a rub­bly, silty secret gar­den.

Back up on ground lev­el, we once again set off a good few ticks after sev­en. Boo hiss. But at least we went through the Kingsway under­pass!

But — shock hor­ror! — with no cops. I did­n’t see a sin­gle poli­ceper­son accom­pa­ny­ing the ride — did my eyes deceive me? How could this be? Any­body know? We did have the cycling ambu­lance­man with us, though.

I’m very pleased to say that, as far as i could tell, the mass ran like clock­work. We kept togeth­er (most­ly — we split into a fast and a slow pack after Buck­ing­ham Palace, and i bounced between the two for a bit), we corked — we even let pedes­tri­ans through! Bril­liant! Pats on backs all round!

Although one thing that was evi­dent was much more aggres­sion from dri­vers, par­tic­u­lar­ly black cab dri­vers. Recent­ly, we’ve always had cop­pers around, and cab­bies have behaved them­selves. Tonight, though, their basic feroc­i­ty was ful­ly in evi­dence. There were two main instances of this that i saw.

The first was on High Hol­born, at the junc­tion where i spoke to the ambu­lance­man — this was why i was stopped. The mass was com­ing along from the east; i think the advance bulk had passed through, and then was a thin­ner stream of us com­ing along behind. A black cab was sat in Grape Street (i think — i’m look­ing at a map here; one of the side streets off on the north, just before the junc­tion), and i imag­ine had been wait­ing a while for the mass to pass. When it thinned out, he took his chance (we had­n’t corked him), and came out onto High Hol­born, turn­ing right, and stay­ing in the right­mos lane. Fifty metres ahead of him was a red light at the junc­tion. Less than fifty metres ahead of him was a mass­er, rid­ing slow­ly. The cab dri­ver drove less slow­ly — he drove right up to with­in inch­es of the mass­er, tail­gat­ed him for ten metres or so, and then quite delib­er­ate­ly drove straight into the back of him. The guy went down, the cab stopped, and a crowd of us clot­ted around the scene. Luck­i­ly, the guy was­n’t hurt.

I was to the left of this, in the sec­ond or third lane over, and a lit­tle way behind the cab; i saw every­thing hap­pen right in front of me. It was quite obvi­ous that the cab dri­ver did it delib­er­ate­ly: the mass­er was rid­ing at a con­stant speed, and the dri­ver accel­er­at­ed, hit­ting him. he had dri­ven to with­in inch­es of him, which is sim­ply not a safe way to dri­ve.

So, we made sure the taxi was­n’t going any­where, took pho­tos of the scene, reg­is­tra­tion plate, dri­ver, etc, and some of us who had seen it gave the guy our details. The cab­bie was­n’t giv­ing his details, though. Some­one called the police, and after a while our friends in blue duly turned up and did their best to work every­one up into a froth­ing rage. Do cops get train­ing in deal­ing with angry pun­ters (oth­er than with a trun­cheon)? Because these guys were to defus­ing con­fronta­tions as Guy Fawkes was to the bomb squad. Any­way, even­tu­al­ly, ques­tions were asked, details were record­ed and exchanged, and the lead cop­per declared that he was record­ing this as a no-injury col­li­sion, and they weren’t going to fol­low it up. Appar­ent­ly delib­er­ate­ly dri­ving into a cyclist does­n’t count as care­less dri­ving or any­thing. He came out with, essen­tial­ly, the usu­al crap about ‘our word against his’. Dur­ing this i had a long chat with the oth­er cop­per, who seemed very nice when he was­n’t try­ing to start a fight, but com­plete­ly clue­less about cycling, and indeed road safe­ty gen­er­al­ly. Still, i’m sure if i want­ed an elec­tri­cian shot dead, he’d be just my man.

I also talked to the mass­er who was hit, his two friends, and a couri­er­ish guy who also stopped. I did­n’t quite get the vic­tim’s name. Nice lad. As i said, he was­n’t hurt, but his back wheel went under the cab’s, and was pret­ty bent. I had a look at it: the hub looked like it should be okay, and the tyre and tube should be fine, but he’s going to need a new rim, (it was a Bon­trager, the poor thing!) spokes, and brake disc. Basi­cal­ly, he’s going to need a new wheel. I could­n’t see any dam­age to the stays, mech, etc, but he needs to take it to a bike shop to get it checked out. He’s got the cab­bie’s insur­ance details; he did­n’t real­ly seem to under­stand about how insur­ance works, but i’m sure he knows some­one who does.

I sug­gest­ed we bend the wheel back into shape so he could at least roll the bike home, so we found a fence and did a bit of ghet­to tru­ing — an essen­tial urban cycling skill, and the sec­ond time i’ve had to do it on a mass! He and a friend set off walk­ing for King’s Cross to catch a train home. I sin­cere­ly hope he did­n’t decide to try and ride — he had rather a touch of teenage invin­ci­bil­i­ty, so i wor­ry he might have.

Any­way, one of his friends had received a sig­nal that the rest of the mass was at Buck­ing­ham palace, so he, the couri­er­ish guy and i set off. We got there a few min­utes before the mass set off again — i just had time to wish Des Kay well with the Lords and ride a lap round the top of the Vic­to­ria Memo­r­i­al.

After that, we start­ed to get spread out, between the main body at the front and a long tail of slow rid­ers. I’m a speed­ster myself, so i was half tempt­ed to go a bit sheep­dog on them and get them mov­ing, but i end­ed up bounc­ing back and forth — going for­ward, help­ing cork or just wait­ing, and being caught up.

Taxi inci­dent num­ber two came as we rode down Theobald’s road. A stream of traf­fic was try­ing to come in from the right, i think from Red Lion Street (again, i’m look­ing at a map and guess­ing), and had been corked. There were only a few peo­ple there, so i looped back and joined them.

At the front of the queue was a taxi dri­ver. He was­n’t very hap­py about being stopped, and insist­ed we move. We did­n’t, of course — the mass was still pass­ing. He got rather upset, and start­ed shout­ing. He then start­ed edg­ing his taxi for­ward — he went from being a foot away from us to actu­al­ly press­ing his right fend­er into my leg and start­ing to push me over; there was anoth­er guy beside me, and a few peo­ple around us, and we made it clear we weren’t going any­where until the mass had passed. It did, and i was set to go — but he was still press­ing into my leg, which meant i actu­al­ly could­n’t get on my bike and move off. If i had, and he’d edged for­ward any fur­ther, i would have gone straight under him. Bit of an impasse, cue much shout­ing.

Even­tu­al­ly, he stopped his engine, got out of his cab, and came up to me and tried to shove my bike out of the way. Because he’d stopped, i was actu­al­ly able to move, and was quite hap­py to do so, so in a way, his move was quite suc­cess­ful! There was a bit more shout­ing, with nei­ther side real­ly want­i­ng to let the oth­er have the last word (although i was silent — i just want­ed to get home and have my din­ner), and a dis­gust­ing drunk old fat man walked over and start­ed shout­ing and shov­ing a lady mass­er about, but even­tu­al­ly we dis­en­tan­gled our­selves and rode on.

By this point, i was get­ting tired and hun­gry, our num­bers were down, and i decid­ed to call it a night. We hit the junc­tion with Rose­bery Avenue, where i turn left. The mass default­ed to head­ing straight on, but a few peo­ple were shout­ing to go left: i men­tioned that i was in favour of that because i want­ed to go home; the girl beside me said she want­ed to go left because she want­ed some dori­tos, which i found quite puz­zling.

It was only after i’d sped away into the night that i realised she’d said ‘bur­ri­tos’, and must have been refer­ring to the real­ly good lit­tle bur­ri­to place at Angel. I could have kicked myself, because i could real­ly have gone for a bur­ri­to right then.

And that, as they say, is that.

http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cm-london
http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/

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I Bike MCR presents a week long series of cycling events and activ­i­ties to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle from 6th-12th Octo­ber 2008

I Bike MCR is a grass­roots vol­un­tary group where every­one gives their time and skills for free. We organ­ise events that aim to pro­mote cycling and to build a strong sup­port­ive cycling com­mi­u­ni­ty in MCR. We do this in our own spare time because we believe that giv­ing our time to make a change will be worth it.

It will be a free fes­ti­val in order to make it acces­si­ble to every­one no mat­ter their eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. We will, how­ev­er, ask for dona­tions to go to help­ing the I Bike MCR cycle cam­paign, you can give mon­ey or time please look here for info:
http://www.ibikemcr.org.uk/minihelp.htm

MINI FESTIVAL TIMETABLE
Every week-day morn­ing we will be hav­ing a group ride from Owen’s Park in Fal­low­field down Oxford Road to the Uni­ver­si­ties so that stu­dents can meet each oth­er and gain con­fi­dence by cycling in togeth­er as a group.

Meet in the carpark area of Owens Park (map)
8.15am, we’ll leave at 8.30am PROMPT to get into uni at 8.45am
We hope this will con­tin­ue after the week fes­ti­val is over.

Mon­day 6th Octo­ber
7.30pm Coun­cil Cham­bers Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty
Bicy­cle Film Night

Tues­day 7th Octo­ber
Meet 6pm Out­side Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty refec­to­ry
A bicy­cle tour around our city, tak­ing you to the nicest parks, the best bike shops, cool places to hang out, the best cycle routes, nice land­marks and nice pubs.

Wednes­day 8th Octo­ber
2pm — 5pm Email info@ibikemcr.org.uk to book a place
FREE Bicy­cle Con­fi­dence lessons. Book asap to reserve a place.
No mat­ter whether you need some tips on how to deal with a par­tic­u­lar junc­tion or how to ride one hand­ed you can ben­e­fit from a bike con­fi­dence class with a qual­i­fied cycling instruc­tor.

7pm Bas­ket­ball courts in Platt Fields Park
The Spokes Bicy­cle Dance Troupe,
The all woman Spokes bike dance troupe have an open prac­tice to encour­age more bike lov­ing women to get involved and join them in danc­ing with their bikes to encour­age more women and girls to cycle.

Thurs­day 9th Octo­ber
6pm Whit­worth Park, Den­mark Road
Bicy­cle Polo Prac­tice. We will teach new­com­ers how to play this exhil­a­rat­ing and fun sport.

Fri­day 10th Octo­ber
Reg­is­ter at 6pm, Ride at 7pm…
Meet in the carpark behind the Sand­bar, Grosvenor Street (map)
I Bike MCR Super­heroes Trea­sure­cat.
No mat­ter what bike you’re on or how well you know the city you can take part (and have a chance to win!) in this trea­sure hunt on bicy­cles.

* Dress as a super­hero for more points..go all out!
* Ride as a dynam­ic duo, both peo­ple must be present at each check­point but only one needs to do the task (if you can’t find a part­ner before­hand, don’t wor­ry you’re sure to find one on the night)
* With a final sprint to see which out of your pair is the super­hero and which is the side­kick
* If the phone rings answer it. You may get a secret mis­sion to win more points, then choose if you want to go for fastest time or most points
* Prizes for a wide vari­ety of things NOT JUST FASTEST. inc.Team back at any time with the most points, Win­ner of the final sprint, Best cos­tume and loads more…So it’s open for any­one to win a prize no mat­ter how lit­tle you know the city or how fast you can ride

Amaz­ing prizes from:
Cant­goslo
Baga­boo
Seag­ull Bags
HK Fixed
Knog
Edin­burgh Bicy­cle Co-oper­a­tive
Bicy­cle Bou­tique

Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber
Noon at Pic­cadil­ly train sta­tion
or 1.30pm at Delamere For­est Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre
Moun­tain bik­ing in Delamere For­est
(you can hire moun­tain bikes there)

8pm The Sand­bar Grosvenor Street (map)
Moon­light Ride: a 3 hour cir­cu­lar ride into the night with a pub stop.

Sun­day 12th Octo­ber
Noon Meet Sains­bury’s Carpark, off Wilm­slow Road, Fal­low­field
A ride along one of Man­ches­ter’s nicest off road cycle routes, the Fal­low­field Loop, where we will stop off to help cre­ate a mur­al depict­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of the bicy­cle. Every­one wel­come to get involved mak­ing the Fal­low­field Loop brighter and fun. Bring brush­es, tat­ty clothes, paints and lots of enthu­si­asm (don’t wor­ry if you not that artis­tic we’ll find some way for you to help!)

info@ibikemcr.org.uk
http://ibikemcr.org.uk/

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The 4th South Lon­don crit­i­cal mass bike ride is this fri­day and every first fri­day of the month.

Come and lib­er­ate the streets of south lon­don, tak­ing the mass to the mass­es not just to shoppers,tourists and irate cab­bies. Meet 6.30pm out­side Peck­ham Library,off Peck­ham High Street.

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Big Turnout for Liv­er­pool Crit­i­cal Mass

This mon­th’s crit­i­cal mass was big­ger than ever. The ride end­ed at Next To Nowhere (social cen­tre) where the rid­ers got free refresh­ments and saw a film.

Dozens of cyclists of all ages and back­grounds, from stu­dents to social work­ers, turned out. They includ­ed a vis­i­tor who has recent­ly come from New Zealand and took part in crit­i­cal mass rides there.

After doing a tour around the city cen­tre they stopped at the social cen­tre, where they were giv­en free soup and cakes, and watched a film show­ing the his­to­ry of how the Crit­i­cal Mass rides start­ed in San Fran­cis­co in 1993. The rides in that city grew to thou­sands-strong, and worked beau­ti­ful­ly through col­lec­tive organ­i­sa­tion, with­out com­mit­tees or lead­ers. They had the effect of caus­ing more peo­ple to com­mute by bicy­cle instead of car, and to use the bicy­cle as their nor­mal trans­port. This was dis­rupt­ed when the San Fran­cis­co police decid­ed the cyclists need­ed to be “organ­ised” and made to fol­low offi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed routes. Ulti­mate­ly, how­ev­er, the cyclists decid­ed they did­n’t want or need to be organ­ised.

Liv­er­pool Crit­i­cal Mass has not so far had any police inter­fer­ence, and is suc­cess­ful­ly enabling cyclists to use the roads safe­ly, and assert their right to be recog­nised as road users. But as one cyclist said, “If the police want­ed to organ­ise us — how? There are no lead­ers and no-one’s in charge. There’s just a bunch of cyclists who hap­pen coin­ci­den­tal­ly to turn up at the Chi­nese arch on the sec­ond Fri­day of the month, and go for a ride togeth­er.”

A bunch of cyclists may, coin­ci­den­tal­ly, be at the Chi­nese arch on Nel­son Street at 6pm on 12th Novem­ber and 15th Decem­ber. They would wel­come any-one who wants to turn up and ride along with them.