Mass arrests 'Critical Mass' cycle ride during Olympics opening

[Arch]

God help us!

And outside London? (yes, I know, it's hard to believe, but such a place exists...)

 

[MissTillyFlop]

to be fair.......Chester is an awful place to cycle. Worse than York

I used to cycle there every Saturday as a kid on my sturdy archer 3 gear universal BSO to go and buy band tshirts from the tshirt shop. I nearly got killed pretty much every time!

 

[Arch]

to be fair.......Chester is an awful place to cycle. Worse than York

You can feck off too.

 

[middleagecyclist]

God help us!

And outside London? (yes, I know, it's hard to believe, but such a place exists...)

Greater Manchester is quite big

 

[theclaud]

Where I disagree with you is on whether CM have in any perceptible way improved my lot as a cyclist. I find that they have not.

There are those who disagree; you may be in that number. I find them to be buffoons. I may be wrong.

OT, but it's got to the point that this caveat on your posts isn't really necessary. You could switch it to your user title. You'd use up a bit less of the internet that way.

 

[Arch]

Greater Manchester is quite big

Yes, and cycling here terrifies me! Once I'm here permanently, I've no doubt I'll sort out decent routes and get my nerve though.

 

[YahudaMoon]

I ain't got any time for for full rant though...........

For all you haters about Critical Mass .........

As a rule Critical Mass do not jump red lights or cycle on the pavement. Obviously we will have some that do. Also Its a great place to meet people and friends without having to be competitive.

 

[middleagecyclist]

Jeez. I love my cycling. Got back into it a few yrs ago when I dusted off my old hardtail and started a new commute instead of using the tram/walk option. Loved it so much I kept on commuting when I moved to a longer commute and have since bought 3 more bikes.

Never been on a CM but always felt like I was maybe missing out on something. Had planned to attend one in Manchester when my free time and a CM coincided. I stress had planned as I really don't want to be associated with these kind of shenanigans. I have no problem with lawful protest and sometimes even unlawful protest - such as the Kinder Scout trespass - but it really has to have more of an aim for me. This kind of lets stand up to authority protest does very few people any favours IMHO and i'm sure will give some sections plenty of ammunition to target everyday cyclists with. Cyclists who just go about their business without causing hassle to everyone else.

As for the 'disabled man'. I am currently pursuing an assault charge against a one legged man in a wheelchair who punched me in the stomach. A more thoroughly nasty individual you would be hard pressed to imagine. Assault is assault. Sitting on a mobilty scooter does not give you some kind of get out of jail free card (or shouldn't anyway).

 

[middleagecyclist]

Yes, and cycling here terrifies me! Once I'm here permanently, I've no doubt I'll sort out decent routes and get my nerve though.

It can be a bit shoot sometimes

 

[Boris Bajic]

We need more double-spacing self-important windbags droning on about what CM means, notwithstanding the fact they know nothing about CM, have never attended, know nobody who does and have never even spoken with an attendee.

Perhaps this is where I can help....

If you can be specific about what you need, I will do what I can.

Once I've done what I can for CM and made bicycling lovely by pissing off non-cyclists, we can get on to the issue of Cornish Independence.

This really will be grand, just grand! Three more mass rides across urban roadways for no apparent reason and to no clear benefit and we might just have built Utopia in a London postcode.

Now that would be something!

I await my orders.

Oh Bugger! I seem to have wasted even more of the Internet by double spacing again.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Good to see some solidarity from the cycling community on cyclechat.net

That's a rather naive thing to write. Just because we all ride cycles, and frequent this forum we have some sort of invisible bond and share the same political view as you?

Of all the forums /forumae/ foree I have frequented, this one is the most refreshing because we don't agree. We will disagree with people on here, and vent our frustration at them in the hope of getting our point across.

Pulling some sort of cycling-brotherhood angle on this won't cut the ice with this lot.

We can and do look beyond the surface to see what is really going on, and 'ironically' enough, if the usual 100 CM riders had done just that and thought a little more about where the extra 400 'concerned cyclists' came from, and why the ride insisted on going to Stratford instead of riding at walking pace round Parliament Square for 4 hours, then a 'disabled' protester wouldn't have been pepper-sprayed in the first place?

 

[theclaud]

[QUOTE 1956383, member: 45"]I never felt comfortable to join in with the Birmingham CM. I've seen them parading around and seen them intentionally block roads for no reason.

I was part of the group on the internet, which seemed more interested in recruiting supporters of a squat than promoting cycling.

I've met and spoken to a number of the group. They're a decent bunch and a fair mix of people.

Ask a Brummie what Critical Mass is and he'll have no idea. Mention cycling though and he'll tell you that cyclists are antisocial dangerous people who ignore red lights. Riding around the city centre on the first Friday of the month won't change this, it just makes it worse. It certainly isn't reclaiming the streets.[/quote]

It isn't for no reason. It's for all the reasons described by DZ above. And the fact that everyone gets so twisty-knickered about it is a fair indicator that they have a point. The only Swansea CM I ever went on was rubbish, because it wasn't big enough to inconvenience anyone...

 

[middleagecyclist]

I ain't got any time for for full rant though...........

For all you haters about Critical Mass .........

As a rule Critical Mass do not jump red lights or cycle on the pavement. Obviously we will have some that do. Also Its a great place to meet people and friends without having to be competitive.

I'm not a hater of CM. I'm sure lots have fun on it and do not go out with any intention of causing aggro. I was hoping to join one and meet up with fellow cyclists and show some common cause. Now though I'm not sure what that cause is and I have no intention of becoming a tool of someone elses mischief.

 

[theclaud]

That's a rather naive thing to write. Just because we all ride cycles, and frequent this forum we have some sort of invisible bond and share the same political view as you?

Well, we do hope to see a bit of evidence of the "mystic glue" that DZ likes to bang on about, yes. The key is in the word "community". It's not about sharing the same views - it's about common interest and common cause.

 

[ComedyPilot]

It isn't for no reason. It's for all the reasons described by DZ above. And the fact that everyone gets so twisty-knickered about it is a fair indicator that they have a point. The only Swansea CM I ever went on was rubbish, because it wasn't big enough to inconvenience anyone...

You wanna try doing one in rural Yorkshire...............