I'm a Masshole (at Last)

I've wanted to try this for awhile. I wasn't certain what to expect except that an awful lot of my favorite cyclists make this a monthly ritual.



I knew Critical Mass (aka Critical Mess) featured several things I adore: controversy, anarchy, bikes and beer. The last item isn't provided, per se, but the only thing you see more of than beer in this group is interesting bicycles.



Old lugged frame Bridgestones (repainted and appointed with nice touches like a Brooks saddle), track bikes innocent of such luxuries as gear shifts and brakes.



I purchased some beer, a sixer of Bully! Porter, and ran into Robert the Psychic on my way back out to were the Mass was massing up. He asked me, "Are these bike characters your friends? Should I call the cops?"



Yes on both counts?

I should have told him to call the cops if that's what the cards said, but I was afraid they were about to leave without me. I didn't know for sure when the ride was supposed to start and my wits were crippled by the idea of my bike and pretty much half my earthly belongings, including my CPAP, unattended in a parking lot in Westport on a Friday night.



Of course I got comments on how heavily my bike was loaded. It was ridiculous, but I'd ridden to work that morning with my full pack for the tour to check myself against forgotten items and be sure I had everything secured to the bike in a way that would work.




It's a real physical thing controlling a bike that weighs over 100 pounds. That's a guess: it weighed 68 lbs without my CPAP, with no rack or panniers on the front and no sleeping bag on back.



Bob the Tomato's mother worked the crowd before we rode off into the evening, promoting an event that involved bicycles and gardening. I'd tell you more, but I lost the flier.



The only thing really missing from my first Critical Mass was the Poet Laureate of Lobster Land, the love of my life and delight of my heart. She'd pedaled off to Lincoln the previous Sunday.



The original plan called for me to rent a car and drive up with Gallmeyer on Friday night, then all three of us would ride back over the Memorial Day holiday. But, as time grew near, there were cinders in the stew.



I really didn't have the time to go to Avis on Friday morning to get said rental; it would cost, rental and gas, about $115 to $125 by the time we got there; and Corinna didn't have any real reason to be in Lincoln on Friday.



So we'd decided that Brian and I would ride north to meet her and she'd leave Lincoln on Friday morning to ride back toward KC. We'd meet somewhere on Saturday night or Sunday morning.



Not that we followed that second plan, either: Corinna decided if I was doing Critical Mass in KC, she was doing Critical Mass in Lincoln. It's not my fault if only one other person showed up at the Capitol of Nebraska that evening.



I'm not your stereotypical environmentalist: I'm in favor of nuclear power (despite Japan's recent catastrophe), I'm a global warming agnostic (though I don't dispute that climate 'changes,' always has, always will), and I don't think recycling is always better than land-filling as a way of getting rid of garbage.



Still, driving an SUV 250 miles so I can take a bicycle tour doesn't qualify, in my mind, as a 'green' (or even socially responsible) vacation. The argument I have against light rail, that pet boondoggle of conventional Greens—that it makes no environmental sense to move 100 tons of steel to move a handful of commuters—is also the argument for transportational cycling: why move 2500 pounds of SUV to move one guy and some camping gear?



I know, some of you are going to take issue with Critical Mass, the take-over-the-streets attitude. We might alienate other drivers, we are breaking certain laws, and so on.



First off, I've ridden lots of group rides, mostly the law-abiding Johnson County yuppie variety, and I've never seen one that didn't break a few traffic laws. Some try harder than others to avoid this, but the Prairie Village and Leawood Police have made special projects out of some of these rides.



Beyond that, as a regular commuter, I've been crowded in the lane by enough assholes at this point to be less than sympathetic if a few automobile drivers find us inconvenient. The few motorists who actually find themselves cut off by Critical Mass are inconvenienced for a minute or two and are in no real jeopardy of anything greater. The jerk blaring his horn and swerving toward me on 31st Street the other morning was risking me injured or killed so he wouldn't be personally inconvenienced for the span of half a block.

So while it's mostly a party, Critical Mass has a legitimate protest function, one Friday a month where we say, No, we're not going to quit the road: we have just as much right to get where we're going alive and just as much interest in doing so as you do. Happy Friday! At least our chaos is good-natured.



And a happy Friday it was. As you can see from the video, I made several bad errors of judgment, probably in part because of a few of those Bully! Porters running through my judgment centers, including an even less well-advised second six-pack of beer (Schlitz, a sure sign of compromised standards, though far preferable to Bud, Coors, or Miller High Life) bought at Grand Slam on the mistaken belief that I was out of beer. I'd given one or two away and thought I'd consumed the others, but as I was getting ready to sleep in Big Lake on Saturday night, I found a stray Bully! in my panniers.

Along with the rest of that pint of Evan Williams I bought with the Schlitz. I had help consuming what was gone from it, too, but the very presence of that bottle in my panniers was quite convicting when I realized how much that late start to Big Lake cost me in rest and daylight.



But aside from overindulging in suds, I overindulged in overindulging, going down to the river to close the party instead of heading home and sleeping at 9:30 or 10:00 when I knew I should. I'd been a zombie at work all day as it was, and if we were going to be on two wheels by 6:00 a.m., I should have been in bed by ten.

But as far as whether I'd ride Critical Mass again, I plan to do it in June, see all you Massholes on the 24th.