September Mass

I messaged my friend Sarahsaurus Rex to tell her she should wear her Superwoman outfit to Critical Mass. She messaged back, "What did you do?"

At which point I realized, last month I made a spoke card that featured a topless Sarahsaurus Rex. I debated about whether to message her back that I hadn't made another spoke card with her as the star.

No, I'd made a Superman oriented card. Well, on one side there was an old photograph of a demonstration of 'Bike Power' that appears to date from the late 60s or early 70s, long before Critical Mass became a thing (which, according to Wikipedia would be 1992).

But on the one side, I had the Superman logo with 'My planet was destroyed. Be careful with yours.' It's not new or particularly original; in fact it wasn't even the first time I'd made a spoke card with that basic design, but that one was long weathered out and gone (or possibly died in a wheel rebuild).

And it remains a valid sentiment. I doubt the planet is destructible by human means in a Death-Star-blows-up-Alderaan way, but as the saying goes, it don't take a weatherman to look around and see the weather.

Actually I think environmental logic is, for Americans, the least compelling reason to use bicycles for transportation. If Americans gave a shit about their carbon footprint, they wouldn't rationalize buying ever larger vehicles. You could about park a 1975 Honda Civic in the trunk of a 2017 Honda Civic, and that's not because Honda wants to sell enormous cars, it's because the market has demanded bigger cars, with more horsepower, even when gas was $4 a gallon and the economy was tanking.

Heart disease, diabetes, obesity, depression, high blood pressure: these are all things that are killing us that respond well to cycling. And when you use your bike to commute to work and run errands, buy groceries, etc., you take care of your physical fitness while getting things done. That's got huge advantages over trying to get everything done and then set aside a block of time for a workout.

Congestion, parking nightmares, these are also things that respond well to cycling. If say half of the people who live within ten miles of their job were to leave their cars at home on an average day, you wouldn't even be able to tell it was rush hour for the traffic on the street. All those bicycles might be slower than the cars but they take up a fraction of the space, both on the road and at their destination.

You may have seen this picture elsewhere, it's semi-famous. Been re-staged and shot a couple of times, but it shows how much space the same group of people take using three transportation options. The next time you feel aggravated at a cyclist slowing you down, take a breath and remember all the cars are doing much more to slow you down, as you are to them.

For that matter, far too many Critical Mass riders arrive by car or drive to a spot they figure the ride will go by and bike in from there. I've done so myself a few times when my transportation logistics got screwed up. But it's better on so many levels to just bike to the event. As an added bonus, you're not going to get a DUI biking home. I'm not saying you can't et in trouble, or hurt, cycling drunk, but it's not a motorized vehicle, so if you end up in the back of a patrol car it ain't going to be because you were blowing hot.

And no, I'm not advocating riding drunk. But if you've had a few, you really are putting yourself at risk and no one else. And I'm pretty sure that most people who figure they're 'fine to drive' are definitely putting others in harm's way. So you can have Leslie Knope sitting on the hood of Ron Swanson's car until the chart says his blood alcohol is below .08%, or you can ride your Surly.