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.

Shotgun

If being buzzed by pickups and worse didn't make me question what sort of folks I share the road with, consider these road signs.



Apparently someone is driving around taking pot-shots at them with a 12-gauge. Classy.

Remember the end of Easy Rider?

City at Night

From the bridge by the FBI building one evening as I rode home.

Avanti

On the way to the Blue Room to see the woman I adore take the mic, I spotted this neat old sports car.




I asked, Is that an old Camaro? as I passed. I didn't really think so, but the way car companies work, I figured I'd find out it was a variant on the Olds Gran Torino I hadn't seen before or maybe Buick's answer to it.



It's a Studebaker. The long defunct company mainly associated with stodgy sedans tried, apparently, in its death throes to rival the Corvette, and George, the owner of his masterpiece of restoration, told me they mainly succeeded in match the 'Vette on price.

Like a really fast Edsel, I guess the Avanti was too little and too late to save Studebaker from the fate of Linotype.



George sure loves them, though, and he has two beautiful Corvettes, an antique truck and what I suspect is his next project under a tarpaulin, all vying for his love. Yet the Avanti, I can tell, has a special place in his heart.




A special place for me, too, because I enjoyed scoping it out, would even get a kick out of driving it, I'm sure, but I'm happy to let George pay the taxes and upkeep on the beast.

Trek Before Tour

I got to swing by the Trek Recovery Ride the Monday before my big tour, good to see the whole sick crew.

Flash Sucks

I hate flash photography. Here's why:

At the Blue Room, for example, the lighting is dreadful from a photographic standpoint. You end up wanting a very long shutter and musicians and poets don't stay that still even if you have a tripod or settle for a lot of noise with a high ISO setting. Or both.



So the temptation is to resort to the flash. But while you might get a crappy photo without the flash, you're guaranteed one with it.

Folk Art

On the way to see the Chocolate Fairy perform at the Blue Room.

Bon Voyage

After church we went down to the East Bottoms to see Corinna off. There was some sort of bike event going on at Knuckleheads, roadies who normally wouldn't drive through the neighborhood swarming in from all sides.





We toyed with getting ice cream from a diner nearby but it was closed and we just shoved off, me and my daughters in the car, Corinna on her bike, Lincoln or Bust.



Not that she'd bust. She made St. Joseph that evening despite not leaving until 2:00 p.m.

Our second or third date, I drove her out into the wilderness to ride back from a conference, and she'd offered me an out after I agreed saying it was 'only six hours to Topeka.'



She had me at 'only.'

Be Careful

The video is what this is all about for me. But, compulsive as I am, I shot 353 photos in addition to helping video Corinna's performance at the Blue Room.



And despite the considerable limitations of both my camera and the photographer, a few of them were bound to come out.



I was truly surprised when Corinna didn't place. I know, you'll say my judgment is clouded by love, but besides the fact that she really killed it, her performance was radically different from anything you normally see on this stage.



And I hear the same line all the time, too. "Be careful."



As if riding my bicycle for transportation instead of just to work out somehow makes me a member of a snake-handling cult or a sideshow sword-swallower who might accidentally disembowel himself.



But truly, not riding is the risky behavior.



I've never been diagnosed, mainly because I've never bothered a doctor about it, but I've been prone, as many in my family tree are, to depression in my life. Mainly, I become aware of it when I emerge on the other side.



The common thread of those phoenix moments are physical activity and socialization.



A pill won't fix solitary and sedentary, but a bicycle is a pretty effective balm against both. If you ride it.



The anti-bike, of course, is TV, which causes depression by encouraging people to be solitary and sedentary and then adds insult to injury by parading a constant stream of messages that distill to: Your life isn't good enough if it doesn't look like this.



Said message is underscored by a parade of plastic surgery addicts with heavy makeup and capped teeth, so that even the people who are trotted out as idols for the masses fail to live up to the ideal.

Besides, as someone who had a heart attack at the ripe old age of 32, back when I watched a lot of TV and couldn't remember the last time I'd been in the saddle, I'll take the risks of riding (which I know all too well) over sitting around waiting for more angina.



That opening scene in Office Space, where they're stuck in traffic and the old man with the walker is making better time than our protagonist? That scene doesn't happen when you ride your bike to the office.



So like my girl says, you be careful.