Results tagged “criticalmass”

In addition MvB's weekend traffic warning, we must also warn you about Critical Masshole's evening plans. They, being the enormous dick-splashes that they are, will start this evening's ride at 5:30 p.m. at Westlake Center. Route undetermined.

No really. It's true. According to the League of American Bikes (via the Cascade Bicycle Alliance in our case), Washington is the most bicycle friendly state in the union. According to the LAB, "Washington’s model bike laws, signed and mapped statewide bike route network, dedicated funding from the state for bicycle related programs and projects, and an active statewide bicycle advisory committee" are reasons that the state earned top honors above Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon (numbers two, three and four respectively) and all the others.

If you're driving a white Subaru and in a hurry, you might want to give the Critical Mass bike ride a wide berth this afternoon. The scourge of Western civilization will be meeting up at Westlake Center at 5:30 p.m., with a UW "cell" leaving Red Square at 5:00 p.m. and heading to Westlake to join the main insurgency. Goddamn fixies everywhere! The SPD will be out in force, but we echo the concerned P-I commenter who asks: "Why is the Seattle Police Department allowing urban terrorists to run amok? This is one of the most idiotic molly-coddling of criminals I've ever heard of." It's probably not too much to say that the entire city is shivering in fear right about now.

• My Ballard and Phinney Wood shared a post on the annual Dead Baby Bike Race. With the recent fear-mongering regarding bicyclists in the local media--the bike race could likely have not come at a worse time. We're sure already freaked out Subaru drivers, aren't thrilled to think of the idea of a crudely named (see: hilarious) bike race that celebrates "Mutant Bike Culture."
• Rejoice Francophiles and hipsters not allergic to the sun! Capitol Hill Seattle reports that Cafe Presse has opened a deck to accommodate outside seating. Few things are more French than enjoying a delicious and refined meal at a neighborhood sidewalk cafe, so we're thrilled to have a chance to mimic the experience at our neighborhood pseudo-Parisian cafe.
• The Central District News breathed a sigh of relief and celebrated that this year's Umoja parade was bigger and better than ever.

Not to belabor this story, but we think the issue of the rights of bicycle riders to the road is an important one. We ride on the city streets every day and, though some commenters on our post about changes we'd like to see made to Critical Mass in Seattle think that every driver goes out of his or her way to be respectful to us, we know it's not true. Seattle still has a lot to do for bike riders. Our streets are not very safe, nor welcoming to us.

For the record, this Seattlest is a daily bike commuter who knows and appreciates the rights and responsibilities of biking in an urban environment. We also have a friend who was beaten by cops a couple years ago during a Critical Mass demonstration. While this post isn’t specifically about Friday’s incident at Seattle's Critical Mass on Capitol Hill, the event (and one just as scary in New York City) moved us to share these thoughts.

The Stranger's indefatigable Jonah Spangenthal-Lee gets a wonderful quote from the driver of the Subaru who ran into some (and over one) bicyclists in last Friday night's Critical Mass confrontation on Aloha on Capitol Hill: “I sympathize with [cyclists'] cause. I ride bikes too. I’m a liberal hippie democrat” [...] “I’m gay, the person with me was a lesbian and we were a attacked by eco-terrorists. It’s the most Seattle thing that could have happened." The driver apologizes for overreacting and says he hopes no charges are pressed either way. On the one hand, we're glad he has a sense of humor about it. On the other, he ran over someone and a cyclist hit him in the head with a U-lock, and charges for both are well-deserved.

Last night, as we were making some Niman Ranch sausage, some Critical Mass bicyclists were almost turned into sausage in the street outside. (We mention the kind of sausage because had it been cut-rate, we might have poked our heads out to take a look, but it wasn't and we were hungry.)

"The Next Slum" is the name of the article in the March Atlantic (not online yet), and Seattle gets lots of mentions. Author Christopher Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues that as demographics and energy use changes over the next 15-20 years, there will be a growing surplus of large-lot homes that no one wants, decaying on the market.

Seattlest's heart's cockles always get warmed when we see a bunch of people who choose to ride their bikes to get around get together, so we were predisposed to love Northwest Film Forum's Second Seattle Annual Bike-In last night. (Almost getting slammed by a driver opening her car door while riding over probably added to our joy at making it there.)

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us.

-Between the rat infestations, soup shortages, and unexpected restaurant closings, Electrolicious had a rough time at local restaurants over the weekend.

White Gold took to the stage and went right into it, playing their high energy dance punk to a low energy audience of not much more than fifty, most of which stayed seated in the blocked off bar area. Crowd banter was NOT going to work for them, with silence as the only response to calls for claps or the jokingly posed, "Anyone have a shaker?" The annoyance was obvious from the lead singer, who treated the show like a practice session, playing with very little passion, following the previous query with a monotone, "I want to die. Anyone have a noose?" We have to admit it has to be hard for a band that thrives on feedback from the crowd to perform to an empty house, but really, there's no reason to take out your frustrations on the people that did show up. That's just bad P.R.. Seattlest thinks White Gold could be a very fun band to see in a packed space and we'll give them another chance, but based on Sunday alone, we'd have to write them off as well...whiny bitches. (Later, the band gave away free copies of their CD as consolation. Nice move, but a more motivated performance would have been better.)

Maybe they're still thinking about it. Maybe they're waiting for more requests to come in. Maybe if you requested the same DVD (performer: Mary-Louise Parker; Release date: July 11, 2006), critical mass would be reached, and we could check it out of the library one of these days. At least with books, if they opt not to buy the title, they'll request it via interlibrary loan. At least then we know.

Torontoist immediately wins our heart by using the word "Jackass" in a headline. In fact, we love their use of it so much that we're going to use it as much as possible throughout this post. For example, it looks like there are Toronto-area jackasses besides those who misuse the sidewalk: look at the crap on sale on Toronto's craigslist. But it looks like Toronto doesn't contain the kind of jackasses who pee in public pools, as the issue never came up when they interviewed the creators of art installations in their public wading pools.

The recent hubbub at Critical Mass (paired with some magnificently asinine comments on Seattlest Matt's post) reminded Seattlest of why we prefer to keep our bikes as far away from roads, cars, and people as possible. But sometimes getting out to actual dirt isn't a reality. This past Monday, after a lazy weekend and looking forward to taking Tuesday off from work, we set out around our neighborhood in the Central District for a little evening "urban" riding--avoiding the roads as much as possible, these urban rides seek out places with interesting architecture and concrete thingamabobs perfectly built for bike shenanigans. We find it a far less expensive mechanism than the red sports car for trying to recapture our youth...

The bicycle crew that takes their name from the number of miles they were able to ride on their first run before quitting and going to a bar has set up a legal defense fund to deal with that ugly Critical Mass incident from last Friday. We were wrong when we initially suspected this was a hoax when we first read the email from .83's Lee Williams with the heading "Trials and tribulations of the bicycle hobo elite" early Saturday morning. Our justifiable suspicions were due in no small part to the fact that we've been pranked before by a friend of our's who is a member of this group, although we did get to enjoy some vengeance many months later.

According to a recent discussion on the Hobo Bicycle Elite Message Board, there was an incident with some assholes who assaulted bicycle enthusiasts during last night's Critical Mass festivity. Allegedly the instigators later played the ingenious "PSYCHE! We're actually cops but we waited till after kicking your ass to tell you that" save. That's a good save to pull if you can get away with it, unlike, say, DMX, who wasn't all that convincing as an FBI agent that one time. Maybe it was the barking rap thing that gave him away.

Seattle's "urban primitive" community (aka drunk hobos with a fetish for bicycles, holier-than-thou bicycle-related political rhetoric and harrassing people at Critical Mass) have now formed an elite squad in order to better organize their drunk bicycle fetishizing efforts. Behold: "The Bikery!" Ostensibly "a new bike collective project that is about to explode all over town.... Working towards the goal of opening a bicycle resource center and community space for all folks who love bikes and want to learn about them." No word yet if there are going to be any classes on pranking your co-workers with food you dug out of the garbage.

Keep an eye out for these creepy bikes from the netherword around town starting today. Ghostcycle is planting them at various locations to raise awareness of the death-defying nature of riding a bicycle in the city and to remind you that when your car and a bike attempt to occupy the same space at the same time bad things will happen, generally to the bike and the person on it.