Humanize the Earth!

biking joyful and not

This summer I’ve been sharing a box of Angelic Organics veggies with Sarah and Sam, also members of the Hub Co-op where I live. This means once every 3rd Wednesday, I need to ride by bike 9 miles from my downtown office to the drop-site in Oak Park and then another 6 miles home. Tonight was my night. It was chilly and rainy and windy as I left the office and I seemed to be in for a very long miserable bike ride. So I started singing at the top of my lungs about the long bike ride ahead of me in the rain, against the wind and all that, cold ears and all. Before I knew it I was in Oak Park and loading the veggies into the trailer. I didn’t sing as much coming home with the wind at my back and the rain stopped, but did sing a big more. And before I knew it I was home.

So I got to thinking about this and realized that on my weeks to pick up the veggies in the past I ended up with a really sore body afterwards and I think it’s due to riding with the goal in mind, and thus with tension in my body. Tonight I certainly knew where I was going so it’s not that I forgot the goal, but I occupied myself with expression instead of concentrating on the physical sensations of riding. And my body feels great! Could it be that I was more physically relaxed tonight? I think that seems like a pretty good explanation.

So on tonight’s conference call we discussed # 7. The Principle of Immediate Action

“If you pursue an end you enchain yourself. If everything you do is realised as though it were an end in itself, you liberate yourself.”

Seems to fit with that biking story, doesn’t it?

Critical Mass Theater

This is an excerpt from Stopping Them in their Tracks, a longer piece by my friend Travis Hugh Culley:

Critical Mass is much like a play, and in any play there is conflict. How we handle conflict determines whether the ride becomes a comedy or a tragedy. In the eight years that I have been participating in Chicago Critical Mass rides, I have seen both. Some conflicts could have been avoided, and some could not have, but an element of theatricality serves both, protecting the people on the ride, and the meaning of what a Critical Mass is. Let’s look at a CM ride as though it were a piece of theater that broke out of the auditorium. Suddenly is not limited to a stage, or a proscenium. The mass is limited only by its size. It has a message. It has an audience, however part of that audience has a rocket launcher underneath their right foot. They are in cars.

Unable to transcend the gridlock that they are experiencing, many people can and lose their tempers and come pushing through the mass. They see us riding through red lights while they wait for the green, and then another green, and then another green. We have to remember that the time that we cause other people to wait is like a moment on stage, and whoever is holding an intersection should try to take that opportunity to interact with the audience.

The aesthetics of the intersection

It may be helpful to think of intersections like scenes and roads like scene changes because most of the antagonism that I have seen from motorists has happened in the intersections. The people who cork the intersection need to understand that they are doing more than protecting the mass from angry drivers, they are also educating drivers about their alternative forms of transport. Sometimes the best way to settle a potential conflict is to lead the interaction your self. The spectacular aspect of the ride depends on people seeing the sense we have in cycling. Therefore we should be sensible, and make sense to them. Drivers will appreciate an explanation for the delay, however you do it. Hand out flyers, hold your bike in the air, talk about what we’re doing, and thank them for waiting.

There’s no use skirting around this forever: A Critical Mass wants to stop traffic, and it wants to make a spectacle of our passing. We want motorists to consider the sense of bicycling by showing them the beauty, and the FUN of it. I think, if we are going to delay motorists, we’d better give them something to look at. Credit must be given to so many people for their contributions in this regard: the Rats, the Scallywags, the High Wheelers, the Naturists, and so many others for keeping up the spectacle. These theatrics can be thought of as the price we pay for the delay that we bring with us. By corking a major intersection we are creating a passion play of innovators like Christopher Wallace, Johnny Payphone and Al “The Pal”, who can show off bicycles that motorists have never seen before. Whatever virtue they have in the world, in the intersection they serve to make people interested. So bring out the costumes, and the TV bikes, the glow sticks, musical instruments, and whatever else you can bring. Balance your bicycle on your chin, because DUMB ENTERTAINMENT CAN APPEASE AN ANGRY MOB. Therefore, good juggler is essential to the safety of a Critical Mass ride. Bright colors, and flags, make motorists feel wanted. People are all alone in their cars, and therefore they can find themselves very susceptible to flattery this way.

Here’s a tip on keeping an audience–SMILE, even when they are yelling profanities out of their windows. Refuse to engage in a challenge by smiling through it. Drivers will sometimes try to push through a mass, and if they do this remember: FUN! Promise them that if they don’t calm down that another biker will join in them, and they will. If a motorist is pushing into the mass, it is assault, and other bikers will see it happening and come to your aide, but you should not stop smiling. If you hit the car, or break a mirror, your getting someone very upset. In a mass, we are never arguing with motorists, we are only entertaining them.

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Critical Mass tonight!

Ride daily, Celebrate Monthly!

Note sure how this ended up as a draft. Am just seeing today (Monday) this it didn’t get published Friday when I wrote it. The Mass was fantastic! Very festive. Lots of people. Join us at Happy Hour on the 9th of Sept and then the Sept ride!

invite to my place

Was just reminded by Sam:

On that note, we’re hosting Critical Mass Happy Hour on the 9th of September. You’re all invited. It’s going to be a sort of pre-housewarming party. You should come! It’ll be fun!

I concur. Come on over. :-)

build a bike class

Sarah and Sam from the Hub Housing Cooperative teach a Build Your Own Bike class. Tonight was the 1st meeting of their 3rd time though the 8 week class and I’m a student this time. Tonight we each brought a bike with us, or had one at the shop (West Town Bikes) in advance. I rode my Schwinn Suburban in. The we stripped everything off. Wheels first. Brake and shifter cables. Brakes themselves. Pedals. Cranks and bottom bracket (there are bearings in there - totally cool!). Handlebars with stem (left the headset in place). What am I forgetting? Chain guard had to come off to get at the cranks.

Most people were starting with either a functional bike that they wanted to upgrade or turn into something really cool and fast with lighter, newer parts or just change stuff, like handlebars and seats or whatever. All women except for me, by the way. None of us knowing very much about our bikes. Mostly about on my level it seems, though maybe I knew a bit less than average. Anyway, turns out my bike, though around the same age as me, is in really good condition. I’m replacing the cables and cable housing, but nothing substantive. Even the original brake pads are salvagable. The wheels are in good shape. The thing is really heavy. Heavy and solid. I figure I’d rather have a really cool bike with it’s original parts that works really well (once I know how to fix and adjust stuff) than some frankenstein bike with mix and match parts.

When I want a fast road bike, I’ll get a nice frame and build that one at that time. Once I know all this good stuff from this class.

So my bike was simpler to take apart than the others, I think, which meant faster. So I learned how to clean and adjust my bottom bracket when re-installing it. That’s what they’re doing next week when I’m not going to be there because I have to work.