Feedback from the last ride, suggestions for the next

[Critical...@gmail.com]

I received this from someone who came on last month's ride, and I
agree with many of the writer's points. The man who wrote me has been
a faithful manners rider since the beginning, and I honestly probably
never would have started the ride if not for his encouragement. He
also wrote the snappy ad copy that appears on the SFBC's Chain of
events.

The concerns he had:
Route-
"I think the turn on green lights really worked when we were up to
speed and we had everybody single filing through."

I agree. Those stop signs on Polk were a killer. I prefer that
we're able to stay moving and stay together.

Stop signs-
"The stop signs killed us, though, when we tried to stay in that
[single file] formation. Maybe next time we can try bunching up more
at the front when we are stopped and then going as more of a group?"

I don't see anything wrong with doing this, as long as we
continue to yield the right of way properly. Plus, it will help us get
through the intersections faster and stay together. Maybe in groups of
4-6? That'll get us through faster.

Formation-
"Also, when we're keeping up with traffic, or there is no traffic,
riding at least 2x2 will make for a more enjoyable ride."

Again, I agree and say that we can and should do this when there
are multiple lanes. When the ride was smaller, we traveled faster and
rode in a cluster, talking the whole time. I'd like to be able to do
that again, since being able to talk to your fellow riders was one of
the best parts of Critical Mass.

One of the main criticisms I have seen of C-manners is that it
marginalizes us because we use the bike lane for the majority of the
ride (and since we stop and signal). We ARE traffic, and we can show
that without being aggressive, rude, or road hogs. But if there IS a
nice bike lane available, why not use it? There was a lot of debate
about the Market Street bike lanes west of Van Ness because they
resulted in the removal of some parking spaces, and I think it's great
to show how useful bike lanes are to so many people and that bike
TRANSIT is more important than car PARKING, especially if safer biking
infrastructure results in more bike trips and fewer by car, which IS a
goal of the City of San Francisco.

All in all, we had an orderly and polite group last month at the
ride. I was pretty overwhelmed leading up to last month's ride because
of all the attention the ride received. I didn't take time to plan a
route or consider how to 'manage' a larger number of riders. After
meeting and riding with y'all last month, I say, "Use your
discretion," as far as how to ride. Just keep the core values of
sharing and kindness in mind. When I ride nice, drivers are typically
nice, too.

Theme night?
"Oh, having a route or a theme (how about 'water pistol night'! ha ha
ha) would be great. The ride through the park you did sounded like
fun."

I like the idea of a theme night. Any ideas, folks?