Halloween Critical Mass!!!
dirty...@riseup.net
Halloween Critical Mass! Ride in costume!!!!
Meet at ARTiculation 1051 East 2nd Ave., @ 5:30 PM. Ride to Buckley Park,
12th & Main between 5:30 & 6PM. Ride from Buckley at 6PM!
Critical Mass is a bicycling event typically held on the last Friday of
every month in over 300 cities around the world. While the ride was
originally founded in 1992 in San Francisco with the idea of drawing
attention to how unfriendly the city was to cycl...ists, the leaderless
structure of Critical Mass makes it impossible to assign it any one
specific goal. In fact, the purpose of Critical Mass is not formalized
beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and
traveling as a group through city or town streets on bikes.
Critical Mass differs from many other social movements in its rhizomal
(rather than hierarchical) structure. Critical Mass is sometimes called an
�organized coincidence�, with no leadership or membership. The routes of
some rides are decided spontaneously by whomever is currently at the front
of the ride, others are decided prior to the ride by a popular vote of
suggested routes often drawn up on photocopied flyers. The term xerocracy
was coined to describe a process by which the route for a Critical Mass
can be decided: anyone who has an opinion makes their own map and
distributes it to the cyclists participating in the Mass. Still other
rides decide the route by consensus. The �disorganized� nature of the
event allows it to largely escape clampdown by authorities who may view
the rides as forms of parades or organized protest. Additionally, the
movement is free from the structural costs associated with a centralized,
hierarchical organization. In order for the event to function, the only
requirement is a sufficient turn-out to create a �critical mass� of riders
dense enough to occupy a piece of road to the exclusion of drivers of
motorized vehicles. Authorities in New York, California and Oregon have
expressed concern with the difficulty of coordinating with the riders, due
to the lack of leadership.
Text liberated from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass
http://www.myspace.com/durangocriticalmass
More info:
