Reminder: Durango Critical Mass TODAY, 5:30 PM @ Buckley Park
Coe, Nathan J. (NJCOE)
During the spring, summer, and fall of 2009, Durango Critical Mass will ride monthly, on the last Friday of every month at 6pm, along with other CM rides around the world. Join us at 5:30pm at Buckley Park, 12th Street & Main Avenue in Durango, CO. Our next ride is Friday, July 31st. See you there!
durangocr...@riseup.net
http://colorado.indymedia.org/node/1918
http://www.myspace.com/durangocriticalmass
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107722852554
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 with the idea of drawing attention to how unfriendly the city was to bicyclists, 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.
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