At least two hundred cyclists rode up the middle of 15th, across the Ballard Bridge, down Market and all the way to Golden Gardens around 7 p.m. Friday evening. It’s all part of the Seattle Critical Mass — a monthly event that can leave many Seattle drivers confused and angry.
“A couple motorists tried pushing into the cyclists at Market & 24th, but a couple drivers with two tons of cars isn’t much of a match for hundreds of cyclists,” writes Michael, who sent us these photos.
Here’s the scene on 15th. “In the future, please have patience. It only happens once a month,” he writes. (Thanks for the photos Michael!)
My Ballard
A news blog for Seattle's Ballard neighborhood and beyond
Critical Mass rides through Ballard
May 30th, 2008 · 32 Comments
Tags: Ballard
32 responses so far ↓
1 Suthii // May 31, 2008 at 6:13 am
Seattle cyclists = speed bumps.
2 bob // May 31, 2008 at 9:36 am
No. They need to grow up. They should ride single-file and not be rude.
3 randi // May 31, 2008 at 10:02 am
seattle cyclists are huge overgrown babies. how annoying.
4 Sara // May 31, 2008 at 10:16 am
I’m going to go ahead and be the supportive commenter. Please, life is short. Getting worked up about having to sit at a stop light for longer than five minutes while 200 cyclists pass is more a waste of your time than the sitting itself. I don’t even ride a bicycle, but for the love of god, share the road.
Thank you, Critical Mass! Keep it up.
5 bob // May 31, 2008 at 10:19 am
exactly. They should share the road. :)
6 Jasmine // May 31, 2008 at 10:47 am
key word here is SHARE the road, right?
7 Suthii // May 31, 2008 at 10:48 am
Share the road? Sure, once these light runners and sidewalk hoppers are made to buy tags.
8 Michael // May 31, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I’m not a cyclist, but I think it is great that they do this to raise awareness and try to cut down on injuries, if you’ve ever seen what cars can do to cyclists.
With comments like “speed bumps” and “overgrown babies”, it really just helps to convince me that they absolutely do need to have demonstrations like this since there is a lot of gross stupidity out there.
9 pioggia // May 31, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I’m fine with this event to raise awareness among drivers about sharing the road, because yes, car/bycicle accidents are ugly and often fatal, but the cyclists need to buck up & do their share too, because there are a LOT of really dangerous cyclists on the roads here, running red lights, skipping in & out of traffic without signalling etc. I grew up around byciclists so I try to be very careful & aware of them, but there are days when inconsiderate cyclists make me so angry I can understand the desire to make brutal comments like suthii’s.
10 Michael // May 31, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Sure, I can understand the “desire to make brutal comments”, but there is also a thing called “being an adult” - of which one key factor is not just doing whatever your immediate impulse or desire is telling you to do.
Unfortunately some people never seem to reach that stage of personal development.
11 CK // May 31, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Light running is unfortunate (and I never do on my bike) but whatever you feel, alternate methods of transport (from your gas guzzler) are the future. Just count the dollars and the pollution at every stoplight you sit at. Yes, you should feel guilty. Blaming others in denial doesn’t change anything. Cars are the biggest environmental problem in the world.
12 Suthii // Jun 1, 2008 at 7:31 am
“Yes, you should feel guilty. ”
Why? Maybe my house is half the size of yours and uses less power to warm? Maybe you fly more every year than I do? Maybe you have more kids who eat and consume more than mine? Does that ever go through your mind when you sit on the bike looking indignantly at the cars? I doubt it.
13 pioggia // Jun 1, 2008 at 8:59 am
The problem is, there isn’t a viable alternative to driving in this town. Metro is great if you’re going to & from the downtown during the day, but if you want to go across town, or god forbid stay out past 6 pm in the evening, it just does work. We carpool where we can & batch our errands, and as soon as we can save up the sheckels for a Prius we’ll be swapping out our small relatively fuel efficient gas guzzler, but it takes 3 buses & a full hour to go to the seattle center from here (12 minutes by car)… It takes 3-4 buses & up to 2 hours to get to home from a restaurant on the back side of Capitol Hill in the evening. And even if we had mass transit it doesn’t work for every situation. I can’t exactly haul 6 bags of manure & a flat of plants home on the bus when I’m gardening, so do I make 7 individual trips on the bus rather than one in the car??? I’m not saying we shouldn’t all be better about using alternate transit where we can, I’m just saying that it’s not black & white.
14 Sarah // Jun 1, 2008 at 11:21 am
I have no problem with them riding in large groups. I have no problem with people riding bikes.. I think it’s great! I love riding my bike when I am able to. And I have no problem waiting for them to finish their ride so I can move on. However.. sometimes there is an emergency and you need to get someplace, and this group doesn’t give a rats ass.
What I saw while sitting on Market, right next to that Taco Time.. they were just being rude and careless. They took up all four lanes of traffic and didn’t care about themselves or anyone else. Zipping all around cars, circling drivers and generally causing chaos. I mean really.. there was a group of four or five of them, holding hands as they rode by, blocking all lanes of traffic. That is VERY careless and shows no respect for anyone, or even safety when on the road. I’m not sure how they expect to spread awareness and gain respect from others, when they are going to be.. I’m sorry to say, careless, rude ass****s with no respect for anyone else! That is not how you get people to join you.
I’m not sure where their minds are.. as I was sitting there on Market.. I wasn’t going anywhere, because I didn’t want to hit one of them. But as I was sitting there… this one fella came up from behind me, parked his bike a foot in front of my car and sat there the whole time the bikes were going by. Blocking me.. and I’m sure he thought he was being cute, as he turned around to laugh and smirk at me. I was just thinking… My God, what if I was going to the hospital? What if I were trying to get to a hurt or ill family member? And I guess they are lucky I wasn’t a driver who was “fed up.” I am worried that one day, they are going to piss off the wrong driver in a big truck, and that driver is going to race up the road, knocking them over like bowling pins.
Sure, sure.. I agree that drivers are VERY rude, and many times have hurt/killed someone on a bike. But this is not a good way to deal with it. What it does is makes people upset. Sure, you’ll get the few people who think it’s neat, but overall you’ll piss people off, which means drivers out on the road now have LESS respect for a person on a bike.
15 Suthii // Jun 1, 2008 at 11:57 am
“I think it is great that they do this to raise awareness and try to cut down on injuries”
I agree, I don’t want my car injured by one of these speed bumps.
And how does riding in circles, up and over sidewalks and thru’ red lights exactly raise safety awareness?
16 Michael // Jun 1, 2008 at 3:02 pm
> And how does riding in circles, up and over sidewalks
> and thru’ red lights exactly raise safety awareness?
Well, for example it exposes that there are people around like you.
Otherwise more reasonable people may assume that everyone else is reasonable… Instead of the actual case that there are idiots around that cause a lot of problems for the cyclists every day instead of once a month.
17 Suthii // Jun 1, 2008 at 3:20 pm
” every day instead of once a month.”
Hey, I resent that, I haven’t run one of these swerving, light running, side walk hopping numbskulls off the road in what…..it must be days now.
18 Michael // Jun 1, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Thanks for proving my point!!
19 s // Jun 2, 2008 at 2:01 am
Fuck these assholes. Share the road my ass.
20 m // Jun 2, 2008 at 7:46 am
At this point all Critical Mass accomplishes is providing substance for opposing arguments.
Both sides complain that the other is rude and potentially dangerous.
Cyclists and their supporters stand tall saying increasing awareness around “sharing the road” safety issues is succeeding, and those drivers who feel “sharing the road” means following the same set of laws say Critical Mass is proving that cyclists don’t share.
In the long run, an ass will act like an ass regardless of their choice of vehicle.
21 L // Jun 2, 2008 at 8:56 am
What pioggia said up there about the commute time on buses in and out of Ballard is right on. Public transportation in Ballard sucks.
22 Gavin // Jun 2, 2008 at 9:11 am
Doesn’t “Critical Mess” understand that their riders who corked the intersection were blocking traffic access to the Swedish Ballard emergency room?
The next time some bike fascist gets run over, I hope his turdy little bros have a delay in getting his ass stitched up.
Karma cuts both ways….
23 Zack // Jun 2, 2008 at 9:44 am
I’m initiating advocacy for several Ballard-friendly biking regulations. By next year:
Seattle will ban fixed-gear bikes. Everyone will be required to have at least one functioning brake.
Riders will be required to chain-up in designated bike racks. No more leaving them on the sidewalk. (I can’t park my car by the shop door…why should you?)
Riders will be required to wear outlandish costumes. Bike visibility is in everyone’s best interests. Fairy princess dresses, clown make-up, oversized rubber dinosaur feet.
Critical Mass uniforms (black, low-top Chuck Taylors, vitage bowling shirts, etc.) will be taxed at 2000%. Proceeds will subsidize gasoline for Shriner cars and Seafair pirate ships. (Or other groups that actually do something productive with their time, other than block traffic.)
Like tobacco taxes, these laws and regulations will be helpful in dissuading your kids from growing-up to be douche bags.
24 Michael // Jun 2, 2008 at 9:54 am
Three points:
1. Critical Mass has been going on for 20 years around the world. It is always controversial, but cities with great bicycling have very small critical mass groups and cities with poorer cycling environments have larger groups.
The Critical Mass in Tokyo had 7 people one month while their big ride had hundreds or thousands….but they have really good bike facilities.
2. Any emergency vehicle, police, ambulence, or fire causes the group to disappear onto the sidewalks and in between parked cars. It is really amazing to see. It only takes a couple seconds for a completely bike-clogged road to become a completely empty path for the emergency vehicle.
3. There is a motorcycle law that allows “corking” of intersections for large groups to keep them from getting split up for safety reasons. To some extent, that is what this group does, but in Ballard it wasn’t done well and a conflict ensued. The worst situation is when a car becomes trapped in the middle of 50 cyclists and can’t move for fear of hitting a bike.
25 mikeyG // Jun 2, 2008 at 10:03 am
No.
Trust me - the “worst situation” will be if I’m obeying the traffic laws and “become trapped” by 50 righteous cyclists.
I don’t have the same apprehension or “fear of hitting a bike” as others.
Bring CM back to Ballard! The sooner some Scandahoovian fisherman’s truck turns a rider into a pink mist, the sooner we’ll all be done with this sissiness.
26 Duncan // Jun 2, 2008 at 10:05 am
Did any of these hard-working, tax-paying, productive citizens consider that they might be inconveniencing those riding buses?
Also, public transportation in Ballard doesn’t suck, at least not relative to other parts of town. Try living in Haller Lake and using the bus to get around. Ballard has a half-dozen bus routes, to say nothing of the express routes.
27 pioggia // Jun 2, 2008 at 11:42 am
Just because transportation is worse in other places (no arguments there!) doesn’t mean that Ballard’s is good. Yes we have several bus lines, and that’s great if you want to get to the U-district or the downdown, but not so much if you want to go to Capitol Hill, Ravenna, Seattle Center, SoDo, etc. Heck you have to take two buses just to get to Montlake if you’re not going during commute hours. And as I said, Metro’s evening connections are pathetic.
28 junior // Jun 2, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Why hasn’t anyone bothered to point out that less than half of them wear helmets? That’s the most bizzare part of the whole deal.
29 Duncan // Jun 2, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Pioggia, the 15, 17, and 18 all go to Seattle Center. The 15 and 18 also go to SoDo. Capitol Hill is a part of the city reserved for transplants, so there’s really no good reason to go there.
30 Suthii // Jun 2, 2008 at 6:55 pm
“Why hasn’t anyone bothered to point out that less than half of them wear helmets? ”
They’re the ‘rebels’…we’re the ‘nerds’.
31 Michael // Jun 5, 2008 at 9:07 am
The seattle helmet law is pushed by Cascade bicycle club and others, but it isn’t that widely known among newcommers or occasional riders and it isn’t enforced very often by the police.
Also, a recent study showed that motorists drive more aggressivly near cyclists wearing helmets than they do near cyclists who don’t wear helmets, and some of the original research that spurred the helmet laws is questionable.
Despite that, I do wear my helmet.
32 L // Jun 6, 2008 at 4:11 pm
It can take 45 minutes to get from Ballard to the U-District on the 44 bus. Biking takes only about 30-40 minutes, and I don’t have to add the time to wait for the bus, or sit with the crazies.
The only reason the bus wins is because of the rain. (The 46 route is much better, but only runs about 8 times a day, and not late enough in the evening).
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