The ride started brilliantly. A few hundred cyclists, 250 to 300 had gathered at the north end of Union Square. Rather than starting by heading south down Park Ave to Broadway, the ride broke out at the North West corner, heading across 17th street toward 5th Ave. It was about 8pm. 20 Police scooters had lined themselves up on the West Side of the park, and they were a little slow getting to 17th street.

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17th street was glorious! It was a beautiful evening, earlier rains had broken and the setting sun turned the western sky baby blue and pink. The narrower street made the pack seem larger than it was, and chants bounced off the buildings. The pack calmly glided into 5th Ave, turned south for a few blocks, waited at a light at 14th street, then made a smart right around 12th street again going west. All was very quiet even as four scooters finally caught up to us while we waited at a light at 6th Ave. Part of the pack was already on 6th, and when the light changed we joined them. Then the police circus began.

This is always the part where the story becomes more amazing than one can believe. So here is the situation, you have a few hundred bicycles making moderate progress up an avenue; there are some cars on the road. Traffic is moving, not at 35 miles an hour like cars usually like to do, but traffic is moving. You have a couple hundred cyclists which take up anywhere from a block to a block and a half and they are moving. In the same space, when the avenue is full of cars, you can fit maybe 20 cars. Any more than that, and traffic starts moving slow. Assuming you have 2 people in each car you are moving 40 people. So here is a situation where an avenue is moving 200 people in the same space where cars are moving 40 people. Given this effective use of the road the police then decent with a few vans, 20 scooters, and a couple of squad cars.

Along 6th avenue, the police moved into traffic with their scooters. They swerve between cars and bikes, without their sirens on. It’s really hard to understand what they want you to do because frankly it seems they really have no clue about what they are doing. One of the first people they stopped was riding in the middle of traffic, surrounded by a hundred bikes and some cars. They ticketed him for not riding in the bike lane. This of course is not ticketable when there are dozens to a hundred other people in the bike lane. While the police can ticket people like this, it should be thrown out. If you have received a ticket in critical mass and gone to court over it, you should report the result to freewheels. You should also contact freewheels if you are in the process of challenging the ticket.

Shake Down Action Sequence

My connection to the greater part of the ride broke here. For about an hour I mostly separated from the pack. I stopped to photograph a few people being ticketed along 6th Ave. Because bicycles pose such an incredible threat to the police, police only ticket in pairs or threes or fours. I kid you not, there were instances where there were four police officers working on issuing one ticket. Tickets which will not hold up in court. What is sad is just how impotent this all makes the police seem.



I later heard that part of the larger pack road up through Times Square before coming south again. For my part, after getting some photos of people being ticketed I followed a pack of Police scooters. Ten of them bolted east back toward Union Square and I gave chase, figuring maybe the thing to do is for critical mass to follow the police rather than the other way around. When we (me and the police) got to Union Square, there was a parade of police vehicles on Broadway, on the west side of the square. I waited behind them and followed as the turned East on 14th Street. What a mess. 14th traffic was backed up with cars for several blocks, There was a large contingent of police vehicles between Broadway and Park Ave, and they were blocking up the intersection making their turn onto 14th. One could not help observe the irony of all this extra police effort which only resulted in a large traffic jam on 14th.

Seeing the police well distracted at Union Square, my girlfriend and I took off North figuring there might be a rendezvous at Columbus Circle. When we got there, there were only two other cyclists. We chatted a while, then three of us decided to head back south. Around 23rd street while heading down Broadway we ran into a pack of about 15 cyclists. "Hooray!" everyone yelled. Peaches and Herb danced in my head. Reunited we continued south, were at 8th Street we met up with 30-40 more cyclists! "Hooray!" everyone yelled. A big happy family again, we road east to Tompkins Square park where we were treated by a small cheerleading squad to several renditions of "Resist"! Many who gathered at Tompkins Square park later moved on to ABC No Rio, my girlfriend and I instead headed up to Veselka where we stuffed ourselves with meatballs and potato pancakes.
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