While not as big as the Seattle Critical Mass (I'd estimate around thirty riders) it was fun and slightly dangerous. Saw one really cool bike, the Guerciotti the girl is posing on in one of the photos, according to her its an aluminum lugged frame, pretty unique lugs to me. . .
Evidently, I heard this morning the Mass got a whole lot more dangerous shortly after my sister and I broke from the group. . .
"There's a man assaulting another man on the corner of Saint Paul and
Madison," I told the 911 operator on the line.
Two bicyclists had pulled up in front of Red Emma's coffeehouse followed
by a drunk black man in a large SUV. As I watched, he threw one of
their helmets into the street and kicked a bike lying on the sidewalk.
. . .
"The witnesses are saying he smells like the worst sort of alcohol,
and... he's leaving the scene, getting back in his vehicle and just
turned onto Madison."
. . .
A few minutes later the officer arrived on the scene and spent a good
minute just waiting for a break in traffic to cross St. Paul to get to
us, while gesturing with the universal symbol for "did you call me?"
with fingers to his ear and mouth.
We all introduced ourselves and the officer took the victim's statement
and ran the plate, coming back to say that the registered owner was a
6'2" black male, weighing a little over 200 pounds. The consensus was
that the attacker was not that tall, but certainly could have been that
heavy and was certainly drunk.
Both bicycles were riding abreast in the right lane of St. Paul street
at Penn Station when the driver began to follow them, calling them all
sorts of sexist and racist names (yes, I think "white bitch" is racist
when used in that context) and threatening to teach them a lesson when
he could stop his car. Fortunately or unfortunately that turned out to
be in front of Red Emma's coffee house where Suzy and Thomas were
helping me load my own bicycle into the back of the car.
The victim assured the police officer she could pick the attacker out of
a lineup, and he wrote her a case report for simple assault and assured
us that if he encountered that vehicle tonight he would have a
"discussion" with the operator. He grabbed his belt for emphasis and we
all chuckled a little.
. . .
By the time we were done, it was 11:37 pm. My call to 911 was at 10:53
pm.
Three and a half hours earlier...
At 7:20pm the Critical Mass of bicycles was taking up every lane from
right to left on Pratt Street and having a great time of it when a green
GMC Yukon Echo began to rapidly accelerate and brake against the
bicycles towards the rear. I watched in amazement as the SUV tapped the
rear tire of one of the bikes in front of him and saw the bike fall
under the wheels and the rider fly off his bike and onto the street
crumpled into a pile in the lane marker to the left of him.
Everyone in the group heard the crash at once and stopped traffic to a
halt. The man became increasingly aggressive to everyone as he realized
that he had just hit a bicyclist in full view of 40 others and many
vehicles. Every head turned back towards him and an ungodly roar came
from the cyclists en masse, as some shouted to him about the sort of
trouble he was about to be in, others shouted to call 911 and others did it.
I stood mostly numb on my bike in the right lane. Traffic was piling up
behind us as far as I could see down the road and a red minivan was
aggressively trying to nudge into my physical space. Everyone held
firm, especially the dozens of bicycles arranged in a way to make a
tactical escape for this reckless driver impossible without multiplying
his injury count by tens and twenties.
The Critical Mass held as the ambulance sirens and flashers got closer,
and cameras and video cameras continued to roll. As the ambulances and
fire trucks made their way through the traffic jam, a few lanes were
opened by the bicyclists for cars to pass and lighten up the traffic behind.
. . .
At this point either the woman passenger or the driver said something
about how the bicyclist deserved it or had it coming and the collected
cyclists waiting to give their statement erupted and called over to the
police, making sure they documented that statement. The video camera
was in the thick of this, taking in everything around it.
. . .
The cops are obviously tired of us by now, and probably realize that the
video evidence is going to paint a pretty clear picture.
The bicycles did disperse, with a few people towing Ika's (the victim)
dented bike back to Light Street Cycles and others simply finding
another place to be. When I last looked behind me, there were five cop
cars, two police motorcycles and the reckless driver's car with him
standing near it, and someone saying something about a ticket.
Twenty minutes earlier...
I was delighted to see the Critical Mass riders coming down St. Paul
past the coffee house so I could join. The traffic had cleared up for a
good minute or two outside the window and I had realized their arrival
was imminent. I waved to everyone I saw as I unlocked my bike from the
front of the store and rushed to join them. With the hooting, hollering
and bell ringing from everyone I hardly even noticed what others were
later calling one of the more aggressive set of drivers ever stuck
behind a sea of bicycles.
I feel like something is very wrong with this town today. There's to
much bicycle hate for it to be random.
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Joined: 25 Jul 2005
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