Ride reports 27-5-2011

At least a 1000 turned out for the May Mass and most were in party spirit. We set off by about ten past seven. The reggae sounds had made it seem that everyone might just hang out on the South Bank instead of cycling but a louder pop muzak thing kicked in and we were off.

I say 2 monkeys, but I don't actually know. We filled the Waterloo roundabout and headed off over the Bridge. Traditional.

Last month the 17th anniversary saw the senior squad turn up in force along with a lot of Mediterranean tourists, but this month not so much. It was mainly local tourist and quite a young crowd and everyone was up for a good time. No costumes.

The suggestion was made that we should go down to Belgrave square and support the Spanish kids protesting against world injustice and stuff. People nodded. Whatever, yeah. s

Thusly, when we got over the bridge we turned left down Strand, through Traf Square, under the Arch and onto the Mall. When I stood in Trafalgar Square the Mass took like 5-10 minutes to pass me. Everyone spread out, riding comfortably. Perfect.

The typical self-appointed vanguard had been displaced this month by a dozen or so longboarders who showed a really good open vibe and were a happy addition to the mass.

Last month at Hyde Park Corner the North-London-Hardline completely poo-pooed the idea of even stepping into Kensington and Chelsea as if they have taken a blood oath to never go west. Not one step across that line. Not ever.

This month it was the same, but with the help of the long boarders and fresh faces at the front (CM has no leaders!) we got 95% of the mass over into

Belgrave Square. 50 or so north/east Londoners thought that this was just too-too much and broke away (it must have been all of 7:30) and they went off on a mini-mass to wherever. God Bless, have fun! Any reports?

For some reason the mass stopped outside the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Yeah! Stick it to the advertisers they suck. But, then we swooped on round the corner to support our indignant Spanish brethren...

...who'd gone home. Ah well.

Still, being in West London it seemed appropriate to keep going for a bit so we went down Sloane Street, corked off the Square and did a little bike lift. The Chelsea-ites took it reasonably well, mostly. We haven't been there in five years at least so there was a lot of head scratching by the bystanders. We corked off a lot of Chelsea Tractors and Saudi's in Audi's so...worth it. Definitively.

The longboarders would have liked to hit up Fulham (being mostly from those ends) but the other people at the front thought it a bit mean on the adventurous Easties who had remained with us and were looking a bit pale and sweating. So we went north up Sydney Street and turned back east up the Fulham Road towards Knightsbridge.

Some of these South Ken people got a little bit upset at the wait, and we did make them wait as we dominated the road all the way up Brompton to

Knightsbridge. FYI they all left their engines running. I guess they don't care about wasting petrol. There were lots of "what are you doing? I am tooo busy!" type comments, but nothing irate. Take a pill. 5 minutes.

It must have been about 8 o'clock or ten past that we whooped the Hyde Park Corner underpass to get back to Picadilly. Ah, the joy. I'm always an advocateof going west or south and I thought that the ride through Chelsea was great. We could move at a reasonable pace, take over the road, see a nice bit of town and represent to the nabobs. Awesome.

Back to Picadilly though and it was like being a Shanghai commuter in the 1980s. Mopeds trying to barge their way through, horn honking, walking speed. %grumblestiltskin%.

There hadn't been much aggro this ride, but there were quite a lot of falls. I don't know what it was but it seemed like the mass was having a shared

malcoordinated moment in their lives. Luckily, all of the fallers bounced back up again and everyone was happy-pappy.

Bike lift at Picadilly. What's new? But, fella's if you're gonna do that push on a little bit because most of the mass was strung out waiting down the road.

A nod of the hat to the longboarders was then to try and get Haymarket clear for them to race down. It didn't quite worked. Uncoordination central. But Haymarket (a nice downhill) is pretty fun anyhows.

So, to Trafalgar Square and the loop-de-doops. A few hundred tourists taking pictures. A thousand CM's cycling about. 2 plastic police taking pictures. You know the ones who like to lecture you about cycling there being dangerous. Did we cause any accidents? Hell, no.

15 mins and the pilgrims were back on the tarmac. We never stay that long in Traf Square due to the lack of convenient and economical grog shops. Otherwise, you know, we could have been there for ever. The weather was warm, there must have been four different sound systems, Sweet. We could sit and cycle and climb on things. Nice.

So, down Whitehall to PMT square. It must have been 9 o'clock and we were losing a lot of people to the bright lights of Central. But the remaining 500 or so were pretty relaxed. A little bike lift outside Downing Street. A general sort of monging around all the way down there. We didn't cork PMT square very well and all the cars were mixed in, but it caused no harm.

Back over the river at Westminster Bridge and back down towards Waterloo. We looked back at the starting point and there were mutterings about sitting down and just chilling but the call to take Tower Bridge took the peloton back along the South Bank in pretty good order. It must have been 9 thirty or later and we still had several hundred.

At Borough we'd gone down Tooley street and a lot of the mass had stopped at the Corner Shop. I mean, like fifteen bikes, lying around pell mell without locks or anything. Hey! That's awesome. And I was super happy we were back in Southie as well and that we weren't pissing down our trousers on Oxford Street.

It seemed that the 15 beer-getters and the 30 or so others who had pulled into the side might lose the front of the mass. It took a while for everyone to

stock up with baccy and brew. They'd said they were going to hold the bridge, but still...would they be waiting?

When we arrived at the bridge though, the gates were closed and the bridge was raised. It seemed like Old Father Thames was on our side in doing a supportive bridge raise. It's pretty unusual to see that these days, so. you know, sweet. But we weren't holding the bridge, the bridge was holding us.

Did anyone hang onto the bridge when it went up?

Okay, a little bit of aggro here. One of the bridge-men said that it was bad times that the cyclists had been mean to a car driver. But then again hundreds of cyclists saw that driver go nuts kicking out at people. Like, dude. The bridge was raised, there was already a traffic jam, what's the beef? You can watch the X-Factor on repeat, relax. We weren't even causing the delays. Jeez.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/suburbanslice/5766582676/in/set-72157626696472991

pictures of the bridge raising (by Suburban Slice)

Um, so, yeah. Ten pm maybe, upto Aldgate. Humming and Hawing. Beeping. Honking. Which way. Wayhay, the remaining 150 probably couldn't touch fingers to noses with eyes closes.

You Tube: "Critical Mass - London bike protest - stop the traffic! Aldgate" by ajl3311

The guy who took this video seemed a bit of a tool, but the responses are priceless and really catch the vibe. My favourite bit? at 0:23 the videographer is like "what's your name, mate-tuh?"

"ahm Bary" smiles

"and what's it all about, you're Italian, yah?"

"Nooo" Bary frowns, looks to the side and ticks "ahm from Essex". But really,

everyone responds well. It's amusing.

I say 2 monkeys, but I don't actually know. We filled the Waterloo roundabout and headed off over the Bridge. Traditional.

The suggestion was made that we should go down to Belgrave square and support the Spanish kids protesting against world injustice and stuff. People nodded. Whatever, yeah. s

The typical self-appointed vanguard had been displaced this month by a dozen or so longboarders who showed a really good open vibe and were a happy addition to the mass.

This month it was the same, but with the help of the long boarders and fresh faces at the front (CM has no leaders!) we got 95% of the mass over into Belgrave Square. 50 or so north/east Londoners thought that this was just too-too much and broke away (it must have been all of 7:30) and they went off on a mini-mass to wherever. God Bless, have fun! Any reports?

...who'd gone home. Ah well.

Some of these South Ken people got a little bit upset at the wait, and we did make them wait as we dominated the road all the way up Brompton to Knightsbridge. FYI they all left their engines running. I guess they don't care about wasting petrol. There were lots of "what are you doing? I am tooo busy!" type comments, but nothing irate. Take a pill. 5 minutes.

It must have been about 8 o'clock or ten past that we whooped the Hyde Park Corner underpass to get back to Picadilly. Ah, the joy. I'm always an advocate of going west or south and I thought that the ride through Chelsea was great. We could move at a reasonable pace, take over the road, see a nice bit of town and represent to the nabobs. Awesome.

Back to Picadilly though and it was like being a Shanghai commuter in the 1980s. Mopeds trying to barge their way through, horn honking, walking speed. %grumblestiltskin%.

There hadn't been much aggro this ride, but there were quite a lot of falls. I don't know what it was but it seemed like the mass was having a shared malcoordinated moment in their lives. Luckily, all of the fallers bounced back up again and everyone was happy-pappy.

Bike lift at Picadilly. What's new? But, fella's if you're gonna do that push on a little bit because most of the mass was strung out waiting down the road.

It seemed that the 15 beer-getters and the 30 or so others who had pulled into the side might lose the front of the mass. It took a while for everyone to stock up with baccy and brew. They'd said they were going to hold the bridge, but still...would they be waiting?

Did anyone hang onto the bridge when it went up?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/suburbanslice/5766582676/in/set-72157626696472991

pictures of the bridge raising (by Suburban Slice)

Um, so, yeah. Ten pm maybe, upto Aldgate. Humming and Hawing. Beeping. Honking. Which way. Wayhay, the remaining 150 probably couldn't touch fingers to noses with eyes closes.

You Tube: "Critical Mass - London bike protest - stop the traffic! Aldgate" by ajl3311

The guy who took this video seemed a bit of a tool, but the responses are priceless and really catch the vibe. My favourite bit? at 0:23 the videographer is like "what's your name, mate-tuh?"

"ahm Bary" smiles "and what's it all about, you're Italian, yah?" "Nooo" Bary frowns, looks to the side and ticks "ahm from Essex". But really, everyone responds well. It's amusing.

Anyway, there was movement after a few minutes of partying. I should point out that we still had Mass and at least two sound systems - Jamaica System and Transformers System. So, what with the warm weather and everything, noone was in a hurry-hurry.

The debate was "keep it moving down Commercial Street or go down Brick Lane". The callers for Brick Lane were more charismatic, so that's what we did. We pulled up by Cafe 101, 93 Feet East, etc. and the Mass was self-corked to declarations of it's termination. Transformers Sound System was mobbed by impromptu ravers who were loving it. I think he was sweating it.

We got a little bit of heat from the filth here "you've got to move on, waaaah, you're blocking traffic" (blocking them).

But a lot of people did chose to leave here. 50 down.

Got to the end of brick lane - ooh, beigel shop. 50 down.

10:40 Keep going crew? Well, yeah, let's follow the sound system... he was going home up East. So, we went down to Bethnal Green. Stood about, hummed and hawed. Up Cambridge Heath Road.

They're dropping out like flies. Take a hint. It's over. Down Old Ford Road, up Approach Road. There were probably 30 left. From Balham, Battersea, Bermondsey and Catford it seemed. Now we were worried. Where is we?

A club tout on a bicycle was pretending to be a masser (I think) and he drew us sheep like back down Bethnal Green Road picking up some of the strays. But that was it for me. CM'ers were hanging around drinking in the parks and that, sitting by the roadsides. Back down by Brick Lane the sound system crapped out and that was that for me. Done.

I don't know where the last dozen went, I headed home, only took me like an hour or something. Yo, whatever.

Um.

PS. last month (after the ride report ended) CM finished at a Warehouse Party in Dalston with the last 30 or so. Apparently it was a good time for all.

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