Critical Mass

Friday night I rode downtown to the Critical Mass ride. Critical Mass is a ride that takes place in cities all over the world on the last Friday of the month. Depending on where you live there could be just a handful of folks to several hundred, to over a thousand. Friday there was a hundred or so riders. I was expecting more, but wasn't disappointed by the turn-out.

We rode all over downtown with a police escort, which is unusual. In most cities, typically the point is to do it without the police escort, tie up traffic and generally chuckle at the people in cars who actually get really pissed. Having the cops there was good, because several cars charged the group at a couple of different intersections and the cops pounced on them, yelling at them to stop or back-up. I don't think anyone got a ticket, but they damn sure could have.

About ten minutes into the ride, the group pulled into a parking lot. It wasn't clear at first what was going on - then a guy pulling several wheeled towers of donuts came out and everyone went crazy. One of the organizers had arranged for Voodoo Donuts to pass out a bunch of free donuts to the riders. It was pretty awesome. Voodoo Donuts makes several vegan varieties, but I was more interested in snapping a few pictures than eating.

After the donuts and back on the road, the ride went on for about an hour or so altogether. I'd guess we covered about 8 to 10 miles. It was a pretty long ride and it was pretty warm out too, so I was glad when we arrived back at the starting point.

You can see a few pics from the ride here.