Harbour Bridge Ride - Critical Mass

Duncan wrote:

I don't want "facilities". I want to be able to ride safely where I
already do, legally, on the road. I don't want to be attacked by
enraged motorists because some CM dickheads ****ed them off last week.

Think about it; idiots who get enraged about CM would also get enraged
about you riding on "their" roads.


CM just brings cyclists together to do what they are
already legally entitled to do


Block a major arterial road during peak times that they are not legally
allowed to ride on, except during a "protest"?

Talk to the police. They are the ones who insist on that move.



You're making alot of assumptions there.

Pot, kettle, black. Get on your bike and take part in a CM, then post
your suggestions for improvements to their list.

Duncan wrote:

My issue with CM is that they get out there and **** people off...
deliberately. All that does is prompt articles like that linked, and
create a more hostile road environment for cyclists who just want to
get out there and get somewhere in traffic.

lol, children, the hostile road environment was there before CM.

In aus.bicycle on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 10:17:49 +1100
Big Bear wrote:
Idiots like you are why we do not have decent facilities/places for
cycling. We have tried decades of asking politely, attending meetings,

So, prove that CM has actually achieved anything. Beyond making life
difficult for people doing the work of course.

Say a statement from someone in the RTA, or an MP, or the police, or
anyone at all who isn't CM? Anyone at all who provides the things you
say haven't been provided and wouldn't be except for CM?

I'm not asking for much I'd have thought. YOu can prove your
statement can't you? You do have the evidence to even try to convince
me?

As it happens, the current non-CM advocates in NSW are doing a good
job, I've heard "damn they are hard bargainers" from more than one
source.

But then as you obviously don't know how these things work....

Zebee

In aus.bicycle on 24 Nov 2006 15:39:44 -0800
Duncan wrote:

Big Bear wrote:
I don't want "facilities". I want to be able to ride safely where I
already do, legally, on the road. I don't want to be attacked by
enraged motorists because some CM dickheads ****ed them off last week.

I dunno that's a fair accusation to level against motorists.

In that I doubt they'd deliberately attack.

I am not even sure there'd be an unconscious bias. Be interesting to
see if there was a way to determine if there was, no idea how that
could be done.

I don't think it does anything the other way though, as big lumps with
a police escort aren't really "the traffic".

Every commuter who rides on the roads is the traffic and the more of
those there are just riding politely and well the more drivers get
used to dealing with bikes.

Big lumps that happen now and then are 'special event' and annoying.
A driver who sees 20 well behaved cyclists every day will end up being
more attuned to cyclists and their needs (and see bikes as viable)
than one who sees a hundred or two once a month in a big lump making
life difficult, and imitating a special event rather than daily
traffic.

Certainly when I talk to non-riders, the first thing they say is "red
light runners". Few mention CM, but the few who have are consistently
contemptuous.

Zebee

Big Bear wrote:
Get on your bike and take part in a CM, then post
your suggestions for improvements to their list.

no ****ing way am I going anywhere near them..

In aus.bicycle on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 13:37:40 +1100
asterope wrote:

that week and were also looking forward to getting home. It seems this
womans idea of cyclists is that they are poor, unemployed or unable to
drive and thats why they ride bikes... i think someone removed the part
of her brain that contained the common-sense region and replaced it with
a bitchy stereotyping bit when she was born...

And how does the author know that they aren't students and unemployed?

Sure, it is a stereotype. What does CM do to dispel that?

It looks like a special event, and there were people wrapped in tinsel
and wearing costumes. That's not a bunch of legit commuters. That's
a bunch of hippie weirdos.

If you want people to change their minds, then you have to work from
where they are, not from somewhere else. If they think normal commuters
look like X, then look like X, but on bicycles.

If the people who do CM really want cyclists to be seen as normal
traffic they have to behave as it.

Clothing from lycra to suits, gear from backpacks to briefcases, and
riding solo or in small groups, coping if split by lights or traffic,
expecting no special treatment, obeying rules and being normal traffic.
They do that at least once a week, every week.

The only way to show bikes are viable transport used by all kinds of
people is for them to visibly *be* viable transport used by all kinds
of people. Day in, day out.


Zebee

In aus.bicycle on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 10:41:21 +1100
Resound wrote:

times like peak hour on a Friday afternoon. That is, bike don't get in the
way of traffic, bikes ARE traffic. Furthermore you'll notice that once you

Not ones in large bunches with a police escort.

*I* am traffic. CM is a nuisance.


get past a cyclist, you wind up being held up by the same car that was in
front of you before. In other words, you're exactly where you would have

Not on the harbour bridge you don't. Nor on the freeway. I have been
there at that time of day, and it still moves faster than CM was
moving.

I'll believe this "we are the traffic" **** when they are doing it on
their own, without escorts, obeying all laws, and doing what I am
doing day in day out.

because I am the traffic. They aren't.

Zebee
- who does her best not to hold up traffic on her bicycle. If it can
move faster than I can than why not do my damndest to let it?

Zebee Johnstone Wrote:

As it happens, the current non-CM advocates in NSW are doing a good
job, I've heard "damn they are hard bargainers" from more than one
source.

But then as you obviously don't know how these things work....

Intriguing, as I know how low in the priorities cycling actually are
with the current NSW government. Carl Scully and Michael Costa combined
have done a lovely job of ignoring cycling right out the governments
priorities. Don't think Critical Mass had literally anything to do with
that longterm situation.

BTW - Who are these "non CM advocates"? Do some reading about what 'CM
may actually be' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass), the
rides are literally a disparate group of cyclists with no real agenda
that getting together for a few hours a month. You're made a big
assumption, lumping together CM, which apparently has no organisation,
with BNSW, Bike North, Bike Sydney, MassBUG, Bike East etc. For
advocacy, observe the next national ALGA meeting and the 2007 NSW
election, you might actually learn something "how these things work".

Now a few questions, why is it apparently acceptable for journalists,
ie: Andrew Carswell initial article and then Anita Quigley's opinion
piece, to twist subject content out of all context, publish a
individuals phone number, incite or suggest violence and harm to a road
user group, all because put simply, they don't neccessarily agree with a
supposed groups aims or methods? The issue of actually liking CM isn't
the issue, it's how the media think it is *acceptable* to comment upon
a news event.

My usual answer to people who don't care much for CM is this: if the
relevant cycling organisations such as BNSW, BV etc, actually did their
roles properly, then then wouldn't be any reason for Critical Mass to
exist.


--
cfsmtb

Zebee wrote:

snipSo, prove that CM has actually achieved anything. Beyond making
life
difficult for people doing the work of course./snip

Right on, Zebee. CM has achieved absolutely nothing positive. It has
many negative achievements, on the other hand. You are right on the
money about the need to normalise cycling and the fact that the "hippy"
appearance and behavior of CM works against this.

cfsmtb wrote:

snipif the relevant cycling organisations such as BNSW, BV etc,
actually did their roles properly, then then wouldn't be any reason for
Critical Mass to exist./snip

There *is* no reason for CM to exist.

BV has achieved an enormous amount - this is patently obvious.

CM has achieved *nothing* positive for cycling.

CM is the Taliban of cycling: conservative, intolerant of criticism,
absolutely convinced of the rightness of their approach, despite all
evidence to the contrary. Conservative? Yes: despite appearances, doing
the same thing for 11 years, while evidence of the negative outcomes of
the activity mounts, is conservative behavior. CM is activism lite -
easy, warm inner glow, monthly taste of being naughty.

What really sh*ts me about CM is the waste of resources. While some
involved, including cfsmtb, do lots of good advocacy work (and perhaps
moderate the group to some extent), it seems to me that other
participants get much more excited and put far more effort into the
whole adolescent performance than they do into serious cycling work.

I would suggest that CM should be ignored. Excepting the times that
they cause major confrontation when riding on bridges and in tunnels,
they are only a minor irritant. I'd prefer the whole thing got wound
up, but since this is unlikely, let's just get on with real cycling
work.

Persia

Zebee Johnstone wrote:

If you want people to change their minds, then you have to work from
where they are, not from somewhere else. If they think normal commuters
look like X, then look like X, but on bicycles.

Fat, smoking, talking on a mobile phone, ear phones, eating, drinking,
etc, etc, etc
Naah, not prepared to compromise my principles that much.

Complete waste of time.

If the people who do CM really want cyclists to be seen as normal
traffic they have to behave as it.

lol, so it is really about people not having to be corporate clones,
that is what you are really objecting too.