Grey skies and light rain finally cleared about an hour before Mass rolled out at 7:30pm, in complete darkness as the winter draws in and the clocks due to go back the following night. The crowd of about 4 to 5 hundred rolled south first of all, avoiding Waterloo Bridge which usually ends up splitting the Mass, then doubling back at St Georges Circus and heading north over Blackfriars Bridge. Being the Halloween ride, many people had brought costumes and props along. There were skeletons, a ghost nun, the Mario Brothers, and various horror film characters in attendance.

The pace of the ride was medium rather than slow, and there was a bit of filtering happening rather than waiting for the traffic to clear and move on – but at several points the car traffic was immoble (for other reasons like roadworks and Friday night congestion) so the riders squeezed through the gaps. This strings the Mass out but the leaders of the ride (usually younger wheelie riders) are slowly getting better at stopping and waiting for the ride to catch up from behind. There were a few older kids & younger teenagers on the ride accompanied by parents, riders on longboards, and again a hand cranked wheelchair rider along with the usual bicycles and electric unicycles.

The ride went east through the southern part of the City and then out to Whitechapel, then heading north and turning back west towards Shoreditch. Near Aldgate a coach driver had mistimed their turn and was wedged stuck at a junction, blocking the road to the Mass – which eventually riders just had to go around the back of via the path.

Unusually at Shoreditch High Street, the ride turned north and continued up the long straight drag, through Dalston, then Stoke Newington, then up to Stamford Hill, and just kept heading north towards the eastern side of Finsbury Park, then past the Harringay Ladder, through Hornsey, then Wood Green, and finally finishing up at the Alexandra Palace.

It is very rare that the ride would go this far north, especially later into the evening. Normally the ride would head back to central London. Anyone who stayed on to the end was rewarded with a pit stop – after a long climb! – with fantastic views of London at night from the top of the hill. There were two groups at the end of the ride – one nearer the top of the hill. People were tired after the climb and there did not seem to be much impetus to gather the ride up and head back to central en masse, so eventually most people drifted off home individually or in small groups and there was no large group heading back to the usual finish points of Tower Bridge or Southbank or the Leake St. Tunnel.

It had been raining constantly for the two days in advance of today’s ride, but thankfully, by midday on Friday, the rain had stopped and the streets had begun to dry up. A smaller-than-usual crowd of between 500 and 600 riders gathered on the south bank. A BMX trick and stunt rider entertained the gathering crowd underneath Waterloo Bridge, dressed as a jester with spirals and paint on his BMX.

The ride left south bank at 7:30pm and headed south towards Elephant and Castle roundabouts, stopping at traffic lights and waiting for the rear to catch up, keeping the bloc of riders fairly consistent, The ride then headed out south, passing by Kennington Park, again stopping and waiting quite well at large junctions for people behind to catch up and move off as a block again. There was also a nice diversity on the ride, including some families with children, recumbents, and a handcrank-driven wheelchair.

Leaflets were handed out at the start of the evening, asking people to stay together and not to filter through traffic lights. As the nights draw in and it gets darker, in the past the ride has also been infiltrated by phone thieves. The other side of the leaflet warned people about their potential presence on the ride again during the winter.

The ride then took the eastern fork at Kennington and headed down towards Brixton. The ride went as far south as St Matthews Church, and then young wheelie riders looped back around the triangular junction the way the ride came, straight into traffic, filtering between cars. This filtering continued pretty much all the way back up towards the Kennington Junction, where eventually the ride stopped and waited for everyone to recombine.

The ride drifted back towards central London via Little Portugal, stopping again occasionally where the BMX trick rider entertained the waiting crowds. The younger wheelie riders charged on ahead near Lambeth North station, but the remainder of the ride stopped and waited for everyone to catch up, and the fast riders were gone from the ride. The bloc then headed across Westminster Bridge and along the embankment, finishing unusually at St Paul’s Cathedral on the steps. where people socialised for longer than usual.

The ride left the Southbank at 7:30pm as it usually does these days, with about 800 riders in attendance. The weather was good and again with the summer months, there were a lot of newer and first-time riders there, including groups of teenagers still off school. Unusually, the ride turned right coming out of “Theatre Avenue” and did not head up the slope towards the IMAX roundabout, instead going under Waterloo bridge and south on Belvedere Road, then halting in Chicheley Street to regroup and bunch up before heading out on to the A3200. This was actually better in some ways to start moving the ride off into car traffic than the slope and the IMAX roundabout, which is a narrow road and strings out the Mass as it only gets started. There were no City Of London Police in attendance for this ride, compared to the previous two months. There were also no phone thieves trying to inflitrate the ride.

The ride headed in a large bloc through the Vauxhall gyratory, whooping and cheering coming out of the rail tunnel and travelling down Nine Elms Lane towards the old Battersea Power Station. This is a long straight stretch, and as the road opened up ahead, a group of younger riders accelerated off the front of the ride. As the road narrowed past the south western corner of Battersea Park, these riders squeezed between the stopped cars ahead, with others following them. This meant the ride got separated into multiple sections, with car traffic in amongst the ride.

After about 1.5km of this “filtering”, some older riders were able to stop the ride, and allow it to recombine into a single group again, before heading down towards the Wandsworth roundabout. For the remainder of the ride, there was no more filtering through stopped traffic, corking of large junctions was effective, and the ride regularly paused at major intersections to allow the riders behind to catch up with the front, so the Mass moved off safely together without allowing people to drop off the back.

The ride continued to head south west but then turned up towards Putney, and crossed the river at Putney Bridge into Fulham. The riders then piled en masse into Eel Brook Common for its customary midway stop for about half an hour. The “Goldfinger Soundsystem” bike was in attendance on the ride and some riders were dancing in the common as the DJs took turns to play some tracks. This affluent part of the city would be unaccustomed to Critical Mass visiting, and residents nearby came out to their doors making phone calls, with one walking through the stopped riders. The Police arrived very shortly afterwards in a van and a car, but then left again without any sort of contact.

The ride then headed back towards central, avoiding Kensington and Chelsea, travelling back in along the embankment, and turning back towards south across Chelsea Bridge when roadworks impeded sensible progress for the ride. The ride then retraced its steps heading northbound in through Battersea, finishing up at the steps of Potters Fields next to Tower Bridge.

The ride left Southbank at 7:30 as it usually does these days. Between seven and eight hundred riders assembled, with many friends and colleagues of Matheus Piovesan in attendance, who had been killed at the start of the month in Shadwell. A report from the Evading Standards summarised this part of the ride:

“Friends of Mr Piovesan and cycling activists from Critical Mass London unveiled the ghost bike – an old bike spray-painted white – on Friday evening near the location he was hit. An estimated 800 people were present at the event, which was part-protest and part celebration of his life. An earlier celebration had been held by his friends in Victoria Park on July 7, the day following his death.

Brazilian friends of Mr Piovesan had contacted Critical Mass riders via social media, and asked for support to mark the passing of their friend. He was from Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and had been living in London for more than five years. He was a journalist and music producer, with a regular show on Brixton Radio, and also a keen leisure cyclist. He lived with friends in Limehouse and was returning home from central London after working a shift in a brewery at the time of the crash.

The Critical Mass ride headed to Shadwell, where friends and family of Mr Piovesan had gathered. The crowd paused in Cannon Street Road, and occupied the length of the narrow street. Car traffic on this section of the street is usually fast moving, coming off the nearby A1203, but there are no calming measures on the road as it approaches the residential area and the first-generation CS3 “cycle superhighway” on Cable Street.

A bike donated by community bicycle shop Babyldn Bikes was locked to the fence adjacent to where Mr Piovesan had been killed. Cargo bike riders carrying mobile sound systems played his favourite music, as his friends spray painted the bike white and adorned it with colourful glitter. As the “ghost bike” was being spray-painted, nearby residents watching out of their windows applauded. Mr Piovesan’s ex partner addressed the crowd, thanking them for their support, saying that the carnival atmosphere and energy was something Mr Piovesan would have loved.

Many of the friends and family were crying, as smoke flares were lit as a sign of cyclists in distress. They then applauded as the ride moved on after a stop of 20 minutes.”

After this stop in Shadwell, the ride headed north towards Hackney. The ride split in two at the southern end of Mare Street, as a group went to London Fields, but others went on towards the skate park at Mabley Green, where a BMX and Skate jam was happening underneath the flyovers of the A12 adjacent to the Hackney Wick marshes.

After watching the tricks on the ramp for about twenty minutes, the ride then turned back and returned to central London, heading back via Bethnal Green and Shoreditch, before finishing up at the Potters Fields steps next to Tower Bridge.

A crowd of about six or seven hundred gathered on the Southbank to leave at 7:30. The first desination was a return to London Bridge. After the trauamatic events of last month where an 18 year old rider was driven over and dragged across the bridge, his friends supported the Mass returning to the bridge and doing something as a show of solidarity with the rider as he still recovers from his injuries.

The City of London police showed up at the Southbank before the ride began which was unusual – some riders asked why they were there, and they said that they were there to monitor the ride to London Bridge and stop any phone thieves infiltrating the ride. It was unclear whether they were just there this month, as London Bridge is in the jurisdiction of the City; or whether this was going to be an ongoing thing. They remained with the ride until it headed into Westminster, where a Met van seemed to take over from them, tailing the Mass until it reached the old Battersea Power Station later on.

Despite being a bit cooler than the previous days, and overcast during the day, the sun broke through just as the Mass turned into London Bridge from Duke St Hill. The ride stopped on the northbound lane, occupying most of the bridge, and riders lifted their bikes in the air, cheering and ringing bells and horns. After a few minutes on the bridge, the Mass moved off again, this time looping around towards Monument, and heading downhill towards Lower Thames Street. The ride fractured a bit here as some riders went into the cycle lanes, followed by the police, but it joined back up again as people waited on the northern end of Southwark Bridge.

The ride then headed west towards Westminster and into Whitehall. Some cycling activists had created a banner that said “Tory Transport Policies Kill Kids and Cyclists / End Fake Culture Wars” and unfurled this at the gates of Downing Street. At the time of writing it appears that Rishi Sunak will lose the election later this week. Over the last year and a half, he has deliberately amped up a culture war against cyclists and councils attempting to make neighbourhoods cleaner and safer, in an attempt for votes in London suburbs. This has resulted in some councils being emboldened to remove LTNs and other cyclist and pedestrian friendly infratructure. The banner was a way for the cycling advocates to express their frustration with the policies and dangerous language in the media that has become the norm in recent months.

About a quarter or a third of the ride had shot ahead to Trafalgar Square and missed the banner display, but turned around and rejoined the ride as it waited in front of Parliament. The ride then headed out to Battersea area. It was stopped on Nine Elms (unclear why) and then headed in towards the area around the old power station, just as the Met van which had been tailing the ride stopped and the police inside starting walking towards the front. The old power station has been heavily gentrified into apartments and a high end shopping centre. This is another vague semi-public / private space (akin to More London) with security guards patrolling the outdoor area. They were panicky and agitated, and so some lead riders went down the pedestrian path to Battersea Park, and the rest of the Mass followed, stopping at the western end for about 20 minutes at Albert Bridge.

The ride then headed back towards central and ended at Tower Bridge. On the way back in, there was a minor altercation between some teenage riders and some older cyclists, near the northern end of Chelsea Bridge. A petrol motorbike was riding with the teenagers. While electric bikes and scooters are commonplace on many CM rides now across the world, petrol bikes are still a rarity and generally unwelcome with the fumes. The cyclists wanted the motorbike to leave, but the biker was with his friends who did not back down. The confrontation was eventually de-escalated and the ride moved on back towards central London without anyone getting hurt. For most of the evening, the ride stayed together and stopped and waited, so there was still a sizeable crowd on the ride after 10:30pm.

Later on when the ride had finished, out of the heat of the moment on the ride, the motorbike rider (also a teenager) was approached calmly and talked with at Potters Fields. The ride has started to regularly finish there as there is space to sit and talk with each other by the steps at Tower Bridge. Some older riders explained the history of the ride, and its genesis from environmental movements, to the motorbiker. Many teenagers on the ride, who are more from a bikelife/rideout/bikestormz background, are not necessarily conscious of the ethos of CM. Older cyclist activist type of riders who might have come before Covid have left London or WFH on Fridays and do not attend Mass regularly any more. It is only through talking with teenagers on a human level, and listening to them too, that they can learn about why Mass exists and still continues. The motorbike rider explained that his own bicycle was in need of repair, but he wanted to join his friends on the Friday night, but understood and would come along on his bicycle next time.

Mass left the Southbank at 7:30pm, as it usually does these days. Leaflets were circulated before the start of the ride, asking participants to come to Homerton, to put up a white bike for Harry Webb, who was killed there last September. At the time of writing the trial of the driver involved has been adjourned. Harry’s parents were contacted directly beforehand by members of Hackney LCC group, who approved of the proposed ride and white bike.

There were approximately five to six hundred participants on the ride. The Mass headed east towards Tower Bridge. Due to road closures in the central area of London, for the Champions League final, car traffic was heavy and movement was slow. The ride managed to stay together reasonably well, and headed east along Whitechapel High Street. A north turn up Cambridge Heath Road and then east on Well Street brought the ride to Kenworthy Road after about an hour and 20 minutes.

A bike that had been locked in place during the week, with pictures of Harry Webb attached to it, was spraypainted white, and a hundred tea light candles were lit around the bike as a memorial. Red distress smoke was lit, and the participants broke into spontaneous applause, cheers, and bell ringing as the smoke cleared. A bandmate of Harry’s attended on foot, and thanked Critical Mass riders for coming and remembering his friend.

The ride then took a slightly chaotic but fun route through Mabley Green and Victoria Park, riding over grass, before coming back to the roads around the south west corner of Victoria Park and heading towards Shoreditch via Bethnal Green. The front of the ride still stopped regularly, waiting for people behind to gather, and then move off again in a tighter bloc. This meant during the incident at the end of the ride after 10pm, there was a fairly large number of riders still participating.

The ride then headed south towards Borough Market, crossing London Bridge. At the junction of Tooley Street, while the ride was stopped again waiting for others to catch up, there was an incident which is still being investigated. An 18 year old rider became trapped under the wheels of a car and was dragged for approximately 50 metres across London Bridge. Multiple ambulances and police vehicles arrived on the scene. The rider is still recovering from his injuries, which included a broken nose, and heavy brusing and lacerations to his body – but thankfully, nothing more serious and he will make a recovery. The driver of the car was arrested by the City of London Police on the northern end of London Bridge after Mass riders caught up with him. After approximately an hour on the bridge, the police dispersed the crowd and riders went home.

A GoFundMe was set up with help from Critical Mass riders and friends of the injured rider. At the time of writing it is still open to make donations, but within less than 48 hours after it had been opened, the GoFundMe had reached its target of £1000 for a replacement bike for the rider. Although the ride was overwhelmingly positive, and it had been memorable to mark where Harry Webb had been killed, it had come to a very upsetting and traumatic end for anyone who had seen the incident at the south end of London Bridge. To see such genuine and immediate solidarity being displayed by Critical Mass riders with support for the rider, was a real sign of positivity and community.

Tonight’s ride left at 7:30pm as it usually does these days. Before this a crowd of approximately 500-600 riders gathered on the Southbank. Many in the crowd were coming for the first time, confused and excited, arriving on hired Santander or Lime Bikes, having seen videos on social media of the 30th birthday ride two weeks before. Other people came who had not attended mass for months or even years, but had come back to rejoin the ride after the 30th anniversary ride, which was a really positive development.

The weather thankfully had held off and the sun was poking out between the clouds. Leaflets alerting people to the potential presence of phone thieves on the ride were handed out again to attendees, giving people information about ride etiquette. The text of this leaflet includes points about staying together, stopping at junctions, corking, and not filtering through traffic. Participants discussed beforehand, and a vague destination of Greenwich was agreed. Generally speaking, these days, a majority of participants prefer to avoid travelling in towards the west end for at least the first part of the ride, to avoid getting caught in rush hour traffic and breathing in fumes, and the ride sitting there, or else filtering through cars and become all broken up. Central London is thankfully better for individual cyclists (while still always needing improvement), with wider footpaths and narrower single lane roads; but for a mass group ride, which mimics vehicular traffic in some ways, central London can be difficult and slow moving. Going into parts of zone 2 and 3 for the ride generally means it is more freely moving.

The ride went south from the BFI roundabout. At the junction of The Cut and Waterloo Road, a drinker at the Old Fire Station pub, diagonally across from the Old Vic Theatre, hurled a pint glass unprovoked at the Mass. Thankfully, nobody was hit or injured, the glass landed between riders and smashed on the ground. These sorts of incidents of random violence against the ride are rare. And participants did the right thing in not rising to the aggression shown by drunk Friday night morons just there to elicit a response. But aggression like this is a reminder of the coarse level of debate generally, where anti-cycling bias in the media emboldens people to do this sort of thing when they see a group ride.

The ride headed towards Elephant and Castle and out the New Kent Road, over the bricklayers arms flyover and south on the Old Kent Road towards New Cross. Thankfully the ride managed to stay reasonably together, having stopped at Elephant, again on the flyover, and then further down the Old Kent Road at the junction of Ilderton Road, and then again the intersection where the New Cross Road begins. These little pauses, even if they only take a minute or two, are really important for the Mass to stay together. The corking along the Old Kent Road was excellent, with people putting in shifts as the ride became a bit more strung out, which happens on long straight stretches. There were two reported incidences of drivers getting out of cars and challenging people, including one incident where a female rider who was corking was grabbed and was pushed out of the way, but was then supported by other riders. The driver wisely got back in the car and waited the extra two minutes they had to until the ride had fully passed. Another potential flashpoint with a BMW driver at the Greenwich Market was also firmly but peacefully dealt with. Any driver attempting this sort of thing is likely going to have to wait longer as more cyclists come and back others up.

The ride then had a customary pitstop at the area near the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, where people played a bit of music as the sun went down, had a beer and a smoke. About 20 minutes later, the ride eventually reconvened and headed back towards Central London, heading in along the the northern route along Evelyn Street, passing through the top of Deptford and then along Jamaica Road through Bermondsey. Again, the ride is slowly getting better generally, stopping every so often waiting for people behind to catch up (including some wheelie riders near the front, who have been befriended over time and are slowly more on board with the message of Mass), so the ride moves together in a single bloc.

On Jamaica Road, the ride turned into Long Lane, heading towards Borough High Street, and then turning back in towards Newington Gardens MUGA area, where the London hardcourt Bike Polo crew were having some Friday night games and a party, as one of their players was leaving London for good. The Mass managed to catch the last 15 minutes of games there before the floodlights turned off for the night. Some of the Polo crew had helped out with the corking on the 30th Birthday ride, so they were very happy to see Mass come along and have a chance to watch some of their games in action. A small campfire had already been lit at Newington Gardens by the Polo crew, so it was a nice way for people to interact with each other from the two different scenes and warm up.

By 10pm, the ride had thinned out and approximately 100-150 riders remained. They rolled the small distance to the steps at Potter’s Fields next to Tower Bridge, where the ride finished up. People stayed there for a while having a drink and chatting. The security guards for More London are generally standoffish when the Mass arrives there on a Friday night, they see that we are peaceful, and are not interested in having any confrontation with us, as long as the music is at a reasonably tolerable level for the residents living in the blocks of flats nearby, some of which are not luxury apartments, but actually social housing for City of London tenants.

There were no incidences of any phone thefts or similar antisocial behaviour from balaclava riders on the ride tonight, which is a really positive thing to remember, and to take forward into the summer rides.

A large crowd began to gather on the Southbank early on Sunday. This ride had been heavily publicised in advance, both in real life and online, with posters and flyers in cafes, bars, bookshops, bicycle shops, radical spaces, and up on walls and hoardings around the city, in advance of the 30th anniversary of the very first CHARM ride on the 15th of April 1994.

The Met police attended on the Southbank, but kept a discreet distance, monitoring the gathering informally from above, only intervening to come down from their elevated position when two riders in full balaclavas appeared briefly in the crowd. The balaclava riders disappeared shortly afterwards and were not seen again on the ride. One of the primary reasons for the callout to have the 30th anniversary on this day, rather than a Friday night, was to mitigate the potential presence of thieves using the ride as cover to snatch pedestrian phones, and causing older or irregular returning riders anxiety or panic. The daylight and larger crowd meant that any activities like this would have stood out, and thankfully there were no reports of any thefts. Mass has been through some negative times in the last three years since crowds began returning after the lockdowns, and it was important to create a safe and positive space to celebrate a huge milestone; and not have to endure any stressful situations on a night ride, which had the potential to cause even more people to be turned off the idea of Mass.

Lots of older faces were evident in the crowd. Many people were chatting who had not seen each other for many years or had not come to a critical mass for a long time. The ride was advertised on “old school” websites, such as radar.squat.net and urban75, to encourage people who had maybe not attended for many years to join in the festivities. Multiple sound systems were in attendance as well as a hugely diverse group of riders, including an older black riders group, a Deaf cycling campaign group, riders with disability bikes, and families with children and teenagers in tow.

Des Kay also reappeared for the first time in many years back on the Southbank, and brought a collection of newspaper clippings, flyers, bike tags, posters, and other ephemera gathered over the course of 25 years of CHARM and Critical Mass, to show to the public as more people continued to arrive.

The weather helped to swell the crowd to near record numbers as one o’clock approached. The ride left on time at the advertised 1pm, heading up the ramp towards the Waterloo roundabout and turning right heading south towards Lambeth Bridge. Here one of the MCs advertised in the promotional material was picked up en route, and joined up with another sound system, to give the ride at the front a bit of extra energy and positivity as it made its way around the city.

The ride stopped intermittently throughout the two and a half hour duration, which allowed riders behind to be bunched back up again, instead of the ride being strung out and fracturing. For the duration of the ride, the Mass stayed together, and was coherent and safe. There were no reported instances of cars or other vehicles becoming entangled with riders in the middle of the Mass, so no reports of cars hitting any riders accidentally during the journey.

After Lambeth bridge, the road headed towards Westminster, and circled around Parliament Square, avoiding Whitehall and the West End, and turned back onto the river on the north embankment. At this stage, it became evident that more and more riders had joined after the 1pm start, with estimates for the ride attendance varying between 2000 to 2500, going on rough head counts from static videos as the entire ride passed by larger junctions.

The ride turned south over Southwark Bridge, towards Elephant and Castle, and then went east along the New Kent Road and turned north at the Bricklayers Arms. On Tower Bridge itself, the ride stopped and people let off some smoke flares and there were some dancing in the middle of Tower Bridge, before heading north towards Whitechapel, and arriving at London Fields around 3:30pm via Cambridge Heath Road, where the after party was taking place.

A 10-piece all-female brass band called She’s Got Brass arrived slightly late (as did the ride) having been delayed in their taxi with their instruments, reportedly by a large cycling demonstration happening in the area on the same day! Approximately half the ride filtered out through the rest of London Fields, with many older riders stopping at Columbia Road market for drinks and food.

Younger and regular went up towards the centre of London Fields where sound systems were congregating. The brass band played for about 45 minutes, including grime, rap and pop tunes, with lots of audience participation. Other people with families who were in the park at the time came along and sat down to watch the band, with young kids dancing and coming up to see the instruments. The band were cheered back for “one more” encore track; and after they finished up exhausted, some cargo bike sound system riders combined their sound systems together, and used the Hackney Council large wheelie bins in the park to mount the speakers, and get more people up dancing.

At 5:30pm two park wardens came over and instructed that if the music wasn’t turned off, four police fans waiting nearby would be instructed to come in, seize the equipment and arrest anyone still trying to play music. By then people had been starting to drift off home. A 6pm switch off was negotiated with the wardens, which was adhered to peacefully, so most people at that point dispersed. Some went to Tower Bridge for drinks by the river. Others went down to Hop Kingdom and St. Johns Churchyard across the street, for a short after-after party.

The feedback from the ride was overwhelmingly positive. Many people felt that it was one of the best masses in the last decade, with a huge array of different tribes of cyclists in attendance. Here is one comment from Urban75:

“I should preface this with a bit of an admission – I’m a bit of an imposter here. I had never been to a Critical Mass before. I’m am absolutley very ‘pro’ it’s cause, though I’m never in London on the day, or have generally deprioritised it, and/or might feel that it’s a fairly tight knit community (and I am of the spandex and carbon (or vintage and steel) sub-tribes of cycling, not the laid back courier vets or wheelie kids that I assume make up most of the CM population…

…But that was an amazing day on the bike, I wish I could do it all over again. God bless the weather, too.

The togetherness and community spirit had a message beyond the promotion of cycling. Too many walks of life the (critical!) masses think they are alone, but when smart shit like this gets organised, it can unlock a powerful group that can show ‘we’ can be ‘the many’.

Any day where you can cycle on closed roads – even from my amateur event do’s like RideLondon – are a blessing, and combined with that real feeling of ‘this city is ours’, made it for a magical few hours on the bike. The feeling when you cycle past the first blocking (corking?), and being part of a giant (unorganised) mass of fellow cyclists, was genuinely pretty moving moment. One or two cyclists each time heroically held up 100’s of cars, (all either irate at the delay or ‘wtf’ at what they were witnessing – ‘where did you all come from’?) to ensure we all had our day. No fucks given. Today, there are more of us then you.

(And shouting “beep if you like Critical Mass’ at said irate honking car drivers is still making me chuckle tbh )”

This ride was always intended as a supplementery party ride, after in-person group discussions on the regular rides over the course of a few months in the second half of 2023. It was not intended to replace the usual ride at the end of the month, which would always happen – just an extra daytime celebration with an endpoint, so people who had left London over many years including during and after the pandemic could come back together and celebrate. A good analogy at the time was “sometimes you don’t celebrate your birthday on the day itself!” A few people wanted to have it actually on the 15th which is the first ever CHARM ride birthday, but thought that a Sunday rather than a Monday would help people with kids and who live further out attend, as central London gets more hollowed out of real residents.

Another idea discussed in late 2023 was to have a “Reclaim The Streets” type event, occupying a street and diverting traffic, but with recent changes in the POA and the Met’s aggression towards groups like XR and JSO, doing this ran a much higher risk of confrontation and likely arrests. If an RTS-style action had been pre-advertised, this would also have resulted in much heavier police surveillance from the start. It was felt that the ride, with a large contingent of volunteer corkers, and a slow moving pace, meant that any goal to occupy the street safely for cyclists would be achieved with the ride itself.

It was a brilliant day with an enormous turnout; and hopefully it acts as a springboard for more people to come to the regular last Friday night rides throughout this coming summer.

A large crowd gathered on the Southbank this evening. Flyers had been circulated online that some riders on the Mass wanted to visit the junction at Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road, where another cyclist, Cheistha Kochhar, a 33 year old PHD student at LSE, had been killed the previous week while cycling with her partner. Leaflets were also handed out warning about thieves in balaclavas using the Mass as cover to steal phones from pedestrians as the ride goes past them.

The ride left at 7:30pm and unusually travelled along Upper Ground to get to Blackfriars Bridge Road. The ride then arrived at the location, where some regular riders from Mass had installed a ghost bike earlier in the day, kindly donated by community bike shop Babyldn Bikes, which is in the garages of Aberfeldy House in the Brandon Estate. The junction was occupied in all directions, stopping traffic.

The ghost bike for Cheistha Kochhar was sprayed white, and also a large stencil was painted on the road in front of the bike, saying “another needless cyclist death”. When the painting was finished, red distress smoke signals and a distress flare were lit in front of the bike, and the group did a large “bike lift” in the air at the junction, to the sounds of cheers, applause and bike bells.

Police arrived at the rear of the ride after about ten minutes, and the ride headed north on Farringdon Road, towards Kings Cross. Corking was being done and the ride was reasonably well kept together, but as Euston Road was emptied out by the Mass blocking it, the pace picked up and the ride began to fragment a bit as it went west. It came back together at the Warren Street underpass, but then fragmented again after it restarted, causing some friction with motorists trying to turn into Marylebone Road.

The ride had been circulated on some wheelie rider and electric scooter whatsapp groups as a “Good Friday rideout” (see attached flyer). Outreach and discussions with these groups asking them not to bill CM as such is still happening, as a “rideout” generally has different values and ride etiquette to a Mass, the main ones being riding inbetween moving traffic, and not stopping to wait for others behind.

The ride had split in two by the time it turned south on Edgware Road. The fast moving group went to Oxford Circus, and then headed south to Trafalgar Square, then on to Buckingham Palace. The second group followed more or less the same route, about five to ten minutes behind, eventually joining back up at Buckingham Palace. A rider in a black mask snatched a phone from a pedestrian between Bond Street and Oxford Circus, and was chased briefly but disappeared into the streets around Mayfair.

The ride stopped at Buckingham Palace for about twenty minutes, which was mostly deserted. It then picked up again and headed east, along the Strand and past St Pauls, through the city, over London Bridge, and finishing up at Potters Fields opposite the Tower of London.

(reposted from social media, with permission)

On Feb 23rd Critical Mass London visited the scene where cyclist Gao Gao was killed last year by a driver, who was driving 50mph in a 20mph zone, overtaking in wet conditions, and flipped his car, crashing into her at full speed, killing her instantly. Despite having many previous convictions, and killing Gao Gao, the driver will be free to get behind the wheel again on his release.

Distress flares and smoke signals were lit at the memorial for Gao Gao, as the road was peacefully occupied by participants on the Mass; and the white bike memorial for her at the location where she was killed was resprayed.

From the text of the CM leaflet: “Driving is not a human right, it is a privilege. Successive governments have kicked this reform down the road, despite petitions and lobbying for drivers to lose their license if they kill someone. The “war on motorists” is actually a war on cyclists, with the deaths only happening on one side.”

Respect to groups like the LCC for their continued work in highlighting unsafe conditions and infrastructure for cyclists in London, and for their efforts to change sentencing laws in awful cases like this one.