A fun ride around a mostly deserted London, for a Friday night, with some older faces from the past appearing on the ride. Uneventful, other than everyone just getting on famously and having a good time – a great way to end what has been a decent year for CM London. Roll on 2025!

The ride left Southbank at 7.35. A smaller crowd than usual of about 400 riders appeared on the Southbank as the dark kicked in. The ride headed south down Waterloo Road towards St George’s Circus and Elephant and Castle, first of all, stopping repeatedly for people to catch up for perhaps a bit too long at each junction, causing some frustration for riders.

The ride headed down Walworth Road, turning left down Thurlow Street, heading through the Aylesbury Estate and again stopping for a while at the northern side of Burgess Park. The ride then stopped again at the junction of the Old Kent Road getting temporarily lost and misdirected going down Mandela Way, which opened out onto a one-way-only exit onto the Old Kent Road, with barriers impeding progress, forcing the riders to mount the path towards Tower Bridge Road.

The ride then headed north via Bermondsey Street with people filming and… cheering as the ride headed up this narrow street, which was busy with drinkers on a Friday evening. At the northern end of Bermondsey Street, the ride stopped again. Reportedly, a phone was stolen outside London Bridge Station by three phone thieves in Balaclavas.

The ride crossed London Bridge and headed north up Bishopsgate, where three phone thieves in Balaclavas were spotted and turned left along London Wall. three or four city police officers had joined the ride and the phone thieves disappeared.

The ride continued to head west towards New Oxford Street via Holborn and headed all the way to Oxford Circus, turning south down Regent Street after a stop at Oxford Circus, passing through the Christmas lights and ending then at Trafalgar Square after a relatively short two hours duration.

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.

January’s ride was joined by some families carrying Palestine flags, and the kids were really happy to see both a penny farthing and a tall bike riding alongside them. There was a good turnout on a cold but dry night.

The ride went across Waterloo Bridge first, and was being guided by some activists from Australia, who wanted to stop outside the Australian embassy near Somerset House on the northern side of the bridge. The ride happened to coincide with the date of Australia Day. The road in front of the embassy was peacefully occupied for a while, as banners were unfurled in front of the main embassy door saying “no pride in genocide” and “treaty now”. Several cyclists carried the Aboriginal flag on their bikes.

The ride then went east towards the City, looped around a bit, and then crossed back south over London bridge, turning left onto Tooley Street towards Tower Bridge.

At this point the ride stopped for quite a while, and a fair proportion of the riders branched off home, or went to Potters Fields on the river, or went to Hop Kingdom to get a beer.

For the last 3 or more years, small groups of phone thieves wearing full face masks have used Critical Mass as cover, to steal phones from pedestrians as the ride passes by them. Different approaches and attempts have been made to address this problem (see the attached leaflet). Earlier on the ride, this same group had been pointing at pedestrians with phones and it appeared they were looking for opportunities to do a snatch.

At Tower Bridge, some riders in full face masks were trying to get into the small Sainburys and were causing trouble at the door. They were approached by some regular CM riders and asked to leave the ride if they were just here to steal phones. A heated discussion with two individuals in facemasks continued for about ten minutes, but everyone stayed reasonably calm, without wanting to escalate. The reduced ride restarted then and headed south, and the small group in facemasks then left at Elephant and Castle.

The ride then looped back to the Southbank where it dispersed. This group of phone thieves did not reappear on the February ride.

Critical Mass has no leaders and no one is entitled to make any announcement on its behalf. If there ever is any, the correct response to such an announcement would be for people to ignore it and make up their own minds.

We loved the London Critical Mass ride. It’s definitely one for every cyclists calendar!

We left from Waterloo and went around the city. It was great!

If you want a better report, posts yours to londoncriticalmass@riseup.net or to the list http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cm-london otherwise every one will be turning to reports or comments from face book to keep informed!

This was a difficult Mass. After visiting locations where riders had been killed, on the reasonably successful September and October rides, this ride was led out by fast moving riders, who set the pace without waiting for others behind, and the rest behind struggled to keep up. There were a larger number than usual of Palestinian flags being carried by riders but they dropped out of the ride early on.

The ride splintered early on, roaming in between traffic (“filtering”), causing cars and other vehicles to end up between groups of riders, putting cyclists at higher risk of an accident. Mixed in amongst these riders were a group of approximately ten teenagers, dressed in black facemasks, some riding high powered ebikes.

The ride went east and then north into the city, running into roadworks and a road closure, which caused a fair degree of confusion over what to do next. The ride eventually came back together somewhat, and headed north along the eastern side of Regents Park, after again filtering through traffic around a huge traffic jam around Kings Cross St Pancras.

Around Kentish Town, a middle aged woman temporarily visting family in London had her phone stolen by the teenagers. They were chased down by Mass riders but ultimately managed to get away. Some CM riders remained with the woman and helped her to report what had happened to her. Others went on.

The ride splintered further as some went north to visit a squat; while the majority of the ride ended up back at Granary Square, where it dispersed.

The reappearance of the phone thieves acted as a catalyst for more discussion about how to approach the problem, and producing of leaflets for the new year rides to hand out to participants, advising them that the fast pace of the ride in the darkness was enabling the gangs of thieves to do snatches – the most important thing is to slow down and communicate with each other on the ride.

This was Haloween Mass so some riders were dressed in costumes. The mass headed east on the south side of the river, and crossed over Tower Bridge. A much faster moving group led by a “Riddler” rider, who was on an electic unicycle with others, and was lighting green smoke canisters, turned left after the Tower of London junction, bringing riders back towards the west end. About half to 60% of the Mass stayed together, waited for each other, and headed north to Homerton. The “Riddler” group reportedy later turned around and tried to join back up with the Mass, but were unsuccessful and this group dissipated in Whitechapel.

(this following account is taken from a social media report:)

“My account is this: It all started after we stopped at a location in Homerton where a cyclist had recently been killed by a motorist. We blocked traffic and had a little protest, lighting smoke bombs and distress flares. [Unfortunately some local kids put a firework on top of a bus shelter while Mass was stopped, and these fell over, hitting a house, which probably caused the residents to call the police]. About 15 minutes after we arrived, a police van turned up and moved us on, following behind us. Some minutes later, they pulled up alongside one of our speaker guys and jumped out and grabbed him. He was in a Halloween costume, and his fake plastic machete looked a bit too real, I guess, because they thought it was. While they were talking with him, other police officers tried to usher the rest of the Mass away and move us on, but we refused to leave until they released our speaker guy. During this time, 3 or 4 more police vans had turned up. After about 5 or 10 minutes, they knew they couldn’t do anything, so they released him, and we started moving off again.

I don’t think they liked the fact that it looked like we were heading towards the city center, so they began their campaign of harassment, with sirens blaring, horns honking, driving dangerously close to us, and forcing us to the left. At first, I thought they were just trying to get past to head to an emergency, which others probably thought too because we all moved over and let them pass. But after it got ahead, it would stop, maybe blocking a junction it didn’t want us going down. We would pass, and they would do it again and again and again.

After doing that a couple of times, we stopped getting out of their way and blocked them from passing the Mass. They still tried, sirens blaring, horns honking, edging closer and closer, nearly knocking people over. Up ahead, a van had managed to get ahead and blocked off the end of the road we were traveling on, with a dozen police on foot walking towards us in formation. They were trying to kettle us. Mass had spread out quite thin and long though, so there were side roads still open to us. The front of the Mass managed to double back, warn the others behind, and we all headed down a side road with smaller streets. We either lost the police here, or they gave up and went home, and we headed back towards Waterloo Bridge. This is how it looked to me. Others might have a different perspective.”

Critical Mass has no leaders and no one is entitled to make any announcement on its behalf. If there ever is any, the correct response to such an announcement would be for people to ignore it and make up their own minds.

We loved the London Critical Mass ride. It’s definitely one for every cyclists calendar!

We left from Waterloo and went around the city. It was great!

Critical Mass has no leaders and no one is entitled to make any announcement on its behalf. If there ever is any, the correct response to such an announcement would be for people to ignore it and make up their own minds.

We loved the London Critical Mass ride. It’s definitely one for every cyclists calendar!

We left from Waterloo and went around the city. It was great!

If you want a better report, posts yours to londoncriticalmass@riseup.net or to the list http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cm-london otherwise every one will be turning to reports or comments from face book to keep informed!

Critical Mass has no leaders and no one is entitled to make any announcement on its behalf. If there ever is any, the correct response to such an announcement would be for people to ignore it and make up their own minds.

We loved the London Critical Mass ride. It’s definitely one for every cyclists calendar!

We left from Waterloo and went around the city. It was great!

If you want a better report, posts yours to londoncriticalmass@riseup.net or to the list http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cm-london otherwise every one will be turning to reports or comments from face book to keep informed!

Critical Mass has no leaders and no one is entitled to make any announcement on its behalf. If there ever is any, the correct response to such an announcement would be for people to ignore it and make up their own minds.

We loved the London Critical Mass ride. It’s definitely one for every cyclists calendar!

We left from Waterloo and went around the city. It was great!

If you want a better report, posts yours to londoncriticalmass@riseup.net or to the list http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cm-london otherwise every one will be turning to reports or comments from face book to keep informed!