A decent crowd of around 400 riders showed up on Boxing Day for this ride. It went on a very “traditional” route around the west end, if you attended Critical Mass during the 2010s you would likely be familiar with the same spots visited with regularity. So those were Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Oxford Street / Circus. etc.
There were a higher number of ebikes and other electric powered vehicles (uniwheels, scooters) as the ride had been circulated on those groups, so the pace at the front was quicker than usual, leading to the ride separating in places but eventually coming back together after pausing and waiting for people to catch up.
London was relatively quiet as Boxing Day in-person sales are no longer the draw they once were, so the ride was mostly unimpeded by motor traffic. This is not usually the case if the ride goes straight into the west end.
At the end, the ride finished at the Leake Street graffiti tunnel (it was bitterly cold) and sound system riders linked up their speakers and got out a digital controller unit for a small party which went on for a few hours. Normally the tunnel venue security moves the riders on when they do this, but the venues were closed and CM was left alone.
A crowd of about 600 riders left the southbank at 1930. The weather was dry which was a relief compared to the complete soaking from the previous month. This is a decent turnout for a November ride.
The ride headed towards the Old Kent Road junction with Dunton Road, where a locally named (but not confirmed in the media) male cyclist G—- had been killed the previous Friday morning.
On the way, as corkers were stopping traffic from driving into the Mass at the foot of the Bricklayers Arms flyover down ramp, there was an incident where one impatient driver went around the car in front. A corker (off his bike) tried to stop him but the motorist looked like he was going to ram the corker standing in the road. The corker was forced to jump onto the bonnet of the car, forced with either the choice of possibly damaging the car or having his legs broken. The motorist then emerged from the car and stole the corker’s helmet cam. The police were called and attended, took details and then left.
The ride had split in two, as the rear half stopped and waited to deal with the motorist incident. But the front half was stopped and waiting a few hundred metres up the road, so the ride eventually recombined.
A white ghost bike was unveiled and sprayed at the junction with Dunton Road where the cyclist was killed.
The ride then moved off towards Greenwich, but in New Cross / Deptford the ride was brought to a halt with a complete deadlock of traffic in all directions. Conway contractors usually start work on roads at 9pm and with the delays on the OKR, this meant the Mass could not really go any further east without either stopping and starting, or filtering through traffic, neither of which riders wanted to do.
After regrouping at the square in front of Deptford Library, the ride then headed back towards central via Lower Road, Jamaica Road, and Tooley Street. The ride then crossed London Bridge and headed west through the City, passing by St Pauls and the High Court, eventually finishing up at the new-ish pedestrianised square at the entrance to Somerset House on the Strand.
A decent crowd for a dark and wet evening of about five to six hundred assembled on the south bank, and left at 19:30.
Within thirty seconds of the ride leaving, the heavens opened up, and a quarter of the ride sheltered under Waterloo bridge on Belvedere Road, with the remainder stuck back in front of the BFI. After a ten to fifteen minute wait, the rain stopped and the two blocs recombined.
The ride headed south towards Elephant & Castle, then the New Kent Road, over the flyover at the Bricklayers Arms roundabout, and then the Old Kent Road heading towards New Cross.
As the ride passed by the Fire Station and the north end of the Burgess Park extension, the rain started coming down even heavier than before, causing riders to stop and seek shelter. The rain was relentless and coming in waves with the wind, soaking everyone to the skin. This was not on any forecast for the evening so many people did not have waterproofs. Similarly people had brought their sound systems out in the rain.
About 75-80% of the riders went home at this point, after the rain did not appear to be easing off. After twenty minutes of sheltering, it did ease up. A remainder of about a hundred stragglers went to the arches and skate park next to Hop Kingdom, and then to the Leake Street tunnels, for a drink and a dance. But this was the shortest CM ride for years with the dire weather.
About 800 to 1000 riders left the southbank on a cold and dark but dry evening. Leaflets were circulated asking people to travel to Hammersmith, where a female cyclist had been killed by a moped rider in August.
The ride headed in a west direction, and the front was moving relatively quickly. After crossing Lambeth bridge and turning left on the embankment, the ride split in two, but then later recombined at Chelsea Bridge.
While the ride was split, there was a distressing incident for one female rider. Her partner had stopped to pee in some bushes, and she was holding his Brompton. A group of masked thieves, 3 on Lime Bikes & Scooters, with 2 others on ebikes (one of whom has been spotted on Critical Mass before), attempted to take the Brompton from her. She hung on and was injured in the scuffle, and then the crowd of riders around her then attacked the lead thief, who rode off towards the front split section of the ride.
Incidents like this show why it is important to keep the ride moving slowly, stop regularly, and stay together, so communication is possible and people are made aware of what is going on. The two ebike thieves were asked to leave at Chelsea Bridge, and thankfully were not seen again on the latter part of the ride. They likely left the ride when it was stopped, as they knew their attempted victim and supporters would be catching up with them soon.
The ride made it to Hammersmith in one piece, where Lyric Square and King Street were completely filled up with riders. A stencil was spray painted onto the ground at the location where the rider was killed, “STOP KILLING CYCLISTS”. One drunk idiot tried to smear the paint with his shoe as soon as it was finished and was quickly surrounded and pushed away by riders.
After a stop of about half an hour, the ride headed back without incident towards central, via Hyde Park Corner and Buckingham Palace, then across Westminster Bridge, and back towards the start point at Southbank, where a few soundsystems linked together and played music until approximately 1am.
Heavy rain the day before and forecast for the last Friday of the month threatened to dampen spirits and numbers, but the weather mercifully held off all day, and this meant that a large crowd gathered on the southbank for the August ride. Estimates as the ride was visible and stopped in a single bloc on the long straight road out towards Stockwell were around a thousand riders, possibly more.
The ride headed off and turned westwards on Belvedere Road towards York Road, avoiding the IMAX roundabout. Some riders were interested to visit Springfield Park in Tooting, a new public park which had opened up to the public only in July. The ride went south west, through Clapham High Street and down towards the southern tip of the Common. At this point, the heavens opened up, briefly but heavily, causing the people at the front to change their minds and turn around. The ride forked right, with the intention of going back towards the river, but ended up still going west, ending up at Wandsworth Common, and then eventually looping back over the north side of the Common.
At the junction with Clapham Park Road, a small group of approximately 50 riders moving faster turned right towards Brixton. As they were not corking the junctions and not waiting for the remainder of the ride behind, they ended up being separated from the main body of the ride, as the riders behind did not see where they had gone. The main group headed north along Clapham High Street, where they stopped and waited at Stockwell Station, for the faster group to join back up. Some riders in the splinter group had turned on their location tracking in the Telegram group, so this made it easier to spot and hold up for them as they arrived. This shows the importance of slowing down and corking junctions if you are at the front of the ride. If you don’t do it, you might get splintered off if the main body of the ride goes another way.
At Oval station, after some celebratory cheering in response to a huge truck horn, the ride turned right towards Vauxhall bridge. Again, some of the front riders charged ahead, without corking roads for those behind, which led to three cars and a bus being in the middle of the ride, before the ride could turn into the Vauxhall gyratory. This led to some tension between riders, with disagreements over letting cars through. But “filtering” between traffic causes bottlenecks and slows the ride down, as Mass needs to be viewed as a large wide vehicle rather than the way an individual cyclist would ride. One rider pulled a phone out and started filming another during a disagreement, which is not acceptable behaviour on a CM ride, and the rider was rightly chastised for this.
The cars and bus were eventually let through, and peace and calm returned. Unusually there was no midway “pit stop” on this ride, probably due to the weather being a bit unpredictable and people wanted to keep moving when the ride was around Clapham. At Vauxhall Bridge, most people assumed that the ride was heading back towards Southbank, but instead the ride headed north across the river, and up towards Marble Arch via Victoria and Hyde Park Corner. For the past few years the ride has generally avoided the west end, for several reasons (too many roads to cork, too much filtering through traffic, and problems with phone thieves using the ride as cover to steal smartphones from pedestrians). However this ride showed how far CM has improved over the last 18 months, as the ride stayed together cohesively, and headed east along Oxford Street in a bloc, with only happy vibes from riders and observers.
The ride then headed south on Charing Cross Road, pausing briefly at Cambridge Circus to the bemusement of tourists and theatre goers, again staying together and not filtering through traffic. At this point the ride had been going for 3 hours and more people had splintered off to go home. At the eastern end of the Strand, some riders wanted to stop at the new-ish pedestrian plaza in front of Somerset House, but four police bike riders were parked there, watching the ride approach. So the ride crossed south over Waterloo Bridge, and ended up back at the start point at around 22:45. One of the sound system riders plugged in a mobile decks unit into his rig, and people stayed under the arch of the bridge dancing until well after midnight, when the batteries on the ran out and the music stopped.
All in all it was a great ride. There was no “wider issue” like a white bike being installed for a killed cyclist, but the atmosphere was overwhelmingly positive, the ride stayed together apart from one splinter at Clapham, which eventually recombined, the west end trip was without any friction with drivers or pedestrians, and there was a decent amount of people still there at the end after 3 hours, which shows that many people are willing to treat it as their “Friday night out”. Roll on the next one!
About a thousand riders gathered on the southbank, and headed off at 19:30 towards Shadwell, crossing Southwark Bridge and joining Lower Thames Street heading east towards the Tower of London. A year ago, Critical Mass riders went to Shadwell, where a Brazilian man Matheus Piovesan was killed in a hit and run incident. A white bike was installed for him at the junction of Cable Street and Cannon Street Road. Since then, Tower Hamlets council went and removed the bike, without any consultation attempts. The story was picked up by cycling blog road.cc which you can read here.
The ride this month went back to the same location in Shadwell, and a new white bike was reinstalled at the exact same spot. Red smoke flares were lit (these are meant as a sign of distress or alert) as the riders down the length of Cannon Street Road cheered and rang their bells. Friends of Matheus gathered around the bike and sprayed it white, and then decorated it with pictures and mementoes of their friend. The ride stopped here for about fifteen to twenty minutes.
After this, the ride headed towards Railton Road in Brixton / Herne Hill, via Tower Bridge, Bricklayers, Elephant, and then Brixton Road. The ride was visiting the spot where cycling enthusiast and mechanic “Sam The Wheels” lived and had his workshop – many people in south London would have been familiar with the pile of bikes outside his house, and his mini-colonisation of the road for benches and a work space for people to get their bikes fixed up. Sam’s real name was Clovis Salmon and he was 98 at the time of his death about a month previously. He had been buried in West Norwood cemetary on the same morning as Critical Mass.
The ride approached Sam The Wheels house on Railton Road, where his extended family were still gathered in funeral attire from the services earlier that day. There were still approximately 800 people on the ride at this point. The ride passed by the house, to cheers and applause from the family. It stopped for fifteen minutes or so, and a “bike lift” was done in tribute to Sam. The family had given their approval earlier in the day for CM to come down, and sent messages of thanks and love afterwards on social media for the ride travelling down there.
After this, the ride headed to Camberwell Green for a pitstop, via Loughborough Junction. The sound systems linked together, and played some music, and the moble shop and BBQ were present again feeding and watering the riders. The ride then headed back towards central, and finished up at Potters Fields which it tends to do these days if the weather is warm. Again the sound systems linked up here and people stayed dancing for a while until after midnight.
A very large crowd assembled on the southbank, even bigger than last month, possibly somewhere between 1200 and 1500 riders, on a beautiful summers evening, close to the longest day of the year. This was possibly one of the biggest rides of the last five years, other than the 30th birthday celebration in April 2024. The gender balance for the ride is also starting to look much better, with far more women attending than even just six months ago.
The ride went down the Old Kent Road, and then turned south before the end of it, heading into Nunhead and climbing up to the top of Telegraph Hill. A brief stop allowed the riders to recombine at the top, as many fixed gear and BMX riders walked their way up. The now-regular wheelchair attendee with the Palestine flag refused all offers of assistance and powered his way to the top, covered in sweat, to cheers from other riders.
The ride then headed down into Brockley, to the confusion and delight of the residents, shopkeepers, and pub-goers along the route, who waved and smiled as the Mass went by. The ride continued on towards Honor Oark Park, and then turned east to climb another hill, this time to reach the top of Blythe Hill Fields, well-timed to catch the sun setting on the horizon over the cityscape.
The ride stopped here for about 45 minutes, as people sat and socialised, and enjoyed watching the sun set. A mini-shop selling drinks and sweets appeared, along with a similar four wheel electrical cart with its rear casing cut off and a coals BBQ bolted to its flooring instead.
The ride then went back over One Tree Hill – putting in some serious elevation for the Strava enthusiasts – and then down towards the western side of Peckham Rye, then up alongside Burgess Park, and through Bermondsey Street to reach Potter Fields, where the ride ended for most people. The sound system riders combined their rigs together again and played some tunes. Security guards from More London came along but generally leave CM alone when it arrives there as the crowd is friendly and good natured.
Despite the huge size of it, the ride stayed coherent and together all evening. There were many first timers on the ride, and commenters on various social media platforms said that they had enjoyed it immensely. The corking was also excellent and there were minimal incidents of drivers getting agggressive or trying to barge through. The ride is in a good place at the moment and that is contributing to more people coming every month.
A crowd of approximately a thousand riders assembled on the southbank, and rode to the junction of New Oxford St and Bloomsbury Street in the west end, via Blackfriars Bridge, Farringdon Road and Holborn. Regular riders circulated leaflets asking people to come for the installation of a white memorial bike, where 24 year old Jamal Yahya Pratley was killed by a van driver in April.
At the location some of Jamal’s friends painted the bike white, and his family laid flowers, as CM riders let off red smoke distress flares to the applause of the crowd. Jamal’s father then addressed the crowd, thanking them for the gesture and advising people to be careful when riding around the area as it was not safe for cyclists.
The ride then moved off after twenty minutes or so towards Trafalgar Square, and down the Mall, then heading south towards Clapham Common. Corking was very good, and the ride stayed completely together the entire evening, with no filtering and only the occasional car managing to sneak out of a driveway or side road into the middle of the mass. These were dealt with in a calm but firm way and were made to wait until riders had passed them safely.
The ride then stopped at the skate park area in Clapham Common where some cargo bicycle sound systems joined up together and played music with a DJ for about an hour. Other smaller sound systems were dotted around the common playing music, as people relaxed after the ride and lay on the grass. People drifted off but there were still maybe two to three hundred riders left, as the music finished up and the ride headed back in towards central.
The ride finished up back at the BFI and again the sound systems joined up and played music under Waterloo Bridge to a small but lively crowd, with the mini after party going until about 1:30am. Security from the south bank attended but did not close it down.
This was one of the largest CM rides in the last four years since Covid lockdown regulations were eased, probably the biggest apart from the 30th anniversary ride in April 2024. Numbers swell in the summer generally, but there were many newcomers who had come along after seeing it in the news from the Silvertown tunnel ride last month. It was a great ride and a fantastic, inclusive experience for anyone who had come along for the first time.
A thousand or so riders assembled on the southbank and spontaneously rode out to North Greenwich, and went through the newly constrructed Silvertown Tunnel, which is prohibited to cycle through.
The ride then made its way back to Potters Fields, stopping briefly on Tower Bridge for a bit of a celebratory dance.
This report is short as there is extensive coverage elsewhere online of what happened.
If you have never been to CM before, come to the ride on Saturday 17th May before the Reclaim The Streets 30th anniversary reunion. Meet at midday at the Southbank.
