SUNDAY 14TH APRIL 2024

12pm : meet at Southbank

1pm : Ride

3pm : Picnic / After Party (bring food and a lock)

1994 saw jungle music move from the underground into mainstream consciousness, the hated Public Order Act was passed at the end of the year, and the Tories were clinging on to power after a disastrous 14 years in government, hollowing out public services and destroying the social fabric of the country. During this era, Critical Mass London had its genesis on the 15th of April 1994, as the CHARM ride, occupying space around dangerous roundabouts in central London. It then morphed into the Critical Mass ride, mirroring the “last Friday of the month” occurrence from cities in the US.

It has been through thick and thin, had its highs and lows, been subject to harassment and surveillance, mass arrests and prosecutions, and legal attempts to shut it down. But still it endures, every month without fail, an unbroken line for three decades. It celebrates the diversity of cycling in this city, to temporarily re-occupy our city streets which have been near monopolised by hyper-capitalist car fetishism. It is a living, breathing example of an anti-authoritarian, non-hierarchical, structureless event that has seen so many other movements and organisations come and go.

And what better way to celebrate THIRTY YEARS of this than a huge coming together of all participants, past and present, young and old, all genders, all colours.

Let’s celebrate this milestone! This birthday meetup will allow us to ride, laugh and dance together, to reminisce about the past, and think about the future.

If you have friends who used to come, please let them know! If you know other riders who’ve never been before, invite them! If you are still connected to networks from the past, please spread the word! If you have any ideas that you think will make this party even better, then just do it!

Q: Why not have it on Monday 15th (the exact 30 year anniversary), or Friday 26th April? Many riders have left the city over the years, or find it difficult to come out at night with caring responsibilities, or just with age! People from other CMs across the UK have also indicated their interest to visit. A Sunday afternoon ride allows more people to travel to London, and makes meeting up far easier. It also facilitates us all staying together for a party afterwards! But if you want to have another birthday party ride, on either or both of those other evenings, please do!

SEE YOU ON THE 14th OF APRIL 2024 AT 12pm ON THE SOUTHBANK!

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!

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!