Causing mayhem in the city

Luke, Nicole, Shawn and I joined the Critical Mass bike rally last night. It was the first time I'd joined such a ride and it was a blast. Here is the route that we took:



It was pretty fun causing havoc for Friday commuters. Some accepted the fact that they were going nowhere, many complained, a few tried to penetrate the masses of bikes and ended up being swarmed by cyclists and trapped. The parade of bikes was kilometres long. It was so cool to see the cyclists fan out when we'd get to an unblocked intersection to position themselves in front of the cars to hold the area open for the flood of bicycles (it's called corking). It was wonderful being able to ride on the road with no cars. We stopped in a few places to allow everyone to catch up. Once on the top of the Burrard Bridge and then again on the top of the Lions Gate bridge. We basically stopped traffic completely on the Lions Gate. We rode to the apex, stopped for a while and then turned around and rode back through Stanley Park and into the city. We even had the counterflow lane heading to the bridge along the causeway. :) It was so beautiful at the top of the bridge! The ocean was gold from the low sun and everyone was smiling. Even a few of the drivers got out to admire the view. They were so lucky to be stopped there!

There were thousands of bikes. It was so much fun. I especially liked it when someone would call out "We're not blocking traffic!" and everyone would shout back "WE ARE TRAFFIC!!" This week has been "bike to work week" and the weather was wonderful so the turnout was great. It is supposed to be even bigger next month since June is "bike month". I'm hoping to join that ride too. I left the group after Stanley Park when we got to Burrard. That was nearly 3 hours of riding and I was tired, hungry and had a pretty sore bum.