One was enough for me. Every few minutes a bunch of cyclists would refuse to move, to make some sort of point. Drivers went berserk. A taxi drove over someone's bike.
How long ago is this? Generally speaking there is very little driver vs. riders aggro at it these days, maybe once a year you might get an incident like the above.
It doesn't leave the Southbank until about 7:30pm these days, instead of the previous 6 - 6:30pm start. This means that much of the rush hour traffic, particularly car motorists, has dropped off, so there is less confrontation. Esp. with taxis.
The mass also doesn't tend to bother with stunts like holding the bikes up in the air at Oxford Circus any more. It tends to roll around the outer parts of the city rather than the west end, making it more free flowing.
Any blocking tends to happen with corking roads so that the ride stays together, which is safer for all the riders, and then also the drivers get away easier in the end.
I think these are the reasons mostly that the cops don't bother policing it, it is more of a party these days with the sound systems, than anything more activist led. The only time cops have showed up in recent times when a load of XR people came because they were doing actions in the west end earlier on the same day.
Yes it can be chaotic, and also there are wheelie kids on it doing mad stunts through car traffic, which some older, more "political" riders don't like very much, but I think are great. So glad that kids think bikes are cool.
The CM Facebook group is generally poor for debate and discussion about what is going on with it. There is a Telegram group where things are discussed, and a pretty decent Instagram feed of video clips collated by someone.
8,538 Followers, 427 Following, 1,227 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Critical Mass London (@critical_mass_london)
www.instagram.com
Those reels would give you a flavour of what it is like these days. It tends to have a far more diverse crowd now than years ago,
Roll through!
) drove into the crowd. He didn't go as deep into the city centre as he might have though and changed the route last minute to avoid one of the main roads.
