CM taking the Lion's Gate Bridge

I had a pretty interesting Friday, running myself thin around work, pretending to be a vacationing coworker as well as myself. Thankfully my boss cancelled a meeting at the end of the day, and I was able to leave a little early.

I hopped on my bike and sprinted across the production floor and out the loading bay doors.

As I mashed up the hill from Kent I thought about the reservations I have with attending Critical Mass. There's just this apprehension that comes with attending a fairly left wing crowd activity, without knowing what peoples motives are. I've been on good ones, and bad ones. It all seems to depend on the demeanor of the crowd.

A normal Critical Mass in Vancouver is 200-500 people. This is a good sized crowd, and the pack can cork intersections cleanly and safely, and people are only delayed a couple of minutes..

June's crowd would be much, much bigger.

I quickly stopped at Our Community Bikes to tighten up my perpetually loosening headset (damn you 33mm nut!), and grabbed a sub & beer while I was on Main. I then made my way to the art gallery. I arrived at 5pm, and there already must have been 100 bikes there.

Then they just kept coming too. Bicyclists were trickling into the courtyard from all angles for the next hour. It was some kind of reverse osmosis. The gravitational pull of the mass was drawing in bikes from around the city.

I met up with a few old friends, and made some new ones as well. Of course, I ate my sub and drank a couple of beer during this time.

Then the bells started ringing.

Hearing thousands of bike bells at once echoing from the skyscrapers is a beautiful sound. The bikes then spilled out onto Hornby street to head south. We started off near the front of the pack.

Almost immediately, I lost my girlfriend Kim. As we made our way up and over the Granville bridge, I stopped for a minute to look back down the span... I could NOT see the end of the crowd. I then looked ahead on the bridge deck, and couldn't see the front.

At that point I helped a girl lower the seat on her borrowed road bike, as she couldn't reach the pedals..

Is this really happening? Are we in shoulder to shoulder bicycle gridlock? Good thing I can skid into a trackstand.

We looped around on second, and went past the Police station and up North on the Cambie bridge. There we picked up a GMC truck police escort, to heard the slowpokes at the back of the crowd.

I raced up to the front of the pack for the climb up Smithe, so I could stop and cork an intersection while looking for Kim. Unfortunately, after standing and rerouting traffic for 5 minutes some jerk in a new Jetta tried to drive into the crowd.

I was close and had to be the first to block him and explain to him that its for the safety of everyone that he go down a couple blocks and use the other street. My knees were almost touching his license plate. I tried not to think about the physics behind that.

After his car was surrounded by bikers he finally gave up and peeled off down the other street.

I think during that confrontation I missed kim riding by..
Because I was then at the end of the pack, and hadn’t seen her.

The downtown motorists reaction was mostly positive, with people stopping their engines to get out of their cars and snap photos.

There were only a handful of incidents with motorists trying to penetrate the crowd.

After going north on Seymour we went out to East Van (so close to home) on the bike route, and then looped around to come back into town on Hastings.

By this time downtown was mostly deserted, as rush hour was winding up.

We made our way through the business district and towards the park. I had a very nice chat with a close talking trophy wife at this point, her husband stayed in the 5 Series the whole time. Was she flirting to make him jealous? People are weird.

By this time, I had lost everyone I was with.
I heard some people had broken off and were heading to the beach.

Which beach?

I was confused, dehydrated, and wasn't sure how much longer this would go on.
At that point Nick C singled me out and introduced himself.
I guess my helmet stands out more than my bike.

So on the Stanley park causeway.. I once again raced to the front (of the now smaller crowd) and stopped to watch everyone climb the hill and offer a slow clap of encouragement.

Once again, I couldn't find my familiars.
I figured they had dropped out some point earlier.

At the last entrance to the bridge, there was a conflict with a guy on a Moto Guzzi street bike. I rode past this, as it looked like he was corked. However, once I got to the top of the bridge span, I found him right behind me, in the crowd.

People surrounded him and forced him to shut off his engine. Then there was the annoying debating about taxes, helmet use, motor vehicle act etc... I must say though, he was more civil than a few of the motorists earlier.

After everyone made it up the hill and the crowd jammed up the crest of the lions gate, we turned around and made our way back South.

The ride downhill through the park was probably faster than I have ever gone on my bike. Since there was no car traffic, and I was at the front, I was able to race a couple of guys on geared road bikes. Needless to say we made it through the park very quickly. My knees were glowing like a T3 turbo pushing 18psi.

After passing all of the stanley park beaches with the pack leads, I figured they must be going to Kits beach.

I broke off at Beach Ave and headed back towards East Van along side Nick C and his GF. After I shook them around Pacific/Quebec, I found myself a phone, and called up the other Nick.

As it turns out, they had stopped at the Astoria for more beer, broke off of the pack before Stanley park, and were already at the beach drinking in the shade.

After washing up and changing shirts at a friend's house near Fra-Bro, I made my way to the all ages show at the Video In Studio.

There I found Kim and her sister on a couch at the back. We saw an amazing 5 piece band called the Winks perform. They've got cello, keys, drums, mandolin, and a tapdancing singer.
Quite the show actually.

I tried to stretch out my legs a bit, but it didn't really help. The ride home from the show went really slowly. It turns out I had put in over 70km that day. (Which is a lot for me, I'm no Weasel)

I've looked around online a bit, and found this photo album of submitted pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/vancriticalmass/pool/

I'm waiting to see an arial view of the crowd snaking its way through town.

There are a few different people who did systematic counts, reporting #s from 1600-1900 riders. Officially the most bicycles I've EVER seen at once.