Critical Mass ends in arrest
Metro student arrested during monthly rideBy Mary Witlacil
witlacil@mscd.edu

Photo courtesy of Critical Mass Denver on MySpace

An unidentified Critical Mass rider waits along Northbound Speer Boulevard just off the Auraria Campus. Five Critical Mass riders were arrested during the March 31 ride, while one was given a citation from the Denver Police Department.

   The last Friday of every month, cyclists in Denver and across the nation and world hit the streets for Critical Mass to reclaim the streets in the name of bikes and other forms of person-powered transportation.
   The purpose of Critical Mass is to create a safe zone for bicycles on the same streets where motorists frequently antagonize and harass them.
   An estimated 70-100 cyclists converged at Civic Center Park for the last Critical Mass event on the evening of March 31. As the weather has warmed up, attendance at Critical Mass has grown exponentially.
   By the end of the night, five people were arrested and one citation was written. One of those arrested, a Metro student, who wished to remain anonymous due to his pending trial, received four charges ranging from bicycles exiting alley or roadway to riding bicycles on roadways.
   “ If it is illegal for us to bike on sidewalks and roadways, where do they want us to bike? In the sky?” said Rena Noble, one of the riders.
The majority of the cyclists were young adults in their 20s and 30s—many of them students at Metro, UCD and CCD—but cyclists of all ages showed up and regularly attend the ride.
   Some consider events like Critical Mass to be xerocratic, in that there is no central leadership and no one person decides which route the riders will take.
Critical Massers rode peacefully through the streets, playing kazoos and grooving to hip-hop blasting from a boom box bungeed to a bike, until the sound of police sirens startled and divided the Massers into several small groups. Before the chaos ensued, a man taking pictures of the mass, cycling ahead of the pack to gain a better vantage point, was written a citation.
   The previously carefree ride was over. Several riders ended up on 18th and Welton, among them was Alex Katz.
   “ I saw a woman, who couldn’t have weighed more than 120 pounds, being yanked off her bike by an officer and then tossed into the back of a police car,” Katz said.

Critical Mass began in 1992, in San Francisco, with 48 riders.

An estimated 325 cities across 35 countries host the monthly ride.

The Denver ride is at 6:00 p.m. on the last Friday of every month.