[van-announce] big gay bike ride!

[Critical Mass Vancouver Lover]

It's July again. The lazy days of summer and great weather!

That means, as per tradition, the Pride ride for everyone! Because biking 
makes you gay! (joyous) And Critical Mass is about embracing and protecting 
diversity (that is why we cork the cars - making it safe for the wild 
pedestrian use of the street). One out of the 12 monthly rides being 
dedicated to celebrating different sexualities is of course a slight bit 
under the 10% quota ;-) But, us queers-with-gears are always bent on having 
a good time. I think the costume theme is pretty wide open but with lots of 
rainbows and emphasis on summer fun.

     All kinds of families and friends let's
     roll Friday July 25th, last Friday in July
     5:30pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery fountain.
     All are invited to enjoy the safety and comfort we create by simply 
riding together

Critical Mass has become a very big event in the past few years. Especially 
in the summer months we may get as much as a thousand cyclists, walkers, 
skaters... or maybe even more than that! When it becomes such a very big 
event it is even more important that as a group we stick together! (Or if 
some prefer to split off into several groups that stick together 
individually) Critical Mass is run by it's participants so it is up to us 
all to do the corking and otherwise watching out for each other to keep all 
of us safe. One important factor in a successful ride that we should 
remember is to stick to the wider streets! With 1000 or more people a 
single lane road is just too narrow. The ride gets spread very thin when it 
takes these narrow roads and a thin mass becomes less of a mass and invites 
more conflict with motorists than otherwise. (Asking someone to wait out a 
green light to let a thick group of bikers past is a lot more reasonable 
than asking them to wait for a long drawn out process with one or two bikes 
every now and then - almost as bad as forcing people to wait because a road 
is blocked by cars: all the space taken up for not many people)

That means that those who choose to ride at the front and choose to lead 
the route (anyone who wants to go up there) should try and be conscious to 
take the mass only on nice wide streets with 2 or -even better- 3 lanes in 
our direction. Or failing that (sometimes for a good reason like there is 
only a one lane road to the beach) to be very aware of how the rest of the 
mass gets spread out on narrow roads and going extra slow/stopping to bulk 
up the mass rather than letting it get drawn thin. So, lets stay dense on 
this ride, it's better for the conversations also. A community supporting 
each other is a big part of what this ride is about. All it takes is a 
little forethought to increase the fun.

After the ride there will surely be get-togethers at the beach and also a 
velofusion dance party at the ANZA.

Please join the velolove email discussion list to help plan/ participate in 
the Vancouver Critical Mass community. 
http://lists.velolove.bc.ca/mailman/listinfo/discuss