CCM Site Quote List

...for riders [Critical Mass] emboldens them and they sometimes act out their pent up frustration and agression at cagers. Suddenly intead of having to eek your way thru traffic you are empowered by the mass....taking an intersection, raising your bike over your head and bellowing is an agressive act. It's not a violent act, I don't think anyone who does those things really wants to hurt cagers, but it is confrontational. Each CMer decides if they want to do that, but as a group we have to deal with the consequences.

...we absolutely do need to be radical.That's how change happens. I like to think that groups like the CBF and LIB work within the system to achieve politically palatable goals, while Critical Mass serves a more grass-roots purpose, to force a shift in the massive inertia of the status quo, so that what seems radical now doesn't seem so radical in the future.

I've been on a few CM rides, and to a few other events, ..., and I've enjoyed getting to know this community. I'd say I'm somewhat more moderate politically than a lot of the crowd here, more anti-internal-combustion than anti-car, though definitely pro-bike. Being on the list has focused my attention on some interesting facets of social development, and my personal role in that development.

The mass works precisely because it's nonspecific. The mass doesn't worry about what the problem is; it's the solution in search of the problem. The mass is not the medium; the mass is the message.

I try not to drive more than once a week. Anytime I am stuck in traffic I get so clautrophobic. It never used to happen before I became massified, but now it's really bad -- but on the other hand, I'm happy to be aware of my senses and not have them dulled by tolerance of sitting still -- only to justify the laziness and self-indulgent choice to rely on a car.

No one can speak for Critical Mass. We can argue all we want about what sort of rhetoric we want 'the mass' to spout, but it's all futile. In the end, the Mass is about consensus and cooperation...

...biking is a means of living intelligently - one is attempting to conserve energy and not contribute to the ongoing environmental decay of this world. Personally I have found that biking awakens all of my senses - sight, hearing, touch, even the way I exist within my body feels different. I feel much more alive.