Local Rides Critical Mass (CM) is a fun bike ride through rush hour with a totally spontaneous and random route. Some see it as a protest of cars, others just like to go on a fun ride with dozens of other cyclists. Everyone is welcome, and funky bikes are encouraged. Critical Mass leaves from the Univ. of TX West Mall (Guadalupe between 22nd & 23rd) on the last Friday of each month, at 5:00 pm year-round. CM is intended to be a celebration, not an opportunity to cause trouble. Those who want to try to tie up traffic as much as possible and be confrontational with motorists are missing the point. We can assert our right to the road without being rude about it. Focus on the ride, not on the cars that also happen to be on the road. Rides have sometimes included costumes, flags, and musical instruments. There are no leaders, officers, or organized planning -- Critical Mass just "happens". We've had as few as two and as many as 200 people show up for CM, and the typical number is around 50. Critical Mass started in Austin in late 1993. For about the first year, there was significant police harassment (dozens of police "escorts" issuing petty tickets and making spurious arrests), but after we showed videotapes to the Austin City Council about the shenanigans the cops were pulling, the cops stopped coming to our rides (unless the riders tried to cause trouble by, for example, taking up all three lanes on a three-lane roadway). Critical Mass happens in several cities all over the world. The most famous is in San Francisco, where it's been reported that over 5,000 cyclists have participated in CM rides. Here's the Worldwide Critical Mass Hub. Here's video and commentary about the controversial 9-28-01 ride. Annual Moonlight Cruise This is a huge, unofficial annual ride attracting hundreds of cyclists, and it's been happening since 1983 (according to the fliers). It typically attracts 300-1000 cyclists. It used to meet at Palmer Auditorium, but starting in 2001 it's met at the new Pfluger Bike/Ped Bridge at Lamar & Riverside. We've been unsuccessful in pinning down a guideline for the exact September weekend it happens each year; basically, some anonymous people post fliers at the local bike shops in September. To find out the exact weekend, check with your local bike shop. Remember that a headlight and rear reflector or light is required by State law (and it's crazy to ride at night without lights anyway). By the way, if you like the Moonlight Cruise, you might also like the Moonlight Ramble held in Houston every October. Like Austin's ride, it starts at 2:00 am, but their ride is much larger, with anywhere from 5000-12,000 cyclists. Also unlike Austin's ride, it's not free -- the registration fee is $20. Other Rides. The focus of Bicycle Austin is to promote cycling as an alternative to driving, and to support car-free lifestyles. We therefore don't list the kinds of bike rides here where you have to register and pay money and get a t-shirt, etc. Those rides are listed in Cycling News, an excellent monthly newspaper available free at local bike shops and at the Wheatsville Food Co-op (3101 Guadalupe), or you get it mailed to your home when you join the Austin Cycling Association.   Other Events Bike Month & Bike to Work Day (Every May). In the mid-90's, Austin started having a Bike Week to promote cycling, with bike fairs, discounts at local stores for people who biked there, and a Corporate Challenge to see which business could get the highest percentage of its employees to bike to work on the designated day. By the end of the 90's, Bike Week had grown into Bike Month. By 2000, the City's Bicycle Program, which had done most of the organizing of the event in recent years, decided to no longer organize the event, in favor of devoting its resources to more pressing bike projects (such as putting together a Bicycle Commuting Packet to make available to major employers located on existing, usable bicycle routes). For 2000, local activists over organizing the events. For historical purposes, here are some of the events from Bike Months in previous years. Austin Bike-In Theatre. This is a monthly DIY event screening both biking and non-biking movies and videos. I've been unable to find a website that has a consistent schedule. If you know of one, please let me know. In the meantime, sometimes (but not always) someone posts about the next on on the email list, so you can sign up for that. FrankenBike. Monthly swap meet for bike parts.

Calendar of Rides & Events Want to get your event listed below? Just post it on the web forum and it will show up here automatically 30 minutes later. Be sure to include the date & time of your event in the title, so that shows up too. July 4th @ 1pm: freedom XXXtravaganza with Austin Yellow Bike & co. (posted 7/2) May 21 @ 6pm: Bike Plan council vote & Yellow Bike birthday party (posted 5/19) The Ride of Silence - Wednesday, May 20 7:00 PM (posted 5/13) PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE Bicycle Drive-In in Downtown Austin - May 23! (posted 5/12) Bike The Vote! Early Vote Rally on Sunday (posted 5/2) World Naked Bike Ride - TODAY! (6/14) (posted 6/14) LOBV News ... Political Pedal and Early Voting Rally (posted 4/27) Earth Day: Kids encouraged to get to school under their own power (posted 4/22) The 15th Annual Armadillo Hill Country Classic (posted 4/14) Austin Cycling Association Celebrates Bike Month (posted 4/14) Discontinued rides Courteous Mass Bike Parade. [This ride was discontinued circa late 2002.] Riders wary of the sometimes confrontational nature of Critical Mass (see below) started an alternate monthly "Courteous Mass" bike parade in November 2001. The motto was "Play Nice". The ride left from the south side of the Pfluger Bridge (Lamar & Riverside) on the second Friday of every month. We started early to have some sunlight in winter months, but had a rendezvous point later for people who couldn't make it so early. In the mid-90's we tried a similar idea, but it too died from lack of interest. There were so many people who always said, "I don't ride in Critical Mass because it's too confrontational and/or law-breaking. I'd ride if there were a 'clean' ride." But both times we started such rides, these people were nowhere tobe found. Monthly Full Moon Rides. As of 2000, we no longer list the Monthly Full Moon rides, because they're so poorly/randomly organized, there's no telling where or when they're happening. Like Critical Mass, there are no official organizers, so people can (and do) randomly change the dates & locations, causing complete confusion. Ever since I started covering the rides, they (whoever they are) would randomly change locations and dates, and I could never pin anyone down to agreeing on anything. I used to publish a list of full moon rides on the website and I had a complete yearly calendar of the rides every single month in Cycling News, until May 2000 when somebody took it upon himself to change the date and location of the ride. He also didn't bother to tell me about it, or to post about it to the email list, etc. I only found out about it when I saw a flier, advertising a different date & location from what I'd been publishing for months. Typically, the flier contained absolutely no contact information. And when stuff like this happens, readers of the website usually send me hate mail after the fact for listing the "wrong" date/location. So I gave up and removed the listings. Weekly Midnight Ride. Removed for the same reason as above. If anybody would care to communicate with me about what the hell is going on I'd be happy to list their rides. Ruta Maya Sunday Rides. (Canceled, as of early 2001. The contact was Eric Anderson.) Old events of note Austin Bicycle Parade (1998) [Message sent Sept. 26, 1998 by Chris Symank] Autumn Bike Parade a success! With roughly a hundred people doing the full parade, showing an awesome sense of solidarity and festive spirits, the parade went on with few hitches. There were many people in costume and decorated bikes as well as people looking awesome without any decorations. No kinetic bike sculptures yet, although altered bike frames and a trike decorated as a swan were there. There are already plans in the heads of a few of the riders to build some floats, and one just didn't get finished in time. People waved, smiled and seemed very impressed. Traffic was managed by the parade participants including our own Officer Smog complete with Texas ranger cowboy hat. Also present was the Goddess of Fall. A scarecrow, about 7-8 rollerbladers, a unicyclist, a cow pedaling a recumbent cargo trike with dog running beside it, lots of recumbents including the grand swan three wheeled recumbent, lots of smiling kids and the Yellow Bike front loading trike. The ride was said to be too short by most participants, and designed to be mostly flat and easy with no major uphill. Of course we will work to make a longer ride for next time and we will seek out donations for an post-ride picnic party. A t.v. news team taped the start of the ride and at least four people (including me) videotaped the entire ride to make a cable access show. We'll notify y'all about when the video gets aired. Also there were many pictures taken, I've got contacts to several photographers from the ride, but if anyone was taking pictures please contact me 'cause we'd like to make a display and to use photos for future ride promotion, to put in zines, and to put in the Austin Cycling News etc. We also plan to put together a web page for the bike parade. Also we will display images from the parade at the new Austin Yellow Bike Project on 1182 Hargrave....If anyone would like to help with the next parade on Halloween Day, please contact me. After that we will be organizing a parade around the Winter Solstice. We especially need help with promotion, money for copies, distribution, paying for film and video and getting some drinks & stuff for after the ride. If you were at the parade please write me about what you thought. And if you got a survey you can either mail it to me or e-mail me with your answers linked to the numbers. Questions asked on survey: 1. Ride bikes a lot? 2. Use buses and such? 3.Would you bike more if better incentives? (Bikepaths etc.) 4. Favorite thing about bicycles? 5. favorite thing about parade? 6. Ready for a winter parade? 6.5. How about Halloween? 6.(the other 6 you know). Future suggestions? 7. Like to help next time? name, phone #: 8. Want to do bicycle advocacy (yes it's legal)? 9. Other Comments? 10. Can we contact you? 11. Will you anonymously donate millions of dollars? (yes or no, bank account # please) 11.5. Know 'bout yellow bikes? 12. Want to send us pictures, stories, etc for a bike zine? 13. What do you want to know about bike avocacy?