5:30 PM THE LAST FRIDAY OF EVERY MONTH, LSU PARADE GROUNDS(or clock towerish area)...BE THERE WITH BELLS ON(your bike, that is)!!
Critical Mass is a monthly bicycle ride to celebrate cycling and to assert cyclists' right to the road. The idea started in San Francisco in September 1992 and quickly spread to cities all over the world. Critical Mass is not an organization, it's an unorganized coincidence. It's a movement ... of bicycles, in the streets.
Critical Mass has no leaders. In every city that has a CM ride, some locals simply picked a date, time, and location for the ride and publicized it, and thus the ride was born. CM is an idea and an event, not an organization.
In order to moderate the flow of the group, riders sometimes use a tactic known as "corking", which involves blocking traffic from side roads so that the riders can freely proceed (sometimes through red lights) without fear of motor vehicles becoming embedded in the mass of riders.
Critics argue that the practice of corking roads in order to pass through red lights as a group is contrary to Critical Mass' claim that "we are traffic", since ordinary traffic (including bicycle traffic) does not usually have the right to go through intersections once the traffic signal has changed to red, unless issued with a specific permit or residing in jurisdictions where bicyclists have this right. However, one could also argue that the Critical Mass is a single unit.
CM is a celebration of cycling, not a war against motorists. CM is about asserting our right to the road, not denying others their right to the road.
Got a bike event? Tell us, we'll put it on the event calendar!
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