Critical Masquerade Bike Ride Philadelphia 2008

Critical Mass dresses up for the October ride in Philly, which occurred exactly on Halloween this year.

Costumes included a rocket ship, bumblebee, various caped crusaders including a small dog, the complete cast of Pac Man and a scuba diver. Tall bikes and tandems were like costumes in their own right, I think.

This was the most bizarre CM I have ever been on for a number of reasons. First, those of you in the USA will probably know that Philadelphia won the baseball championship this year (This is called the World Series, but isn't really because the only other country involved is Canada and presumably these overpaid chumps don't have the balls to take on Cuba or Japan, etc) Anyway, despite my apparent grouching I'm really delighted that Philadelphia won and so is pretty much everyone around here. Consequently, the whole of down town was packed with riot police and the entire place smelled of spilled beer. There was a total party atmosphere, and for that reason everyone seemed to love the Mass! It was as if our monthly ritual that normally disgusts and outrages most of the population had been colonized by a general sense of festivity. All of a sudden, Critical Mass was no longer matter out of place. We were suddenly as acceptable as the regular folks who were starting fires and busting up bus shelters on Wednesday night.

To add to the surreal nature of the whole thing, we passed the giant Pinata at Broad and Washington. This mighty edifice was due for destruction on Sunday afternoon. I'll be posting more updates on its fate later if you care.

As we rolled out of center city past knots of Phillies fans and cops (some of whom seemed suspiciously jolly themselves). Dozens of bike cops were seen coming in the other direction. They declined to join the mass.

In South Philly the mood changed a bit, but, after all, that is the neighborhood where you can park in the middle of the street and nobody cares--cars rule there. The ride swung by Geno's Steaks, a business owned by an individual who wants to improve bike riders behavior, apparently, by having us banished from the streets. At least, I'm not seeing any educational initiatives coming from his direction. You won't get me eating there, even if I wasn't a vegetarian.

The ride went over the Walnut bridge and off into West Philly. We broke off at 44th street, so it's up to someone else to continue the story after that.

Music is the cover of Monster Mash by the Misfits. Please rate, comment, send video replies and subscribe.

Sorry about the lousy camera. It doesn't really work in the dark, but it was only $100 so I guess I shouldn't complain.

See you next month at 6:00PM on the west side of City Hall. Bring a helmet and lights, for whatever's sake.

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• Philadelphia
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• pinata
• Cruise
• line
• Phillies
• World
• Series
• bike
• bicycle
• ride
• demonstration
• Halloween
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• tall
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• Misfits
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• mash

[cobead]

hahahaha no one watches this crap!

[HowardFair]

Hmmm, you watched it, cobead!

[asimokun777]

Great ride!!! Lots of glass on Broad St. from all the Phillies parade. Great vid!!

[terij1030]

Fun--loved the giant pinata!