Thursday January 01 1970
Dublins 1st Monthly Bike Carnival
dublin |
anti-capitalism |
event notice 
Wednesday July 26, 2006 03:48
by Barry - Critical Mass
criticalmassdublin at yahoo dot ie
086 3614554
...last Friday of every month...
On the last Friday of every month there will be a cycle carnival through the city in celebration of a vision of preferable alternatives to destructive car culture and the crushing monotony of contemporary capitalism. We aim to create a free, fun and creative public space while building a strong spirit of community. Bring friends, family, music, costumes and ideas
Meet:
Last Friday every month
6.30pm
Garden of Remembrance
Parnell Square
In recent months Critical Mass in Dublin has declined to the point that it is remarkable to see more than a handful of people gather for the monthly cycle through the city streets.
This is a serious attempt to revitalise, reinvigorate and rebuild an event which was until recently a hub of positive resistance.
Critical Mass was conceived to be a new kind of political space, not specifically about protesting but about celebrating a vision of preferable alternatives, most obviously in this case bicycling over the car culture. Some may conclude that Critical Mass is apolitical either because it eschews demands, lobbying, and policy declarations, or because it is celebratory and fun and not confrontational and aggressive.
However, the promotion of the bicycle as a powerful tool of direct action against any number of negative and destructive aspects of society has been at the core of CM since its inception.
In the simple act of reducing individual dependence on automobiles we can expand our autonomy and help erode the power of centralized hierarchies, and by extension capitalism itself. Indeed, the greatest strengths of CM are its spontaneity and lack of formal leaders, inspiring a sense of self-determination and community which is completely absent from the isolated and regimented gridlock of car culture.
A bicycle is a tool that can be used to free ourselves from a dependency on oil and complicity in a system which utilises war and oppression among other methods to secure its supply.
Comments (10 of 10)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Great to see more life coming into Dublins bike world, there will be some bike flyering this evening- if interested meet outside trinity at 6.30
last week was the first year for The Dublin Bicycle Festival whose aim was to celebrate the bicycle in all it's inspirational glory. It was an art exhibition of sorts, perhaps anyone who was there could update us.
Last week also had the second officially organised Dublin city cylce, apparently about 3000 people are meant to have participated, again updates and pictures from that would be great.
Last year there the UBE (urban bike exchange) happened in Project art Gallery, bike artist Seamus Nolan set up a free bike workshop. 3 years ago there was another free bike workshop that worked out of the guts of DIT mounjoy square, from that there were more workshops in the old warehouse @ North Strand and there are rumours that as part of this attempt to step things up a bit this weekend there might be another free bike workshop this Sunday so keep your eyes and ears open for that.
This year we have only managed to do 1 greenway cycle, as part of this years mayday weekend, but there will be another one this sunday, leaving 1pm from the mayor square, main square in the docklands. This time we will travel anti-clockwise.
theres also other arty political types upto stuff on the island like Paddy Bloomer, bike mad dude who was at last years Biennelle and the Loserdom zine that has been on the go here for 10 years
so on and on it turns..............................
links:
dublin bicycle festival
http://www.dublinbicyclefestival.org/
dublin city cycle 2
http://www.dublincitycycle.ie/
Velo city - last years bikes and cities conference
http://www.velo-city2005.com/
London bike week
http://www.lcc.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=558
linked with:
London sustainability week
http://www.lsw2006.org/final/index.php
Dublin Cycling Campaign
http://home.connect.ie/dcc/
TCAL the community at large blog
http://tcal.net/archives/2006/06/12/dublin-bicycle-fest...ival/
UBE-urban bicycle exchange
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/68500
Paddy Bloomer and bikes
http://www.cqaf.com/visual_08.htm
loserdom zine
http://www.thumped.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=16223&goto=...ewest
loserdom @ ZIne Show June
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75976
free bike workshops @ November 2003
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62281
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62395
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62487
this years critical mass's
Dublin
June - http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76726
May - http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76242
April - http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75670 images - http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75739
Cork
March - http://www.indymedia.ie/article/74771
Last years last critical mass, part of 4 day programme @ car free day
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/72117
Budapest Critical Mass 2005 with up to 30,000 people - http://www.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/825163.shtml
Dublin : first Greenway cycle of 2006
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75672
http://www.dublin.ie/botanicspine
best example of the kind of machines that could be made is rinkydink, a pedal, wind, solar powered mobile colorful sound system.
http://www.baka.co.uk/rinky/index.html
rinkydink - mobile bicycle powered sound system
quotes:
"... a vision of preferable alternatives to .. the crushing monotony of contemporary capitalism."
and
"In the simple act of reducing individual dependence on automobiles we can expand our autonomy and help erode the power of centralized hierarchies, and by extension capitalism itself."
Its this kind of thing that ultimately turned loads of the non-anarchist people involved with the Critical Mass away - these were the people who did a lot of the work in flyering, postering, etc. They knew that CM was decentralised, non-party political; its just that when a load of people showed up in black masks and black flags shouting about how this was part of an autonomous, decentralised etc movement, they never wanted anything to do with it again, ever.
If you're serious about relaunching the CM (and not just rebranding it with a different name when it is essentially the same thing at the same time from the same place), then you should engage in some dialogue with the people who arent anarcho/"grassroots"/punk types like Geoff, William C, Michael K, and others who did stuff like the bike festival, and who contribute through word of mouth and networks (beyond the IMC/thumped/yahoogroups/libcom leftspam circle) to encourage other people to come down. You can probably contact them through the Dublin Bike Festival addresses, or the Co-Op pamphlet might also be a place to begin.
Just putting a notice up here on the calendar 2 days beforehand means you're making the same mistake as last month and the month before (and over the past two years).
Not everyone who goes on cycles is an anarchist or into anticapitalist politics. The sooner you realise that, then the sooner the CM might be revived from the dead.
hundreds of flyrs put around the city today, more tomorow, lots of people contacted. Agreed; take this and all things out of the ghetto. so are you coming down?
I don't understand your problem cyclo you are reffering to the cycle around the city at the weekend of the Fortress Europe/May 2004 demostrations, I can't even remember whether this was on 'the friday', it was very enjoyable cycle around the city, thats all that happened, get over it, if you can't handle seeing a few black flags then thats your problem, otherwise not many people turn up to CM, so there nobody for you to be put off by, the only other large cycle was the the council organised one associated with the conference with prohibitive fees, take your choice.
report? photos?
Revived from the dead for what? Cyclo, it would appear that you have some opinions of your own on what CM is and what it should achieve. What are they?
So far all you've offered is some rather specious reasoning with regards to the presence of some anarchists on one CM two years ago ... hmmm. Does the same apply then in the US cause it was used at the RNC in new york?
"Its this kind of thing that ultimately turned loads of the non-anarchist people involved with the Critical Mass away - these were the people who did a lot of the work in flyering, postering, etc. They knew that CM was decentralised, non-party political; its just that when a load of people showed up in black masks and black flags shouting about how this was part of an autonomous, decentralised etc movement, they never wanted anything to do with it again, ever."
Do you mean the dublin cycling campaign? With regards to the first part of this quote; the second part is again probably not worth mentioning as you are putting far too much weight into one event. I mean, if the DCC campaign were annoyed at other people using an event once that noone can really claim ownership of, well ...
Fridays cycle was well attended with over thirty people assembling at the Garden of Remembrance, chosen modes of transport including a tall bike from the recent Dublin Bike Festival and a unicycle.
Our route through the city took us down O'Connell Street, left down Eden Quay and past the Customs House before crossing the bridge and passing the City Arts Centre on our way towards Pearse Street. At College Green we took a left and headed up Nassau Street and then Kildare Street where we made an impromptu visit to the Dail and did a few laps of the courtyard before continuing up to Stephen's Green which was duly circumnavigated. We ended a successful and enjoyable cycle just short of the top of Grafton Street where bikes were raised over heads and cheers went up.
There was a nice atmosphere throughout the cycle despite the usual bit of aggro from some motorists. Overall there was a positive response from the public. We had music playing form a stereo for the entire cycle and there was horns, whistles and bells in abundance.
Hopefully this is a solid starting point which we can build on for next months cycle and for International Car Free day on September 22nd.
Next Cycle:
August 25th
6.30pm
Garden of Remembrance
Parnell Square
See you there
Hi,
I’m only going to comment my experience from my first ever Critical Mass last Friday 28th. My decision to join the march was to defend cyclist’s rights and to get some attention from both pedestrians and drivers to the fact that we’re also street users, which is something I feel very strongly about. I even emailed all my cycling friends to join me on that evening (unfortunately only 2 came). I’m not so sure that by totally blocking roads or over-reacting to drivers we achieved this target.
We were about 30/40 at the beginning, and everything seemed fun. However, quite soon it was obvious that the main point was more to p*ss *ff the rest of the users of the road, rather than to claim some attention and respect towards cyclists. I’d understand a total blocking of the street if we were 500 people, or even 100, but just 30? The route wasn’t clear, we impeded the move of buses (which, although I admit Dublin bus drivers are one of the main hazards to cyclists, thanks to them there’re less cars on the streets), there were aggressive reactions to the, in my view, understandable anger from drivers…
In conclusion, considering the numbers attending the event, I think it would have been more positive to just use one lane, which both proves the point of attracting attention by partially reducing the traffic speed while showing that everybody can share the road with no serious implications. What we achieved was some bus, taxi and private car users upset towards cyclists, public transport users frustrated, and at least me and my friends not attending any future events.
I may take part on the Car Free day, but I won’t go to the Critical Mass again. I want to improve conditions for cyclists, not to make them worse for the rest of the road users.
By the way, from the 30/40 people starting the ride, at the end we were not more than 20. The rest left, either embarrassed or because they believed they had something better to do.
If anybody thinks I may be suspicious, I must say I’m a cycle user since I can remember, cycle to work every day, go out everywhere cycling, spend my holidays doing cycling trips, and don’t have any petrol-burning vehicle (i.e car, motorbike, etc.)
Funnily enough, was on a Number 10 going up Kildare Street on Friday and it took ages due to the extremely slow moving "protest".
The driver stopped and had some altercation with the protest I believe he may have hit one of them with the bus, couldn't really hear or figure out what was going on. Any one know what happened there ?
i think this cycle tourist chap has a point. however i have decided i will be riding in the next event. The point about the use of a single lane makes perfect sense to me. don't want to be a downeror come across as a nit picker but for me the element of speed was an element the last CM was sorely lacking. jesus i was walking faster. dont think i would be at all interested in that sort of posturing. How and ever, the positives outway the negatives and support will be shown. where have all the active chaps gone.
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