Dublin Critical Mass

dublin | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday June 05, 2007 12:50 by bikelane

Critical Mass is a phenomenon that is believed to have started in San Francisco on Friday September 25 1992. From such small beginnings the idea has spread across the planet and gathered momentum, with a massive 30 000 cyclists taking part in the Car Free Day cycle in Budapest on September in 2005.

There are as many reasons to go to a Critical Mass as there are participants, yet over the years an assortment of journalists have claimed that Critical Mass is either a bicycle protest about asserting cyclists rights, or others have speculated that it is about climate change.
Maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither.
Because Critcal Masses are self organized, non-commercial events structured in a non-hierarchical way there is a multitude of ideas and opinions represented. But one thing most critical mass-ers would agree on is that Critical Mass is a celebration of cycling and other self-propelled methods of transport.

Over the last few days small flyers have appeared attached to bicycles around Dublin to publicize the cycle happening this Friday the 8th of June. One cannot rely on Internet postings or emailing leaflets to lists to publicize an open event like this as there are so many cycling commuters who are then left out.

It remains to be seen how many will turn up this Friday, but it is hoped that the numbers participating in the Dublin Critical Masses will swell over the summer so that we have hundreds of cyclists by Car Free day 2007, after all we’re not blocking traffic –we are traffic.

On yer Bike!