My son, Adrian, and I bike a lot together. We've ridden the entire Blue Ridge Parkway, spent a week camping and biking  the old mining roads in Pocahontas County,  West Virginia, and, last January, we single-tracked Tarahumara Indian trails in the Copper Canyon country of Mexico.  In Chicago, I bike to work every day, and Adrian is a bike messenger during the summer. 

Then, on July 25, my neighbor mentioned a news item he had picked up from the S.F. Chronicle Web page. He printed out a hardcopy of the Chronicle's report of the arrests in the SF Critical Mass. I read it, amazed that mere bicyclists could cause such a commotion. But when I realized the scale of the whole thing (5,000 riders) I think I said something like "the bicycle revolution has begun!" to my wife, only half-kidding.  I immediately got on the web to find out the details of how such an event  could happen, got linked into all the pages describing the event, saw the CM pictures, read Chris Carlsson's piece "Bicycling Over the Rainbow." It all resonated  with me:  the issues I had thought about and discussed only with a few friends for so many years were brought out into the open in SF. It was an incredible revelation! After seeing some great photos of the CM posted by Mark Motyka, I sent him e-mail, saying I would like to see something like this in Chicago, and he responded immediately. His enthusiasm was infectious. We talked on the phone. He gave me a list of "Do's and  Don't's"  of how to organize a Mass that were invaluable. He sent me information in the mail. What, me the organizer of a Chicago Critical Mass? 

I have never even participated in any "street demonstrations," much less organized one. I have never been a political "activist." I always felt that you need a certain amount of  charisma, uncanny political savvy, etc., to pull something like this off. Me? I'm a mild-mannered  computer programmer with a wife, 3 kids, and a big mortgage.  But yet... 

It wouldn't hurt to play around with making a flyer. I like to do flyer design anyway. My first design didn't mention the term "Critical Mass." It said something like "Let's ride home together," meeting at some obscure vacant lot in an industrial area. I made 4,000 copies. It fell flat. I trashed them all. No one knew what the purpose was. Why on earth meet in this godforsaken place and ride home together? No one sensed the political/social overtones I had tried to communicate in the flyer. So I made a new one. This time I heeded Daniel Burnham's advice: "Make no small plans." (Burnham was an early Chicago architect and landscape designer, father of Chicago's park system).  I put "Critical Mass" in big letters. I made the meeting place Daley Plaza in the middle of the Loop. I made the time 5:30 Friday.  I included  a "Car-free" symbol. This time, the message was clear. People responded. I put one in the hand of every biker I saw. I put them on lamp posts. Adrian passed them out to bike messengers. I went to bike messenger hangouts and talked it up. We put them in bike shops. Mark Motyka gave me the idea of making "handle bar loops." We put them on 500 bikes at the Chicago Air and Water Show and the Grant Park Jazz festival. We stood on the lakefront bike path and handed them to passing cyclists. 

Then, when I began to see "clones" of the flyer appearing, I knew it was working. I met Michael, who volunteered to do media promotion. We planned  a meeting to talk about the route. A dozen people showed up. I proposed we ride down State Street and up LaSalle (the heart of the financial district). Some said the route was "too aggressive" for a first Mass. I invoked Burnham's dictum, but we developed a "Plan B" anyway in case we didn't have the numbers to "hold our own" in the Loop. But the enthusiasm displayed at the meeting convinced us that we were on the right track, and that this thing might actually happen.  I resumed my flyering with renewed dedication. 

The day of the ride I was apprehensive.  All along, skeptics had been saying "This is the midwest, not California. People just don't DO this sort of thing here."  I feared the worst: maybe 10 riders (just my family and a few friends)  outnumbered  5 to 1 by Chicago cops.  What a joke it would be! I arrived at the Plaza at  about 5:00. I saw 1 (one, uno) other rider and about fifteen cops standing around. I said to myself: Oh shit. As I sat and chatted with the other rider, a few more came up. I gave out a few route maps. A few more came. We were all just looking around at each other: no one knew exactly what to expect. So far, we were nowhere near a critical mass.  Then, around 5:40, people started showing up from all directions! I couldn't believe it! I started passing out strips of colored streamers in an attempt to make things look festive. No one knew what to do with them. "Tie 'em on your bike!" I said. More came, asking for route maps. Then they started asking for streamers. It was catching on! 

I found a rider with a big moose horn on his handlebar. I passed the word that the horn would be the signal to start.  (Mark Motyka never told me how to actually START the thing!) It's supposed to be "anarchic" I thought. But, in reality, everyone was looking for some "leader."  I had to assume that role by default. 

The guy with the horn and I circled the Picasso, him blowing his horn. I looked back to the group of riders and they were all mounting up, moving, as if some beast had been roused. It was an awesome sight! They flowed in a true organic mass and circled behind me until I peeled off down Washington Street. Everyone followed, and the Chicago Critical Mass was underway! 

The cops had blocked off State Street so we had the entire street to ourselves. I felt the energy surging as we whooped and hollered, streamers streaming. As we continued the route through the Loop, we realized that the cops were actually helping us cork the intersections. As we headed up LaSalle, I looked back and saw the Mass stretching 2-3 blocks, and I knew the whole thing was successful beyond all our hopes.

Once we got out of the Loop, the cops pretty much left us alone. As we approached the Wicker Park destination point, I led the Mass on a slight detour to cross through an intersection all bikers hate because of the car traffic. Since it wasn't on the route map, no cops were there. My intention was to just cork it and ride through, making a left turn so we could block maximum traffic. Someone rode up beside me (I think it was a woman named Amara, who had been on other Mass rides) and said  quietly "Let's lift our bikes." I pondered the implications of this for a few seconds, then, remembering Burnham, said to myself "What the hell." As I approached the intersection, I got off my bike, lifted it over my head, and walked out into the intersection. I looked back, and the entire Mass lifted theirs immediately! They surged into the intersection, blocking traffic from 5 directions, cheering with those bikes raised in some kind of bike salute.

My original plan was to have a keg of beer in the park after the ride. However, that would have been all the cops needed -- to bust us for public consumption of  alcoholic beverages. Fortunately, one of the riders volunteered his side yard for the festivities and we had a "mini-mass" over to his place, about 4 blocks away.   There, we tapped the keg, socialized, and drank to our success. But we were already so high on the psychic energy  of the event that we hardly needed alcohol. 

Well, that's my perspective on the Chicago Mass. Various estimates placed the number at between 250 and 300. We would have considered it a success if we had had only 100. Many people have volunteered services -- making t-shirts & signs, creating  Web sites,  distributing flyers, etc., so I expect the next Chicago Critical Mass, Oct. 3, to at least double in size. We may have to taper off in the winter, but  we'll be back in the Spring and I expect to be up in the thousands by the end of next summer. 

Jim Redd 
Chicago 
September 11, 1997