Critical Manners despite the gray.

CM/CM is like the post(wo)man--not rain, not sleet, not snow, etc. etc. It's still happening tonight, but unfortunately, even the postman has to take a vacation for his own wedding. My night is going to be taken up with paper crane folding, music list gathering, vows-finalizing, seating chart designing, etc. etc. etc. etc. My life is a list of et ceteras right now.

But, if people are brave enough, those without et ceteras should go out tonight and be polite!

Don't Forget! This Friday is--

Tell everyone you know, and even those you don't. Click here for more info about what CM/CM is all about.

Also, this Friday is the kick off of Car Free Fridays in Indy. We encourage you to leave the car at home, grab your bike, and pedal to work. You know, we'd even be happy with you taking IndyGo, but since we're a bike blog, obviously, we're a bit more prone to encourage bikes. The whole point though, is to leave the car in the driveway.

If you see a guy on the Monon with a baby blue messenger bag, feel free to say hello. Or, if you see an impressive beard riding a green Kilo TT on the east side bike lanes, I'm sure Ben would be glad to get a "Top o' the mornin' to ya," as well. Trust me, you'll know what I mean by "green."

If I don't pass you on the trail, I hope to see you at CM/CM!

It's About That Time Again!

If you haven't been spreading the word the past couple of weeks, start spreading it now. We had 20-30 in attendance to the inaugural ride last month, which I call a success considering we only had about a week and a half to promote it.

So, start telling all your friends. Get them on their bikes, and get them to the Legion Mall next Friday. I'm looking forward to actually getting to ride with you guys this time.

Click here for more information on the whole gist of Courteous Mass, Critical Manners.

We're also launching another little initiative/movement/what-have-you next Friday. There will be a post about this later today.

Photos from Indy CM/CM

Anna created a flickr account for Indy CM/CM and posted some photos from the first ride. Some highlights follow, and you can view the whole set here. Thanks again to everyone who helped and is helping with this--Anna and Alan for the buttons, leading, and Flickr'ing, and Jugo for starting up the facebook group.

CM/CM Success

I've heard nothing but positive remarks about the Courteous Mass, Critical Manners ride, and the subsequent hanging out and the ride out to the velodrome for the start of Hot Summer Nights racing.

Thanks again to Anna, Alan, and Ben for helping with the ride and organizing/leading. It really sucked to have to leave to go to the wedding, but I'm glad that it turned out so well. When I left, there looked to be about 25-30 riders already shown up, including Nancy Tibbett from Bicycle Indiana. It was great to see her out there supporting the CM/CM movement. It was great to meet some of the readers/commenters, too--Mothgils, Jugu, and Oran specifically come to mind--and I know I met a few others as well.

I already have next month on my calendar, and will actually be able to stick around for the ride this time. Thanks again to all who came out. Looking forward to next month. Spread the word and let's try to get over 50 for next month. Over 100 would be awesome, but, baby steps are good. Indy Cog didn't start out with 1,000 hits a day. But, look where it's come in just a few months.

You guys are awesome. Thanks for reading, and for supporting positive cycling culture in Indianapolis.

Today's the Day

I was a little worried about the weather yesterday, but it looks like it's going to be a great day for the inaugural Courteous Mass, Critical Manners ride. Thought I'd do something of a bump post to remind everyone about the ride tonight.

The wedding doesn't start until a bit later, so I'm going to try to make it down to hang out a bit before the ride begins. If you see a guy milling about dressed for a wedding, that's me. Come up and say hello. Wish I could ride with you. Looking forward to meeting some of you readers whom I only know through comments and emails.

See you guys tonight around 6!

So, I'm a Chump

So, we've gotten a really positive response so far for CM/CM, and it actually seems that a good portion of people are planning to come out, which is awesome and encouraging. Sadly though, I just found out that a friend's wedding that I thought was on the 27th, is actually on the 12th. So, I actually won't be able to make the first ride, which sucks, but if the wedding starts a little later, I'm hoping to at least come hang out before the ride leaves.

But, Ben should still be there, and I've also asked my good friends, Alan and Anna, to help out with some of the organizing and such--basically passing out flyers (possibly patches!) and just standing up at the start of the ride to remind everyone of the purpose of the ride, that we'll be stopping and signalling, that sort of thing. Muchas gracias to them.

Again, all the support for this has been awesome. Keep spreading the word, and hopefully (possibly) the wedding isn't until 6:30 or so, so that I can maybe at least be there to hang out and meet some people before I have to go be matrimonially celebrative.

Courteous Mass, Critical Manners

All right, here's the flyer for the first ride of the Indy Courteous Mass, Critical Manners. Feel free to distribute to anyone, anyway. Here are the details of this ride:

* We'll ride a bit slower to ensure that no one is dropped and that the Mass stays a mass.
* We'll stop at all red lights. If a light turns red mid-mass, the riders who made it through should pull over to wait for those who were caught at the light.
* We'll only take up one lane, at most two, if it is a major thoroughfare.
* We'll signal our turns.
* We'll be inclusive--sadly, cliques happen, but more than anything, CM/CM encourages cyclists of all kinds to attend, and hopes to foster an attitude of celebration to all things two-wheeled and pedaled.

Our whole point is to be a part of traffic, to be a visible and positive example of the cooperation that can exist between cars and bicycles if people generally respected not only laws, but each other.

Also, CM/CM doesn't exist as an insult to the Critical Mass movement, so much as an alternative. There is no intent of us vs. them between CM/CM, and Critical Mass--feel free to ride in both, but just understand and respect the differences between the rides.

*Thank you, Jeremy, for the bad ass flyer.

Since there's discussion--

There's discussion again about the nature and virtue of Critical Mass, something that I was involved in and very much a proponent of last summer, but have had my doubts going into this cycling season as to how much good a movement like Critical Mass does.

The Critical Mass movement caught a lot of slack last year, not only in Indianapolis, but it seemed every month after a Mass weekend, there would be something in the media from NYC, Portland, San Fran, or where ever, concerning an altercation of some sort between cyclists and cars/cops/pedestrians/etc.

With that in mind, I offer up this article about one of San Francisco's Courteous Mass/Critical Manners ride:

A bunch of bike riders pedaled through San Francisco on Friday night, and nobody got mad at anybody. The cyclists were polite. The motorists were respectful. The pedestrians were happy. The cops were incredulous. And it all comes, said ride organizer Reama Dagasan, from stopping at red lights, which is not at all a bad thing to do.

"We're making a statement tonight," she said. "We believe in sharing and being nice."

Dagasan is the founder of Critical Manners, which is her response to the controversial Critical Mass ride that features hundreds of cyclists riding as a pack through San Francisco on the last Friday night of the month. At the last Critical Mass, there were several confrontations with motorists, including one that ended with someone smashing the back window of a minivan. (...)

Greg Rodgers said he was riding to "reduce the level of antagonism between bicycles and cars." Geoff Schneider said he was riding because he was "sick of all the yelling" during Critical Mass. And Toni Truong said she was "trying to let motorists know that not all cyclists are belligerent."

At Beach Street, everyone stuck his or her left hand skyward before turning right, to the amazement of one Yellow cabdriver who yelled "Way to go!" out his window.

Full story here.

So, what do you guys think? Do you think there'd be an interest in something like this in Indy? There's seems to be from what I've heard the past couple weeks. I think June might be a great month to test this. Comments?