For New Year I went up north with 40 or 50 bicycle riders from LA to San Francisco to ride around and celebrate NYE by riding SF Critical Mass.
I made the very last train to SF and road in the night to Golden Gate Park and met up with a ride there. We ended at a fire on the beach. There is something about a fire that brings people together. It really frames a moment, sets the mood. If you look closely you can see my friend Justin laying his head in Roxanne’s lap, both with their helmets still on. It’s a touching moment.
We got back to my friend Hal’s house around 5 or 6am. I slept for a few hours and woke up to piles of bikes and sleeping friends. I went out with the first ride that morning. A tour around industrial San Fransisco. I think we biked south from the stadium along the coast. This was my third time in SF and second time with “bike eyes” so it was really good to get off the map and see the things that only bike culture can show you. I don’t see what car culture sees and I’m completely fine with that. The views stink from cars. And the smell isn’t the smell of the city or the streets or where the world is. It’s car smell. Anyway, the only car stuff I did on this trip was getting there and back and it was terrible.
On NYE we met up with SF Critical Mass, road with them for a minute, hijacked the ride and took it to a underground parking structure, confused the cops and SF peeps, and then split the ride in two or three groups, which was chaotic and fun. I did hear there was an incident where a woman was being called a “little girl” and other stuff by a cop, and she said, “if you call me little girl then I can call you a pig,” and then some other words were said by the cop, and some more words by the woman and bystanders, the cop pulled the girl off her bike and arrested her and a black man and other bystanders tried to unarrest her by pulling her away from the cops to safety, but the black man was beaten and arrested too. We heard this from Ridazz that saw it happen that met us at the “dancing in the rain to dubstep in an empty parking lot just like they do in LA” regroup point. It always stinks when stuff like that happens. I’ve done Critical Mass in Paris, Chicago, LA, and SF and protested the Iraq war in Europe, South America, Canada, and the U.S. I don’t normally talk about political stuff anymore, but I like to do political things, whatever that means. I expected the motorbike chaperon cops in SF to be slightly less aggressive than they were, but there style was antagonistic. The motorbike cops were more aggressive but less in number than what has been seen in LA as of late. The motorcops in SF on NYE Critical Mass were driving in a way to cause cyclists to crash. If the same SF cops came down to the more amateur Los Angeles riders who have less riding experience than in SF they would cause way more accidents. ANYWAY! Once I heard a Canadian man say to a Mountie, “I’ve never seen a pig on a horse!” It got lots of laughs and the Mountie was like, “yeah yeah, I’ve heard that one before.” Which got even more laughs.
We must have done a million countdowns on NYE, but my photo is the real one, I think . . .
Where should I go next year for NYE?
Should I make any resolutions?