Having a good time?

Cutting through Victoria Park on my bike I see Sarah, busily chalking a sidewalk message to potentially wayward Critical Mass cyclists at the corner of Locke and King West 5:20 in the afternoon Friday.

Due to road closures for the Canadian Cycling Championships in June the monthly mass ride has used this corner of Victoria Park as a staging point for the last couple of rides, a substitute for the usual meeting place in Hess Village.

Sarah’s message informs potential ride participants that the ride is back at Hess.

I stay to add a short message to a narrow wall, visible to approaching cars and cyclists.

"That’s vandalism," someone shouts from behind me.

Ignoring the comment, which I assumed was a good natured jest, I finish the message, only to hear a shout from the same voice, a passenger in a green "Trillium" truck yell "fucking faggot!" as they drive past.

My ‘vandalism’ task completed, I pocket my yellow sidewalk chalk and head over to Hess where I find a group of 20 cyclists gathered in the all too rare oasis of a "pedestrian zone" on George Street.

However, it seems the owner of the bar whose patio is adjacent to the meeting place doesn’t like the pedestrian zone clogged with, well, pedestrians and cyclists. Seems cars which regularly use the lane, according to the bar owner, are intimidated by the presence of cyclists.

That’s a switch.

While the goal of Critical Mass is not to intimidate, it does aim to "subvert the dominant paradigm" that puts cars in the driver’s seat on our roads. Critical Mass is a good time, direct-action celebration of the bicycle, a machine recently voted the best loved invention in a BBC poll. Critical Mass does not lobby politicians or bureaucrats or engage in other forms one would think of as ‘advocacy’(although some participants do), Critical Mass mostly rides.

After several minutes of greeting and meeting new riders it is time to get the mass underway. About 30 cyclists finally coast out of Hess to begin the subversive ride.

Seconds into the journey one of the cyclist’s chain jams. The riders pull to the side of the road as four riders quickly work to get the green one-speed back in action. After a few minutes, bells jingling, the ride is underway again. No one gets left behind.

Main to John, John to James, waving, smiling, astonished, alarmed, angry, gleeful, or supportive reactions from people on the streets and in motor vehicles as we pass.

The physical mass of cyclists on the street elicits reactions, or at times, studied non-reaction: some people act like we aren’t there at all, as if acknowledging our presence would upset the natural order, bring the system to a crashing halt. Others give the thumbs-up or shout-out encouragement from the sidewalk. Our waves are returned by many drivers heading the opposite direction up James. People wave and smile at us from their front porches as we pedal by.

At James and Barton, from the back of the ride, a sudden squeal of tires sends waves of alarm through the group as a driver in a brown pick-up accelerates and passes the mass.

A moment later at a traffic light I find myself elbow-to-doorhandle with the irrate and menacing driver, his passenger window open.

"How you doing?" I ask.

"Having a good time?" he asks rhetorically, sneering at me.

"Yes, actually, I am," I answer, smiling, "Are you?"

Around the downtown we go, exchanging banter with the many pedestrians and drivers we encounter, and, by just being out there together once a month on the last Friday, we’re challenging the car-centric status quo that currently marginalizes city cyclists.

My sense is that the majority of people are getting the message and understand the largely unstated goal of Critical Mass - simply that bikes belong. Bikes belong in the city transportation system along with cars, buses, trains, pedestrian, wheelchairs. Yet it is obvious that the car gets the royal treatment and is almost unquestionably king of the road, while all others are forced to survive as lesser modes of transportation in their poisonous and deadly wake.

Critical Mass and other sustainable transportation advocacy groups like Transportation for Liveable Communities (TLC, an OPIRG McMaster working group) are moving the markers for a better, more ecological transit nexus. Not everyone is onside, but more are waking up to the positive contribution of bums on bike seats, things like cleaner air, quieter, safer streets, a healthier active population.

There are still bends in the road ahead in this, the year of the bike race in Hamilton (The World Road Racing bike championships are here in October) - challenges like getting more bike lanes and paths, finally getting bike racks on buses, bike parking in business areas, and generally encouraging citizens to take up the sustainable-transportation challenge.

The City unfortunately has their feet on the brakes when it comes to making the switch to bike-friendly improvements, but that too will change with ongoing pressure from a growing number of citizens impatient for change.

The next big event for the sust-trans crowd is Car Free Day (Monday, September 22) and plans are underway for a mobile street party downtown; The Art Gallery of Hamilton is showing some bike films as part of Car Free Day events: Sunday September 21 it’s "Beijing Bicycle" and Sunday September 28 it’s the classic "Breaking Away."

In the meantime, Critical Mass continues as a monthly reminder that bikes are here to stay. It remains un-apologetically activist, vibrant, joyful, mobile and alive: yes, despite some bumps along the way, it all adds up to a good time.

NEXT HAMILTON MASS RIDE - Friday, September 26, 5:30 p.m. Hess and George (Hess Village)