Investigative Journalism

Irvine Critical Mass: Recapturing Bicycle Culture

By: Abe Ahn

In a city as car-driven as Irvine, you wouldn’t expect many bicyclists to take to the streets, especially in fear of the 50 mph speed limits and law enforcement that’s all too happy to write you up for an infraction. But a small group of UCI students are doing just that, every last Friday of the month, for Irvine’s own Critical Mass gathering.

“Critical Mass” is a communally led bike ride held once a month. The very first Critical Mass ride took place in 1992, when 48 bicyclists rode along the streets of San Francisco en masse. Soon afterward, many other cities throughout the world followed suit. Although the ride has no specific political purpose, most “Massers” advocate alternative, or non-motorized, means of transportation.

Due to the nature of Critical Mass, one of the founding Massers with whom I spoke, “Roy,” requested anonymity for the article. “[Critical Mass] is about fun, promoting biking, alternative transportation, meeting other revelrous folks and building a sense of community. Additionally, it’s a crazy experiment in empowering individuals. For this reason, Critical Mass purposely attempts to have no centralized leadership. The goal is to get everyone involved,” Roy said.

Formerly an undergraduate Masser at UC Davis, Roy helped found the Irvine Critical Mass as a means for social camaraderie between bicyclists. Irvine’s Critical Mass is unsurprisingly less political, if not apolitical, in nature.

“Orange County has an amazing presence of cyclists, but there’s a distinction between hardcore cycling and using a bike to get around. Part of the Critical Mass event is to make known this cadre of commuters who choose to use bikes, skateboards, rollerblades or whatever else to get around,” Roy said.

Despite Roy’s optimism, the Irvine Critical Mass didn’t have the most auspicious of beginnings. Roy’s primary means of promotion was the internet, relying on the UCI LiveJournal community, AnteaterForum.com and word of mouth. Of those three, it seems that word of mouth, not snarky forum-goers, most helped Irvine to increase its number of Massers.

“The Critical Mass in Irvine started in August and has been going on since then, the last Friday of every month. The first month had very little warning ahead of it: the flyer was banged out and posted on campus during summer and even only for a couple days prior. The low amount of people on campus made it pretty small. This last September, there were five people out there, and since then, I’ve met a lot of people who expressed interest in showing up,” Roy said about his early attempts in organizing the rides.

Several students have suggested making Critical Mass an official club on campus. But for Roy, a club would go against the ideals of the monthly rides. After all, Critical Mass is based on spontaneity and anonymity, not organization and leadership. Furthermore, an on-campus club may risk alienating the rest of Irvine, leading the city to believe that the Critical Mass is meant exclusively for the take-back-the-streets-style hippie college students.

Bicycle culture at UCI has had a discreet presence, but the burgeoning interest in Irvine’s Critical Mass rides shows much potential for reaching numbers rivaling that of UC Davis’s, which Roy has reportedly claimed to have had up to 48 bicyclists at a time. Such numbers may not be unrealistic for UCI, especially considering the number of students who bike around campus daily. The challenge for Critical Mass is not the lack of bicyclists on campus; it’s being able to effectively mobilize the bicyclists every month.

So far, the Irvine Massers have had no problems with the law, unlike more large-scale Critical Mass rides where police interference has discouraged riders to convene.

“We’ve had no run-ins with the law, probably because we are so small and do obey traffic laws. California law allows for a Critical Mass. When groups run into trouble, it’s often when they start screwing with motorists, like going on the opposite side of the road, or when they attempt to get onto highways (as happened in Berkeley some time ago),” Roy said.

For Roy, Critical Mass is only the beginning for the promotion and spread of bike culture at UCI. He has expressed interest in starting a bicycle co-op that can gather and refurbish old or abandoned bicycles and sell them to students at affordable prices. The success of such a co-op, of course, is contingent on how receptive UCI students are toward giving the bicycle a greater presence on campus. Until the day a co-op is actually plausible, Roy encourages students, faculty and Irvine residents to participate in Critical Mass. ”I’d like everyone who loves bikes and loves to ride ‘em to come out and join the fun.”

The Irvine Critical Mass meets on the last Friday of each month at 6:00 p.m. in front of the flagpoles and Administration building. Visit http://irvinecm.iannet.net/ for more details.