big gay bike ride!

It's July again. The lazy days of summer and great weather!

That means, as per tradition, the Pride ride for everyone! Because biking makes you gay! (joyous) And Critical Mass is about embracing and protecting diversity (that is why we cork the cars - making it safe for the wild pedestrian use of the street). One out of the 12 monthly rides being dedicated to celebrating different sexualities is of course a slight bit under the 10% quota ;-) But, us queers-with-gears are always bent on having a good time. I think the costume theme is pretty wide open but with lots of rainbows and emphasis on summer fun.

All kinds of families and friends let's
roll Friday July 25th, last Friday in July
5:30pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery fountain.
All are invited to enjoy the safety and comfort we create by simply riding together

Critical Mass has become a very big event in the past few years. Especially in the summer months we may get as much as a thousand cyclists, walkers, skaters... or maybe even more than that! When it becomes such a very big event it is even more important that as a group we stick together! (Or if some prefer to split off into several groups that stick together individually) Critical Mass is run by it's participants so it is up to us all to do the corking and otherwise watching out for each other to keep all of us safe. One important factor in a successful ride that we should remember is to stick to the wider streets! With 1000 or more people a single lane road is just too narrow. The ride gets spread very thin when it takes these narrow roads and a thin mass becomes less of a mass and invites more conflict with motorists than otherwise. (Asking someone to wait out a green light to let a thick group of bikers past is a lot more reasonable than asking them to wait for a long drawn out process with one or two bikes every now and then - almost as bad as forcing people to wait because a road is blocked by cars: all the space taken up for not many people)

That means that those who choose to ride at the front and choose to lead the route (anyone who wants to go up there) should try and be conscious to take the mass only on nice wide streets with 2 or -even better- 3 lanes in our direction. Or failing that (sometimes for a good reason like there is only a one lane road to the beach) to be very aware of how the rest of the mass gets spread out on narrow roads and going extra slow/stopping to bulk up the mass rather than letting it get drawn thin. So, lets stay dense on this ride, it's better for the conversations also. A community supporting each other is a big part of what this ride is about. All it takes is a little forethought to increase the fun.

After the ride there will surely be get-togethers at the beach and also a velofusion dance party at the ANZA.

pride ride

While the Vancouver Pride Parade is Sunday, August 5th. There is a slightly faster version on the last friday of the month. July Pride Ride Critical Mass!

Be proud to ride a bicycle or skate in the city, come out of the gutter. 530pm at the VAG as usual. Maybe a little more colour and costumes this month? Dress up or down as much as you like! The more fun you put in, the more of a gay ol' time we will all have. All are invited, young and old. Especially families of all sorts. Let's celebrate our strength in one another: our diversity. In the streets, social and human and without fear of cars or bigots.

Post ride festivities will be at the beach or at the Anza Club Velofusion Pride Themed Party.

It will be hot!

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• Saturday night is the annual illuminaries lantern festival. Besides chopper bikes there will be carfree victoria drive this year! Fun.

• world record naked bike ride, sunday the 29th, at sunset beach. At noon, bodypaint, at 2pm the ride. I haven't heard a lot about this ride and it was hard to even find the start location posted on the internet. So, I have my suspicions about the record numbers part. But, it will be surely be better weather than the JuneWNBR, and frankly if there is less media and publicity I find the rides to be more fun anyway. You get a feeling of freedom that is unmatched by cycling naked. And the media presense always makes it seem like it is not normal, though it really should be.

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Tell the mayor to stop holding our city hostage to his dumb idea of firing the cityworkers right after the Olympics. They will settle for 36 or 48 months, not 39. Duh. Stupid Olympics. I wish they WERE striking to get it cancelled. Or maybe you should go over the mayors head to the corporations what own the Olympics!

In any case, it is a good time to think about how we think of the garbage as this magic box that takes away all our waste problems to where we can't see them. [kind of the the greenwashed automobile magic that takes away the tailpipe pollution to put it where it is less visable]. People are already talking about BURNING garbage and it hasn't even been a week! Seriously people, the 3 R's are not Recycle, Refill, Repackage but... REDUCE, and RE-USE... then recycle. Let's grow veggies in the boulevards! And also tear up some asphalt to do this.