Whose Streets? Their Streets!

Minneapolis, the last Friday in July . . .

While rush-hour traffic clogs the streets, outlaw bicyclists hailing from Uptown, Dinkytown, and the Wedge, wearing threadbare T-shirts, oversized aviators, and denim cutoffs, roll out from the Loring Park fountain—Critical Mass is loose again. Four hundred strong, the righteous brigade on $25 Schwinns, pink and yellow Centurions, worn-out Treks, shiny black SEs, brand-new Surlys, second-hand Beachcruisers ride high on their saddles, crouched over the handlebars, most of them helmetless, jamming crazy down the middle of Hennepin Avenue. Hopped up on flavored Camel cigarettes and overpriced lattes, with European ideals aimed squarely at your tax dollars, they coast at seven miles per hour, through red lights, laughing and shouting “Happy Friday!” at the crimson-faced nine-to-fivers sitting dead in their coffincars . . . .

Don't panic. They aren’t the Hell’s Angels.

Critical Mass is the local version of a protest ride for bicycle commuters that began in San Francisco in the nineties. On the last Friday of each month, hundreds of cyclists take over south Minneapolis streets at rush hour, stopping traffic and sounding out their solidarity with the battle cry “Whose streets? Our streets!” The ride has a prankster spirit—and it’s pretty funny, actually, watching the quizzical mien and slumped shoulders of four-wheel commuters engulfed in a tidal wave of spokes. There are incidents of antagonism on both sides—bicyclists flicking off SUV drivers, and drivers losing their tempers at the dirty hippies delaying their escape from downtown—but, ultimately, it’s the most benign protest I’ve ever seen.

Evidently, in SF—in terms of sheer numbers, perhaps the biggest bicycle city in the country—motorists can be stuck at an intersection for twenty minutes. In Minneapolis, the wait is usually no longer than the time it takes to get through a Led Zep song on KQ. But though the disruption of the local ride is relatively modest (a bemused cop in an unmarked squad car slowly trailed the pack during the July ride), and has been going on for only ten years or so, Minneapolis has become, by percentage, the second-biggest bicycle-commuting city in the country, behind only Portland, Oregon. According to 2005 U.S. census data, of the 160,000 commuters who go downtown to work each morning, about 2 percent come on bicycles. That doesn’t take into account the 5,000 students who, according to city officials, bike to and from the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus every day.

It’s easy to understand why Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle are at the top of the national bicycle list: Greenie politics meets sublime landscape meets temperate climate. But somehow, here in Minneapolis, with our long, cold winters and flat lake-country landscape, we are incubating one of the nation’s most powerful bicycle movements. We have ninety-five miles of bike trails and lanes, including four so-called bicycle freeways. We have one of the oldest and some of the largest bike clubs in the country, together boasting more than 5,000 members. We have four times more bike racks per capita than anyplace else in the country. And there are innumerable local cycling blogs devoted to vintage bikes, bike rides, bike politics, and bike message boards. Minneapolis was one of four cities to be awarded $25 million in federal money last year for bike amenities. Our mayor rides a Trek while training for triathlons. You can’t cross the city without hitting a bike shop.