Good ride this past Friday, with close to 200 cyclists in attendance and a fun route. The weather was crummy through out the day but fortunately cleared up in the late afternoon just in time for our monthly scheduled ride, daylight saving time was also welcomed. The group rode north on Biscayne Blvd passing by Ultra Fest, Edgewater, Morningside, then headed east to North Bay Village and back south to Miami Beach.

The ride ended at BAR where we enjoyed free BBQ chicken & Red Stripe beer, yes the beer was free! Unfortunately bikes were not allowed inside this month since they were full to capacity for a WMC event. I did stress on the invite to bring a lock due to WMC, yet some cyclists appeared surprised when they realized they couldn't bring their bikes inside.


I heard some participants had issues while riding by Ultra Fest on Biscayne Blvd. Some claim it was "too dangerous" and that they were left behind by the group. While I agree that there was a lot of traffic on Biscayne, I will remind folks that the point of Critical Mass is to be seen, and what better place to be seen by motorists, tourists, pedestrians, etc. then by riding by a huge music festival. It should have been no surprise to anyone that we were going by there, we've done it for the past two years and the route was available to the public weeks in advance. I cannot count the amount of times the group stalled to wait for those left behind, even making unnecessary complete stops. During the past 27 months since I've been doing Critical Mass we have never stopped so many times to wait on others, still this group of stragglers never reached us while we were going an average of 12 miles per hour. It's unfortunate people were left behind minutes in to the ride, hopefully these folks are not discouraged by the ride and join us some other time.

*Anyone who attends or plans to attend Miami Critical Mass needs to read this a few times so that maybe some of it sinks into their head. This goes for the imaginary racers, stragglers, and mid-mass gap conversationalists.


Here's a video from the ride courtesy of Eddy