My first Critical Mass London
written by balint hamvas at 03:19 PM on 30/04/2009 in urban
It was Earth day last week, so the April Critical Mass ride couldn`t have been better timed.I had a meeting prior to the ride, so I left home in a rush and I didn`t have time to pick up a proper camera, thus the lousy pictures, taken with my Blackberry.
I arrived to the South bank of Waterloo Bridge at 6pm sharp and there were quite a few cyclists.
However, it took as almost another hour to get started. I don`t know, what was the reason for that, my only problem was that had I known earlier that it wouldn`t start at 6pm, I would have been able to bring a camera with me. The wait though gave us time to meet fellow cyclists in the crowd.
By 7pm, a couple hundred cyclists gathered, the ever-growing crowd was getting more and more cheerful. Finally, we left Southbank and headed for Waterloo Bridge to get to the other side of the Thames. Most of the motorists didn`t bother that we blocked the traffic, however there were some, who was really angry at us, making their commute 20 minutes longer.
Leaving Parliament street, we saw the Sri-Lankan protesters, protesting in front of the Parliament.
The square was already clogged due to very heavy traffic, so it was tricky even for us to get through.
We headed back towards Trafalgar Sq, but as we reached Theobald Rd, it turned out that the end of the ride would be at Elephant&Castle. Since I`m living near Angel, it didn`t make much sense to go all the way down there, so I said hello to my new friends and rode back home.
It was a really great ride however, count me in next month!
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