After work one cold Friday night at the end of April, I headed over to Chinatown with friends for tasty noodles and saucy conversation.

As we were walking past Churchill Square, a group of about a dozen cyclists passed us, enjoying the deserted downtown streets much more than we were. One friend wondered aloud if that small group was the longstanding Critical Mass bike ride. 

In other cities around the globe, Critical Mass could never be mistaken for anything but a serious political demonstration. In New York, London, and Portland, Critical Mass events are huge, often displaying aggressive discontent that would be out of place with the laughing group of cyclists we encountered that night. 

Edmonton’s Critical Mass bike ride, held on the last Friday of every month, is a tamer and smaller affair. Winter rides regularly attract a dozen or so riders. In warmer months, up to 200 riders participate.

The group’s website states their goals as “to meet and enjoy the security and companionship of riding through the city together, while helping to promote cycling/other means of non-polluting transportation.”

But among the participants, perceptions of the goals and accomplishments of Critical Mass vary widely. There is no organized leadership: the lack of an overriding vision is part of the point. “Everybody rides for a different reason,” says bike commuter Steve Anderson. The three-year Critical Mass participant says the group’s goals include a combination of community-building and politics, while others like Keith Hallgren don’t think Critical Mass is political at all. 

“I suggested that we call them Critical Kindness rides so that we can be polite to everybody,” Hallgren says.

The line that divides the non-political participants and the more aggressive members of the group becomes clearest when the cyclists decide whether or not they are going to take up both lanes while crossing the High Level Bridge.

Jeff Davis, a bicycle road race organizer, is against it. “Taking two lanes,” he writes via e-mail, “we piss off cars immediately behind the bike group who see the bikes and confuse cars further back who can’t see them and don’t know what the holdup is.... By taking one lane, we look more like responsible users of the road.” 

Andersen disagrees. He says taking up both lanes on the High Level Bridge is mostly about safety, and reminds drivers that bikes are allowed on the road too. “Think about it from the cyclists’ point of view,” he says. “People don’t feel comfortable riding because motorists don’t give us a lot of space. We are forced to take the side streets and go though all these stop signs.”  

For most drivers, Critical Mass represents a 30-second delay once a month. If cyclists take up both lanes on the bridge, the delay is about two minutes. Drivers can’t be too pissed off: no complaints have reached the Citizen Action Centre about the rides-cum-demonstrations.

Still, just about everyone in Critical Mass feels the ride has an awareness-raising element to it. Anderson would like to see the group put on more of a political push.

“There’s a lot of good work going on, but there is a heck of lot that could be done,” he says, citing the slow return of bike racks as an example of how the city treats cyclists like second-class citizens. “A lot of people at City Hall see bicycling as a form of recreation, and not a commuting option, [but] for a lot of people, by choice or by necessity, cycling is a primary form of transportation.”

The city’s neglect, Anderson says, becomes particularly evident in the winter, when it can take the city over a day to clear bike paths. “Can you imagine if the Whitemud wasn’t cleared for 24 hours?”

Not everyone agrees that Edmonton cyclists face such steep obstacles. According to Hallgren, Edmonton is “one of the best cycling cities in North America,” adding that Edmonton has a large number of bike commuters. (About one per cent of Edmontonians bike to work, according to Statistics Canada, comparable to Toronto and Montreal rates.)

But even people who do think Edmonton needs to improve aren’t too concerned about the apolitical nature of Critical Mass. 

“Bikes get a pretty crappy deal when it comes to the city,” says Critical Mass cyclist Alex Hindle, “but I don’t think people are under the impression that what they are doing is going to change things.”