Making a Point With Pedals and Petals

I was ready for trouble on wheels. After all, this ragtag army of Spandex soldiers was gathering for Ventura County’s first Critical Mass, and anything could happen.

In San Francisco, the free-spirited monthly bike rides started out seven years ago as innocent tributes to pedal power. But in 1997, thousands of riders paralyzed downtown traffic, clogging narrow streets and clashing with angry motorists.

Police in riot gear arrested 250 cyclists--riding revolutionaries with nothing to lose but their chains. On Friday, we came together in a library parking lot near Ventura College. Sure, I was nervous. Sure, I knew that within minutes I could be flattened under Big Oil’s relentless death machine.

But I took heart when one of my 17 fellow biciclistas asked a question I hadn’t heard since the Summer of Love: “Anyone want to wear some flowers as, you know, like a political statement?” You bet!

I didn’t know what political statement I was making, except that it probably wasn’t something like: “Ground troops! Ground troops! Ground troops!” Even so, I grabbed some daisies and stuck them on my helmet and in the leg band of my bike shorts. Now I was pumped.

A burly police sergeant wheeled up on his burly, gas-powered motorcycle. Who are the organizers? he asked. There was some hemming and hawing. Critical Mass isn’t supposed to have organizers, exactly. This is all supposed to be a kind of coincidence, someone said.

That’s when it started to get ugly. The officer, John Turner, asked our route. Then he asked if we were planning to keep to the right, stop at red lights, and obey all the traffic laws.

I went limp in preparation for the mass arrests, but there would be no reading of rights today. Instead I heard a chorus of affirmations: “Yes, officer! Yep! You bet! And how! Obey the law!”

Turner said he’d follow close behind us to keep cars at a safe distance. “They can make a hood ornament of you real quick,” he said.

My fellow radicals then swung into action. We thanked Turner and applauded--fiercely.

This wasn’t what I had pictured. Like many other cyclists, I had thought Critical Mass was intended as obnoxious, confrontational street theater. It was meant to snarl rush-hour traffic; it was meant to irritate drivers and provoke police--all to illustrate the superiority of bicycles.

But this was a congenial crowd--probably much like the groups at the mostly peaceable Critical Mass rides in other cities throughout California and around the world. The organizers--or non-organizers--were Tim Kunze and Amal Mongia, students at Ventura College.

“We don’t want it to be really militant,” said Kunze, a 20-year-old wearing a T-shirt celebrating the 20th-anniversary reunion of the Monkees. “We just want it be a bunch of people having fun riding bikes instead of cars.”

Older cyclists also took part. An Oxnard housing official, Karl Lawson still has the instincts of the union organizer he used to be. “So, what are our demands?” he joked.

“No demands,” said Mongia. “We’re just promoting the pleasures of bike riding.”

In fact, cyclists do have demands--or, at least, requests. Critical Massers had plenty to say about debris-strewn bike lanes, and promised paths that never get built, and drivers who never see them.

“People get numb in their cars,” said Richard Jimenez, a hairstylist who showed up for the ride in a dark suit with a Rotary Club lapel pin. “They figure they can change gears like clicking the TV clicker. They’re sometimes not aware.”

Just after 5:15 p.m., our group plunged into Ventura’s rush hour. We rode--mostly single-file--up Telegraph Road, down Victoria Avenue, and down Telephone Road to Main Street.

Some bikes had signs: “Don’t Be A Gas Slave!” “Bike and Strike the Gas Hike!” Motorists tooted their horns in approval. Some gave a thumbs-up sign. Not a middle finger was raised.

Katie Kunze, Tim’s sister, let out an exuberant yell when we saw a bus idling on Main Street. “Awright, mass transit!” When we passed a gas station, she yelled, “Hey, what’s up with this dollar-fifty gas? Join us!” A man filling his tank yelled back: “Wish I could!” When we passed diners sitting at outdoor tables, she yelled, “Boycott beef!” Nobody yelled back.

We ended up at Mission Park--maybe four miles from our starting point. Pictures were taken, hands shaken, and plans announced for another ride on the last Friday of this month. Lawson suggested a ride be held on a Monday--the evening the City Council meets.

“We should go up there and thank them for the help from the police,” he said. “And we should give them a chance to see a large number of people wearing shorts, and funny things on their heads.”