Toronto Critical Mass Ride, May 2005
This was the first real Critical Mass ride I've ever participated in, being the last Friday of my first month living in Toronto. This is basically a chance for cyclists to ride together in a large group around the city, taking back some road space for ourselves. This ride also happened to be near the start of Toronto's Bike Week, and was on the City's official bike week activity schedule. It was a very fun and festive ride, mostly, until the end when the police started to harrass some people for traffic violations.
History Television showed up to film the ride for a show they were producing. They wanted to lead/follow the ride with a car-mounted camera, but the cyclists wouldn't have any of that! A much better solution happened: bring them along in a rickshaw! The footage ended up on the Bicycle episode of "Things that Move".
The Toronto Critical Mass rides gather at the corner of Spadina and Bloor at about 6pm on the last Friday of every month.
Of course, there are plenty of pictures to see over here.