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I was in Vancouver for a couple of weeks recently. The last Friday of my visit was also the last Friday of the month, which is the monthly Critical Mass bike ride. Vancouver's rides are quite large: there were easily several hundred people attending this ride, which apparently wasn't even close to being as huge as June's ride which attracted thousands of riders.

Anyway, Jen and I met up at this ride, then followed the crowds through the streets of Vancouver. The highlight of the ride was when the mass crossed the Granville Bridge which is normally pretty hostile to cyclists.

Plenty of cyclists having fun....and tons of interesting and silly bikes along the way too. Recumbents, tall-bikes, choppers, tandems, folders, etc. Neat neat neat. Go see the photos to get an idea of what it was like.

I will have plenty of photos and stories to tell about the rest of my trip out there, especially the week-long tour, coming soon.

Another fun Critical Mass ride through the streets of Downtown Toronto. Perfect weather, hundreds of cyclists, and a route that seemed to go forever into the long evening....fun! Of course, I took many, many pictures.

My first Critical Mass ride of the year. I had fun, even though I broke my camera right near the start of the ride and didn't take many pictures. Ohwell. You can see the small bunch of pictures over here.

Another fun Critical Mass ride! Since this ride happened just a few days before Halloween, many people decided to dress themselves and their bikes up for the occasion. A bunch of the Winking Circle people from Uxbridge brought a wonderful collection of their hilarious choppers and tall-bikes, Tanya dressed as a spider and her bike was a web, a "One more broom, one less car" witch, and I think my favourite was the guy on a tandem with a skeleton riding as stoker.

Pictures from this ride are posted here.

This Critical Mass ride reminded me of the two previous Halloween rides I did with my HPVOoO friends up in Ottawa. Here are the pictures from 2003 and 2004.

The Toronto Critical Mass rides gather at the corner of Spadina and Bloor at about 6pm on the last Friday of every month.

This was my third Critical Mass ride in Toronto. Had a great time again, and it was mostly a very relaxed and fun ride through the city.

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 from the September ride over here.

On the last Friday of every month, cyclists in cities around the world get together for group bike rides. No organization, just cyclists having fun. This was my second Critical Mass ride in Toronto, and again it was very laid back, festive, and relaxing, all at the same time.

Although I really have to boot it to get to downtown from Missisauga, and the fact that it was 34 degrees outside when I left work, AND it was very smoggy today, I enjoyed every minute of it. I always arrive at Critical Mass in a heap of sweat. But today I changed into my Hawaiian shirt, attached my palm tree to the bike (for extra shade, of course), and cruised around the city. Fun fun fun.

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.

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.