It appeared between 200 to 300 cyclists attended last night’s Critical Mass for Safer Streets, without incident, and was completely unharassed by the NYPD, or any other government agency, for the entire 9 mile, 2 hour ride.
Probably the first time, a Critical Mass ride of this size, went unharassed in NYC in over 15 years?
What better way to share the story, but by videos, and photos, by the participants themselves:
Tonight's critical mass ride was amazing we filled the streets with bicycles celebrating safer streets and sustainable Urban design #bikeNYCpic.twitter.com/vD6NHds6ty
Critical Mass leaving Union Square tonight around 7.30pm. It started with someone reciting the names of 17 people killed this year riding bikes. It ended two hours later taking Canal St, up West Broadway, and into Washington Square Park. #notonemore#bikenyc#criticalmassnycpic.twitter.com/seqGrf3GaZ
Oliver, 29 at the time, and a devout Christian, reportedly gave up his gardening job in Chelmsford, Essex, England in 4/2017 to cycle across Europe, and Mexico, cycling about 14,000 km (8,700 miles) on what friends described as “a voyage of personal discovery” before reaching Israel.
This short documentary in Hebrew, and Arabic, with English subtitles attempts to explain Oliver’s situation in the Negev, Desert that lead to his disappearance:
Oliver’s story, has also been reported in both Europe: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, North America: 1, 2 and Israel: 1, 2, 3 since his disappearance.
We are all hoping Oliver found a beautiful “back to nature” utopia for himself away from the modern stresses of life, in the Negev desert (or elsewhere), and are jealous he is keeping it to himself!
In the meantime, his family and friends are maintaining a facebook page “Missing: Oliver McAfee in Israel”, and a twitter account @helpfindoliver which they hope will help lead to his eventual discovery, and a gofundme page that does not currently need anymore donations, but could in the future.
As cyclists, let’s hold our heads up in the face of our own adversity, remember to take care of ourselves, and wish everyone a safe bike ride in NYC, where even Streetsblog is declaring Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero an abject failure.
Here is a little story, that anyone can relate to, John Williams from Penzance, Cornwall just completed a bike ride using his seven year old daughter’s bicycle from Bristol to Land’s End England on 9/27/2018.
His daughter Ellie died three years ago from a brain tumor, so John was doing the ride to honor her memory, and raise money for children’s brain tumor research.
If you wish to donate to “The Little Pink Bike – Peter’s Epic Ride on Ellie’s Bike” you can do so here. Unsurprisingly, it is a very popular cause.
Ten years ago to the month, a NYC Critical Mass rider was physically assaulted in Times Square by rookie NYPD officer Patrick Pogan, who eventually received a felony conviction for lying on a police report, but no jail time, losing his job over the incident.
The infamous video of the assault (posted to youtube on 7/27/2008) has over 3 million views:
Another view of the 7/25/2008 assault, and its aftermath, used during the 2010 trial:
On a happier note, The Warriors Fun Ride held on 7/7/2018 reported no such attacks. It was overheard that 500 cyclists across 60 teams registered for the ride (30 of which finished the all night event), and was even featured in a Bicycling Magazine article.
What was once a 2002 NYC biking legend, is now becoming a NYC biking tradition, with the 2018 edition of “The Warriors Fun Ride” scheduled for July 7-8, 2018, “dusk till dawn”. Previous rides were organized in 2014, and 2016.
The images below are all the details you should need, from a flyer given directly to us from “Squid“, one of the organizers of the event, a famed NYC bicycle messenger:
The bike ride is based on the 1979 cult classic film “The Warriors“, in which a Coney Island gang is falsely accused of killing a leader in the Bronx, who was trying to unite all the feuding gangs in NYC, and must make it back to their home turf without being caught.
The 2002 ride was such a hit, around 800 people showed up, a film was created documenting the event, and screened multiple times at the Bicycle Film Festival internationally for years.
Just last week, two new trailers were created for the 2018 event on Instagram –
It was recently discovered this month, 3/2018, that an even longer portion of the bike path to the East of the parking lot had been rebuilt, including a new, much wider, safer bridge for cycling, and pedestrian use.
As of last 9/2017, there was a makeshift fenced in detour on the Belt Parkway itself, for cyclist and pedestrian use, so these improvements come as welcome news.
High capacity bike/pedestrian bridge over Gerritsen Inlet
High protective fence along scenic view of Jamaica Bay
An open protected road for cyclists and pedestrians leading to the Rockaways
Below is an image showing most of the bike and pedestrian path that was rebuilt, taken from Google Maps
The funding for earlier projects appears to come from both Federal sources, Army Corps of Engineers, and NYC Parks according to this 9/2013 video.
There is no mention of the involvement of the 46 district, currently led by Council Member Alan Maisel.
Three-time world cycling champion, Peter Sagan (27) gifted a customized racing bicycle, in Papal colors, to Pope Francis (81) on 1/24/2018 according to the The Local Italy.
New Year’s celebratory fireworks reached Australia first in 2018.
But for Queensland cyclist Geoffrey James, it started off with a different kind of bang, when graphic video of him emerged online being struck from behind, by a speeding car, while he was legally riding in the road, and then laying on ground in the obvious pain screaming for medical help while the driver responsible for the crash is heard standing over him saying repeatedly “I’m really sorry man, I’ll pay you,” without offering him any assistance.
massacre of eight defenseless cyclists on the West Side Greeenway by a self declared terrorist last month, this event occurs at an especially hard time for the NYC cycling community, in which there are passionate calls nationwide for Gun Control, by the Left, and banning Muslims from certain countries, or entry mechanisms, from the Right, but no similar calls for ‘Car Control‘ from any side.
Detailed information about the NYC rally, including feeder group bike rides from all 5 Boros to the City Hall event are listed here.
If you are seeking something lighter this weekend, the 19th annual ‘Cranksgiving’ charity alley cat is occurring the day before, on Saturday 11/18/2017, or you could do both events?
Finally, a passing mention to our fan, Erik Roby, inventor of the high-tech versatile magnetic Afterglow bicycle reflector, which will hopefully shine some additional light into this bike winter.
According to Streetsblog (Gothamist, another bike-friendly publication no longer exists as of 11/2/2017), the Hudson River Greenway has become an unsafe security obstacle course after 8 cyclists were killed on Halloween afternoon, 10/31/2017, and another 11 people injured by the same self-declared ISIS terrorist, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, who rammed a rented Home Depot truck into all of them.
While many are still in shock, and mourning, this is not the first cyclist to be killed by a motorized vehicle on the greenway, that was Eric Ng, 22, on the night of 12/1/2006, by a speeding drunk driver, so Transportation Alternatives called for “low-cost safety improvements necessary to prevent another tragedy” on 1/3/2008, that were apparently ignored by the DOT. Another cyclist, Carl Nacht, 56, was previously killed by a turning NYPD tow truck on 6/22/2006 at a greenway crossing.
Instead, that money was likely spent on the relentless and expensive Bloomberg/NYPD war against the peaceful NYC Critical Mass bike ride, which they finally won sometime during 2015 or 2016.
In a similar vein, last weekend, the City also decided to deploy its resources against Bike Kill 14, one of the last remaining vestiges from community driven NYC Bike Summer of 2003, shutting it down twice on 10/28/2017, ironically, the second time right next to a Home Depot parking lot in Bed-Sty, Brooklyn.
Juxtapose the City cycling priorities when a predictable peaceful cycling event being held on private property, endangering no one, is targeted for sudden shutdown by a strong NYPD presence because of the “lack of a proper permit”, takes precedence over the City investing in safe well designed bike infrastructure that was needed for over a decade already, and could have helped to save the lives of 8 innocent people!
The question looms, what have cyclists really gained since losing the community Critical Mass bike ride: having excessive unnecessary NYPD monitoring of cyclist behavior (when there was very little before), and mostly subpar, cheaply made, poorly planned, poorly maintained bike infrastructure introduced by careerist Janet Sadik Khan, a sycophant to the global elite, that are now proven extremely vulnerable and unsafe (unless turned into a segregated high security fortress which is completely impractical)?
Its pretty clear, both literally, and figuratively, idealistic “Bike Summer” is long gone, the question now is, how much worse “Bike Winter” can possibly be?
