Our Chicago Critical Mass was quite remarkable
for October due to the fact that We had a record high (temperature)
for the second straight day in a row! It was nearly 80!
Just last
year it was nearly snowing! As usual this is one of
our most attended Masses and this year was no exception.
I am sure that this was one of our largest Masses but with
out Counting Chris I have not heard a rider count for two
months now. By my best guess I would say we had about 270
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Lots of folks showed up in costume. Unlike
last year
this year I decided not to decorate my bike but to make
a real costume. I decided to be the lost Mars
Orbiter. |
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I also brought along my trustee plastic
pumpkin full of Smartees and Necco wafers. I also threw
in a few Reeces PB Cups and a few Twix because a day without
chocolate is well...like a day without out chocolate.
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This month we had two maps to vote on.
One that I did and one that Dave did. We had our most anemic
voting to date with less that half voting.
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I think the reason for this is that both
routes went into the 18th. Dave's took the back door while
mine went right through the heart of the Gold Coast. I made
every effort to keep us off any one major street so we could
not back up too much traffic. Dave's route took us to Lake
Shore Drive. Mine flirted with the Kennedy. The really funny
thing is that both route went to the same places on the
route. My ride ended in Lincoln Park at North Pond. Dave's
route ended at a bar. Voting was tight and Dave's route
won out.
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This month was the first Mass that my
cousin Erik had ridden and he and I cruised down from my
house and went right to the plaza.
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This ride was also our first with
such a police presence. At the Daley Plaza there
were four of those annoying little 4x4 motorcycles
and at least ten officers on bikes.
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I got to the Picasso pretty early because
I wanted to hand out my map and then take some pictures.
Even before we voted I saw an officer calling in a route.
Since we both put our maps on white paper I could not tell
which it was.
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Right away the officers on the 4x4s started
to cork intersections but as has been the case before in
cities around the world, there were just not enough officers
to cork all the intersections so we ended up corking them
and then they came up and told us to get out of the intersection.
I don;t know if it was a good thing to do but I continued
to thank the officers every time I went by one in an intersection.While
we were on LSD I head an officer command the kids to get
the skateboards off the street. These kids were having the
times of their lives too.
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