Mission Mission

• seven course gourmet meal
• inspiring bicycle short films
• conversation and Q&A
• raffles, prizes
• New Belgium beer

All for about $20.

In its 6th year, Dinner & Bikes is a month-long tour that brings people together to eat a huge vegan dinner and share bicycle stories, campaigns, and inspiration.

It’s presented by Joe Biel, Elly Blue, Joshua Ploeg and hosted by Mission Bicycle.

Joe Biel is the director of the feature documentary Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland as well as over 100 short films. He is the author of half-a-dozen books, including Beyond the Music. He founded Microcosm Publishing and has published over 350 nonfiction books, zines, and movies.

Elly Blue is the author of Bikenomics: How Bicycling Can Save the Economyand Everyday Bicycling: How to Ride a Bicycle for Transportation (Whatever your Lifestyle). She’s the marketing director of Microcosm Publishing, producing books and zines about all aspects of feminism, self-empowerment, and bicycle transportation.

Joshua Ploeg is the the traveling vegan chef. When not touring the world, he’s a personal chef and delighter of secret cafe goers in L.A. His 8th and newest cookbook is This Ain’t No Picnic: Your Punk Rock Vegan Cookbook.

Tickets here:

Friday, June 10, for Dinner & Bikes: Food, movies, and bicycle inspiration.

Gotta click through to see Doc Pop’s video on Tumblr. Looks roughly similar to years past, despite everybody saying Critical Mass is over and done.

In case you haven’t heard, Critical Mass is celebrating its 20th anniversary tonight at 6pm in what is sure to be an epic ride featuring cyclists from all over the place coming to the city to participate.  Regardless of how you feel about the movement, you really have to appreciate the fact that it galvanizes so many people.  Allan seems to love the good-natured fun of the whole spectacle, while I on the other hand (as someone who commutes 20 miles on my bicycle each day) usually already have to deal on a daily basis with tons of shitty, angry motorists who I would prefer to not further piss off lest they proceed to hate me so much that they try to hurt me while I’m riding.  Especially with that riding circles in busy intersections nonsense.

In any case, what allegedly all began as “a bunch of drunk bike messengers who got tired of SF police handing out $20 tickets to cyclists all the time for bullshit minor offenses, like not putting your foot down at a stop sign, so they decided to shut down some key intersections around the city and show the cops they couldn’t just fuck with them” has now become quite the thing, and it’s not going away anytime soon, so you might as well just forget about what you were planning on getting done today and check it out yourself!

Also, non-cyclists?  Perhaps this might be a good day to avoid Market St and take BART instead, alright?

Previously:

• Black Friday Critical Mass Meets Baton-Wielding Riot Police in Union Square
• When Critical Mass rides circles in busy intersections
• Critical Mass Debate: Opposing Viewpoints
• Critical Mass Sacramento
• Critical Mass Seattle
• Critical Mass Salt Lake City
• Critical Mass with Instruments
• Meet Junior: Bicycle Messenger Warrior of the Mission

Ash Reiter has been one of my favorite local bands since hella years ago, and now they’re about to release a big awesome new full-length called “Hola,” but it’s a little dependent on funding.

They’ve got a Kickstarter page set up where you can pledge money toward the release and be guaranteed a copy of the record in return. For a small pledge you get a digital version, for a slightly less small pledge you get a CD, and for a lil more you get the vinyl. Or there’s t-shirts, or you can get them to record a cover of your choice just for you, OR they’ll write and record an original song just for you, OR they’ll go skydiving or ballooning with you. Check it out!

Here’s a jam from the band’s most recent EP:

Aaaaaaaand, that’s a 12-pack on the rear rack. Critical Mass rules. (And it’s got its big 20th anniversary celebration coming up!)

Let’s rock:

[via The Fog Bender]

Answer: 6! One to write the ticket and the other five to cork it in. It’s like a reverse Critical Mass that gives you tickets instead of running red lights.

Has anyone ever been pulled over by a bicycle cop? Unfortunately I missed the chase scene so the mechanics are murky at best – do they always work in packs?

The official SF Critical Mass Facebook account 19 minutes ago asked its followers to comment on the tradition of circling in major intersections during the ride. Some good answers right off the bat:

Read on for more, and do be on the lookout for Critical Mass this evening.

(Why something like SF Critical Mass has an official Facebook account in the first place remains a mystery.)

How else to explain this targeted arboreal sabotage of the bike lane?  Notice how the street is clear everywhere except where you are supposed to ride your bicycle.  All this kumbaya shit about saving the Earth together be damned–the trees have just been fucking with us this whole time!

Let’s go deforest some Amazon, Critical Mass.

Are you itching to party in San Francisco’s arbitrarily-named neighborhood Somisspo? Well Bikes and Beats is going down there this Friday at Public Works. ‘Deep, who you know as the guy on the speaker-loaded tricycle, will be among the many DJs of the evening, so expect such crowd pleasers as MJ’s “Don’t stop ’til you get enough” . There will be eats, prizes, and bike crafts.

If you want to make a whole night of it, the event takes place at right after the Friday 7:30pm SF Bike Party, AKA the “nice” Critical Mass with bouncy castles. And don’t worry: there will be bike valet to handle the venue’s dire bike parking situation.

(more…)

Our buddy Joshua got majorly bummed the last time he saw Critical Mass clogging up the intersection of Van Ness and Market. Oops… we did it again! But we were a pretty small group this time (probably due to the “snow”), so we didn’t do as much damage to peoples’ schedules as usual.

Being a small group meant we were nimble enough to traverse that little bike bridge through the Hairball. And our motorized escort went right along with us:

What fun!