UK Indymedia | Vide of Critical Mass against the Aviation Fat Cats.

Vide of Critical Mass against the Aviation Fat Cats.

Doug. | 30.11.2005 09:37 | London

Critical Mass joined with HACAN ClearSkies, Airport Watch and environmentalists on Tower Bridge to greet the conference delegates as they arrived to plunge their snouts in the trough of a Gala Dinner on the bridge's scenic walkways.

Video Windows (.wmv) version of the video is 8Mb. - video/x-ms-wmv 8.2M

Video Quicktime (.mp4) version of the video is 8Mb - video/mp4 7.9M

The delegates were well protected from the slightest inconvenience by a massive police presence, courtesy of local taxpayers. The cops prevented Critical Mass from stopping on the bridge but we managed at least three very slow and noisy rides across it to make our presence felt.

Doug.

Additions

A few notes from another cyclist

01.12.2005 00:00

The demo on Tower Bridge last night did not go quite according to plan. I took the tandem soundsystem to Southwark Needle to meet other cyclists but the DJ couldn't make it and I ended up with only a couple of tapes and an old walkman for tunes. Apparently the delegates had been told not to make their own way from the conference centre to Tower Bridge "for security reasons" and coaches were organised. We stood around waiting for a cue - the plan seemed to be to try to intercept the coaches and provide them with our own escort:-) There were police everywhere with riot vans, horses, dogs etc. We got fed up waiting in the cold and decided to ride around a bit with the soundsystem and a huge papier mache aeroplane on a trailer (which slowed us down because one of the wings kept falling off). At a certain point we slowed down and I saw someone D-locking his neck to a railing. Suddenly there were loads of people in the street with lock-on tubes trying to form a complete human chain across the road to stop the coaches. The cycle cops were seriously outnumbered but did their best to stop the chain forming. It is hard to say who would have won - we didn't find out because news came through that the coaches had gone a different way and someone used the soundsystem to call off the lock-on. By the time we got to the bridge the delegates were already up in the resturant. The bridge was swarming with police (some with dogs) and the general feeling was that we were not going to achieve much more so people dispersed. As a group of us stood around eating chips I heard that there had also been a climbing action planned, but that the police had cottoned on and followed the climbers to prevent them doing anything. Oh and I also heard that some people had managed to get in to the conference centre earlier and released rape alarms tied to helium balloons.

Ian Gregory
Homepage: http://www.zenatode.org.uk/ian/

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Critical Mass?

30.11.2005 11:49

There was me thinking Critical Mass was not a demo, surely this was a bike ride...

mass rider

Exactly

30.11.2005 13:18

Critical Mass happens on the last friday of every month... anything else that claims to be critical mass must be an imposter. Critical Mass has no leaders.

cm'er

Surely...

30.11.2005 15:11

...if Critical Mass has no leaders, then anyone can call a cycle ride a Critical Mass?

After all, the name comes from the concept of getting enough cyclists together so as to reach a critical mass whereby police and motor transport cannot prevent you cycling as a bunch.

Cyclist

We are traffic

22.12.2005 11:21

The ride was promoted as a bike ride, not a Critical Mass.

Critical Mass isn't about stopping traffic, it should not have a destination and should only happen on the last Friday of each month.

LondonMassCyclist

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