Bicicritica

This month’s bicicritica (remember, that’s critical mass here) was themed ‘elegante’ to celebrate 4 years of critical mass and growth from 4 riders to over a thousand!! It was, however quit chilly and most people didn’t dress up much.  Shelby and I went together in suits from the free store, here we are in the elevator.Putting both bikes in the tiny elevator at the same time was Shelby’s brilliant idea, and although we all fit fine, we got busted by the buidling manager at the bottom.  Now, this is a man who lives to serve the building and so I got it.  And then again yesterday I got it really bad, in front of some of the other tenants.  It is apparently not enough to say that you understand not to do something again, it is necessary to receive a lecture about how 2 bikes is 2 many.  Good news is the other folks who passed by clearly thought he was going overboard as well.  Sigh.

So the critical mass was pretty fun – and, there are two notables, besides the dressed up folks, here they are:  

yup, this is where I’ve gotten to puppies and small children…

more interestingly, I’ve been playing with the video option on my digital camera lately and am in the process of making clips of biking around town and of this critical mass, so look for updates on that!

Oh yeah, and here’s me at my elegant best

…there was a party at this squat, Malaya, that is just opening their free bike workshop with awesome lentils and hummus (and beer – all the squats have bars and coffee!)  In the photo next to me is the lovely Vanesa.

bikes!

let’s see.  among the things I’ve been doing is working on the bicycle situation.  Something really rad that there is here are these free bike workshops.  They work more or less like the ones at home do – bikes are donated and if go and fix one up you can borrow it.  for as long as you’d like.  these are in different places, the first one I went to is on Mondays at the Patio Maravillas.  Anyhow, I went and was lucky to find a bike that appeared to need little work.  Juan helped me fix it a little and I was to go to the bike shop and buy an abrazadera (clamp) for the seat post. Here’s the bike

la vieja

But, you see, Madrid does have hills.  Also riding the bike made me feel a little like this.  So, I went on Wednesday to SECO and got lucky again with the one below.  A few brake adjustments, tires patched and ready to roll, just in time to lose my chain on the way to the bicicritica (critical mass) – which happens here on the last Thursday of the month. 1000+ people, including skateboards, rollerblades, rollerskate dancers, a unicycle, a five year old and fixed gear folks.  We rode around and got standing applause from people in sidewalk cafes, were joined by neighborhood kids and ended up on these hills that overlook the city. pretty nice.

la nueva