July Mass Highlights - It's a small world after all ...
A few high points from July critical mass...
The route was more meandering than usual, which was a welcome change. Started out through downtown as usual, but then headed south down Hennepin into uptown, east down Lake St, north via Nicollet, I think? From there on I don't remember the exact route, as I was busy chatting w/random people. But it was a route I haven't done on mass before.
There were several occasions when people tried to lead the mass in a direction opposite the "normal" direction (like turning right at a certain intersection where the mass traditionally turns left) and in nearly every case the mass revolted and instead opted for the "standard" direction. Kind of disappointing - mass is a perfect opportunity to take the road less traveled, but so often the mass behaves like a rat that, having learned the "correct" path thru the maze, refuses to deviate.
The notable exception was riding one block on Hiawatha - pretty ballsy and a welcome addition to the ride. Next ride, 2 blocks??? You never know.
Near the end of the ride (with a much diminished mass of about 12-20 people) headed north from downtown into north Mpls. I don't know what route we took, but we were up there, and people were saying this was the first time the mass headed north. I don't know if that's the case, but again it was a welcome change.
I recognized surprisingly few people on the ride (Bjorn, Landon), so I spent more time chatting with randoms. Spent some time chatting with a guy on a green bike w/inverted cruiser handlebars. Later, we exchanged names, he says his name is Zoey. It was at this point that I recognized him ... I was like "dude, you're Zoey M. right?" I recognized him from High School, oh, 14 years ago! Pretty small freaking world, when you consider that graduating class size in our school was about 100 students and it's a good 5 hours away.
I didn't tell him my name at first, and he didn't recognize me (OK, not surprising since I had a huge mullet back then ... ya, ya, you can laugh now, I'm laughing at myself too.) But when I told him my name, it came back to him, and then the reminiscing started ... Frau Billman's german class (and how you could easily distract her simply by asking her about her kids ... good way to waste at least 15 minutes of class), the year we were on swim team together, updates on what other classmates were up to nowadays, etc. Really cool stuff. Even stranger, he says he now lives in the same building as EvilChuck. Small world indeed.
The route was more meandering than usual, which was a welcome change. Started out through downtown as usual, but then headed south down Hennepin into uptown, east down Lake St, north via Nicollet, I think? From there on I don't remember the exact route, as I was busy chatting w/random people. But it was a route I haven't done on mass before.
There were several occasions when people tried to lead the mass in a direction opposite the "normal" direction (like turning right at a certain intersection where the mass traditionally turns left) and in nearly every case the mass revolted and instead opted for the "standard" direction. Kind of disappointing - mass is a perfect opportunity to take the road less traveled, but so often the mass behaves like a rat that, having learned the "correct" path thru the maze, refuses to deviate.
The notable exception was riding one block on Hiawatha - pretty ballsy and a welcome addition to the ride. Next ride, 2 blocks??? You never know.
Near the end of the ride (with a much diminished mass of about 12-20 people) headed north from downtown into north Mpls. I don't know what route we took, but we were up there, and people were saying this was the first time the mass headed north. I don't know if that's the case, but again it was a welcome change.
I recognized surprisingly few people on the ride (Bjorn, Landon), so I spent more time chatting with randoms. Spent some time chatting with a guy on a green bike w/inverted cruiser handlebars. Later, we exchanged names, he says his name is Zoey. It was at this point that I recognized him ... I was like "dude, you're Zoey M. right?" I recognized him from High School, oh, 14 years ago! Pretty small freaking world, when you consider that graduating class size in our school was about 100 students and it's a good 5 hours away.
I didn't tell him my name at first, and he didn't recognize me (OK, not surprising since I had a huge mullet back then ... ya, ya, you can laugh now, I'm laughing at myself too.) But when I told him my name, it came back to him, and then the reminiscing started ... Frau Billman's german class (and how you could easily distract her simply by asking her about her kids ... good way to waste at least 15 minutes of class), the year we were on swim team together, updates on what other classmates were up to nowadays, etc. Really cool stuff. Even stranger, he says he now lives in the same building as EvilChuck. Small world indeed.
posted by equipoise at 10:23 PM
1 Comments:
Good call, Jo. Problem corrected.
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