Viva la velorution

by Eleonora Anello

A network on wheels, or the environmental communication transmitted by a vehicle. This is the initiative that the spontaneous movement Critical Mass, born in San Francisco in 1992, has been continueing for over ten years.

«The critical mass is a bike rally that, by exploiting the power of the number (mass), invades the streets normally used by car traffic. If the cycling mass is sufficient (i.e. critical), the car traffic is blocked even on highways».

A main web site collects the sites of critical mass worldwide. People who meet monthly or weekly and take a ride in the streets of the city to demonstrate that a different mobility is possible. But not only that. There are those who pedal to get back public spaces, there are those who do it to reduce CO2 emissions and those who oppose the monopoly of oil and of all that it entails. Who do it just for the sake of fun and to see the faces of astonished people for their long passage or to see the angry faces of the motorists. In short, a decentralized structure without a distinguishable top and without a route, a group of people with different lifestyles and different goals.

Once they met with the appointment of mouth, involving the local radios and hoping that other cyclists join the parade, then the movement has refined its viral campaign made on the road. Flyers and leaflets have created the "xerocrazia", the democracy that promotes photocopies of personal initiative. Flyers are used not only to promote the ride but they are also distributed to the "victims” during the action to illustrate the aim of their action, their message. With the advent of printers of the latest generation Critical Mass flyer goes to the most eye-catching graphics, an efficient, economical and of great impact tool.

Then, over time, spread the stickers downloaded from the web to print and to stick in strategic points of the city like poles, racks and bicycle shops.
Today in e-shop you can also download prints for t-shirts and postcards to send to your friends. If the people of the early online cyclists seemed very different from what we met on the road, just take a look at the forum and blog today to see that this inequality exists no longer.

Critical Mass with its spontaneity and its organization has made bike the main communication tool: it was sufficient a reflective plate.