Singular Girl and I took a leisurely ride downtown to the Picasso for this month’s Critical Mass. Little did we know we were in for the ride of a lifetime.

The usual activists were there, taking advantage of the crowd to hand out flyers on issues ranging from “Dump Daley- bicycling is his environmental fig leaf” to police brutality. Women received an invite to the Top-Free ride, a ride protesting the illegality of exposing one’s breasts in public, where women will ride topless to combat our culture’s breast fetish. Some guy was handing out an article about President Bush’s upcoming colonoscopy, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. I always end up with a big stack of flyers at these things. I try to at least read them all and consider their issues.

There was an impressive turn-out of choppers this time. I counted seven. I rode Noam Chopsky, of course, and Al the Pal was there on Choppasaurus Wrecks. I don’t know why he prefers to ride the sketchiest of his three choppers, but I’ve seen him ride it 30 miles. His neighbor set out for the ride with him on the Little Chop of Horrors, but got a flat and decided to give up rather than fix it and get a ride downtown. Then we saw some other fellow, an older guy, on an impressive no-weld chopper. He took a little bitty freestyle bike and extended the fork, adding a third pipe in the middle for extra support, which he attached a brake to, giving him two-wheel braking. Then he bolted two factory sissy bars together to make an extra long one, and replaced the handlebars with one of those teeny chain steering wheels. He also had a siren, controlled from the steering wheel.	Abigail the Chicken
The rest were Rat Patrol choppers: Abigail the Chicken, the Bluebird of Happiness, the Stars ‘n’ Bars, and a chopper wrapped in Mardi Gras beads that I didn’t catch the name of.	The Bluebird of Happiness
Choppasaurus Wrecks and an unnamed Mardi Gras chopper	Stars'n'Bars

During the ride, some guy kept coming up to me and saying, “hehe... Chewbikea” and riding off. He did that at least ten times. Whatta weirdo.

Aside from examples of just about every bike ever manufactured (highwheelers, lowracers, recumbents, xtracycles, and even a Strida folding bike with its rubber chain), there was Ms. Joey (a bikin’ dog), kids in trailers or on ride-behinds, and one guy even brought along a tree bungeed to his back rack. Adding to the party atmosphere, the Red Bull reps handed out free cans of their sweet sweet elixir, some people brought along Old Style or forties of St. Pauli Girl, and at one point somebody passed me a joint. A man and a woman were naked for most of the ride.

There were over seven hundred of us. We were invincible. Once a month, cars are guests on roads that belong to the bicycles, and have to give up the sense of entitlement that causes them to be angry at bicyclists for sharing the road. This time, we took over the Eisenhower Expressway, a four-lane interstate.

We rode down the entrance ramp and filled up the merge lane. As cars to the left slowed down, we took over successive lanes (as crazy bike messengers wove through speeding traffic like Kouriers out of Snow Crash) until the interstate was ours. Words cannot describe the feeling of cruising down a four-lane interstate on a bicycle. Screaming, hollering, honking, ringing bells, naked, drinking beer, seven hundred bicyclists rode for about three miles before exiting and continuing with our ride. At one point, four choppers formed a flying vee in the middle of the highway, and we were kings of the road. It was the best time I’ve ever had on a bike, and one of the best times I’ve ever had.