by Melinda Minx
“What’s that?” he asks.
Wilson holds up a flyer from the counter. “It happens every month. We start here and do a big circuit around Manhattan.”
“So it’s like a group bike ride?” Eric asks.
“Yes,” I say, “but it’s to help teach drivers about bike safety and to be aware of bikes.”
“When there’s just one bike on the road,” Wilson says, “cars can tend to ignore it, or worse, get aggressive and try to pass even when it’s not safe. But when you hit a ‘critical mass’ of bikes…” he quotes in the air with his fingers, and gets a big, self-satisfied grin on his face for the pun, “...then cars are the minority, and they need to treat cyclists with respect.”
“So safety in numbers,” Eric says. He squeezes me tighter. “Usually, I like to just ride with Ruth.”
“Ruth doesn’t do Critical Mass,” Maya says. “But you totally should.”
“I’m doing it this month,” I snap, glaring at Maya.
She crosses her arms. “What happened to you being against it?”
“I’m not really,” I say, and I realize I don’t sound at all convincing.
“It sounds like fun,” Eric says.
“Those guys you don’t like, Ruth, buy a lot of stuff here. It’s not really good business to turn them away,” Wilson says.
I sigh. “They ruin the spirit of Critical Mass.”
Maya rolls her eyes. “Just have fun, not everything has to be so super serious.”
Eric takes me to the Coffee Snob, and we get espressos.
“Who are these guys you don’t like?” Eric asks.
“You’ll see,” I say. “Critical Mass is supposed to be about making drivers ‘respect us,’ but it usually plays out like a bunch of cyclists’ pent-up frustration for the month being released—and taken out—on the drivers. Remember when you were riding around like an asshole on the sidewalk? Shouting ‘bikes! bikes!’ imagine that but with five hundred people.”
I grin, “It does sound like fun then.”
17
Eric
I meet Ruth at the shop on Friday. I’m wearing my bike gear, and hoping that not many bike people will recognize me as Eric Prince. Then again, I need at least someone to recognize me for photos of this to get out. Me and Ruth biking together in an event like this will play up pretty good for the panel, although I am slightly worried about potential bad press from the guys Ruth is worried about. I might get lumped in with them if I’m not careful.
I arrive early and hang out a bit. Critical Mass starts at 5:00 p.m. when the shop closes, just as Ruth is finishing up for closing, I see hundreds of people with bikes begin crowding the sidewalks all around the shop.
“This is pretty big,” I say to Wilson.
“You gotta have a lot of people to reach ‘critical mass,’” he says, grinning and air quoting.
The door swings open, and two guys ride their bikes into the shop. They have bikes with huge, comically thick tires, like some kind of monster truck bikes. One guy has some kind of huge Bluetooth boom box thing hooked up to his bike, and it’s blasting an old Beastie Boys song from the 80s.
“Critical Mass!” one of them shouts as he pops a wheelie and rides through the tiny aisles of the shop.
Wilson laughs nervously as the tire hits a helmet and knocks it off the shelf.
“These the guys Ruth doesn’t like?” I ask Wilson.
He leans in toward me. “Yeah.”
They make a few circuits of the shop, then stop next to Wilson.
“Hey,” one of them says, “you’re that Eric Prince dude, right?”
I nod.
“I’m Fat Mike,” the guy with the speakers on his bike says. “And this is my buddy Cunningham.”
Fat Mike is lanky and tall as a bean pole. Cunningham has thick, muscular legs but a bit of a gut.
“Fat Mike used to be fatter than me,” Cunningham says. “But then he got into bikes.”
“We used to just troll people on Xbox Live all day, but now we can troll cars at Critical Mass,” Fat Mike fills in as if I care.
Ruth stares daggers at them.
“Chill, Ruth,” Cunningham says. “What you don’t see can’t hurt you.”
“I’m going this time,” Ruth snaps. “And I’m watching you two.”
Fat Mike turns a knob on his speaker, and the volume gets so high that I see Ruth’s mouth move, but no sound is audible. When she stops talking, Fat Mike turns the volume down and says, “What was that? I couldn't hear you?”
Just as her mouth opens again, he cranks the volume.
I see Ruth’s face turn red, and her jaw clenches.
I shove Fat Mike’s hand off the knob and turn the volume all the way down.
He looks at me. “What the fuck? Just chill dude, it’s just a joke.”
“Jokes are funny, that wasn’t,” I say, holding my hand on his handlebars and daring him to touch the fucking knob again. “Why don’t you guys go outside?”
“Yeah,” Cunningham says. “It’s lame in here, let’s bounce.”
Fat Mike stares me down for a few moments longer, and I finally let go of his handlebars after sliding his front tire toward the door.
He glares at me over his shoulder one more time before rolling out.
“I told you,” Ruth says.
“There are hundreds of people,” I say, kissing her forehead, “we’ll just steer clear of those two.”
Ruth and I start the ride out by getting near the front of the pack. The big group of bikes completely fills the road, which doesn’t actually grind traffic to a halt, as driving in Manhattan is rarely ever faster than riding a bike.
I can hear Big Mike’s speaker from behind us, and as we ride, the music gets closer and closer.
After ten or fifteen blocks, they are right on our backs. I turn around and see that two of them have seemingly multiplied into ten or so guys. One of them has a rickshaw type thing hooked to the back of his bike, and there are two guys standing up in the back chugging beer out of brown paper bags.
What is supposedly a bike safety event feels a lot more like a giant party on wheels. I’m pretty sure I can even smell someone smoking weed from the middle of the pack. There’s a pack of women biking completely shirtless, which is not illegal in the city, but it definitely draws a lot of eyes as we ride through.
Occasionally someone on a bike from another road will merge in from an intersection, and they are swallowed up into the big bike mob—the critical mass reaching closer and closer toward a total meltdown.
“Let me run point!” Fat Mike shouts as he rushes up past Ruth and me.
She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “I’m not letting that asshole in front again.”
“What happened last time?” I ask.
“He got arrested.”
I laugh. “Maybe that’s good?”
“It makes us all look bad,” she says.
And just as she says it, I see Fat Mike and Cunningham popping wheelies at the front of the pack. The car in front of them brakes, and they slam their fat wheels into the back of the car.
The car stops completely, and the door swings open.
“Get the fuck off my car,” the driver—a twenty-something guy with tattoos—shouts back at them.
Fat Mike jumps off his bike and lifts the handlebars up, slamming his tire back onto the car’s trunk. He bounces the tire up and down and cranks his music up louder. “What?” He shouts, holding his hand up to his ear.
“Jesus,” Ruth says. “Is that the only ‘joke’ he knows?”
The driver gets closer, and Cunningham gets up in his face. “You mad, bro?” He shouts over the music.
Cunningham lifts his handlebars up and holds his front tire out between himself and the driver, blocking him from getting to Fat Mike.
Traffic starts to move again, and most of the cyclists part around the fight happening, though most of Fat Mike’s crew hangs around, pointing and laughing as the driver struggles to get to Fa
t Mike.
Just as he gets around Cunningham, Fat Mike jumps up onto the car, and he mounts his bike while on top of the car. He peddles just enough to start moving, and he coasts down the front windshield and hood, then drops onto the street in front of the car.
He turns the music down and shouts back, “You’re holding up traffic, bro, now we’re forced to drive over you.”
His crew takes the hint, and they all start jumping on top of his car and riding their bikes over the top.
Of course, they don't actually keep going, they circle back around to taunt the driver some more.
Without realizing what I’m doing, I ride my bike straight into Fat Mike. I pedal hard, gaining as much speed as I can, and I T-bone the shit out of him.
He’s thrown from his bike and slides across the road.
“The fuck, man?” he says, looking up at me.
I see his whole crew circle around me like hungry, but scared, vultures.
“It’s just a joke, bro,” I say, “Can’t you take a joke?”
“Not cool, man,” he says.
I eye the driver, who whispers thanks to me and jumps in his car. He drives off while Fat Mike’s crew focuses its attention on me now.
The two guys in the rickshaw jump out to join the circle.
I look back and see Ruth approaching. I signal for her to stay back, but she moves forward. Behind us, a lot of the other bikers not with Fat Mike have stopped to watch nervously. Some are taking pictures.
Ruth grabs my arm, and I expect her to whisper for me to drop it or to pull away, but instead she shouts at Fat Mike. “You fuckers are ruining Critical Mass for everyone! You’re doing the opposite of what is supposed to happen here!”
“Ruth hiding behind her billionaire boyfriend,” Cunningham says.
“She’s borrowing his balls,” Fat Mike says, pulling his bike back up off the road.
“You’re banned from Critical Mass,” Ruth says. “All of you assholes. You’re using all the people trying to enjoy it as a shield to be dicks. I’d like to see you try this shit when it’s just the ten of you on the road alone.”
A few of Fat Mike’s “crew” shrug and ride away.
“Seven of you now,” I say.
“Alright,” Fat Mike says. “You and Ruth race Cunningham and me. The losers are banned from Critical Mass.”
“You’re on,” Ruth says.
“Alright,” Fat Mike says. “We start in the Southwest corner of Central Park, right by Trump tower, finish-line is the Northeast corner.”
“You’re not allowed to bike through Central Park,” Ruth says.
Fat Mike shrugs. “Critical Mass, bitch.”
I grab Fat Mike by the collar, “What did you call—”
“Sorry!” he squeals. “I call everyone that, it’s not like a gendered slur or some shit.”
“Drop it,” Ruth says, putting a hand on my back. “Let’s just race them.”
I turn around and look at her, “Are you sure we can win?”
She looks at me and then at their bikes. “We have road bikes, they have those stupid fat tires they use to ram into cars. I think we’ve got the speed advantage.”
18
Ruth
We reach the southwest entrance of Central Park, and I see Cunningham licking furiously at an ice cream cone while he straddles his bike.
Eric is staring at him, and Cunningham glares at Eric. “What you looking at, rich boy?”
“More like bitch boy,” Fat Mike says, cackling.
“Nothing,” Eric says, “I just thought you were taking this more seriously.”
“Just cause I’m eating ice cream doesn’t mean I’m not serious.”
I sigh loudly and cross my arms. “Are we racing or not?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Fat Mike says. “But we gotta iron out the terms and shit.”
“What’s to iron out?” I ask. “Whoever loses is banned from Critical Mass.”
“Right,” Cunningham says, looking up with ice cream on the tip of his nose. “But how do you win or lose when it’s two against two?”
“I figure,” Fat Mike says, “both people gotta cross the finish line. So whoever has both people cross first wins.”
“Fine with me,” I say.
Eric nods, “Good. Finish your damn ice cream and let’s go.”
“Take any route you want and get to the finish line by any means necessary!” Fat Mike shouts as he pulls out his phone and thumbs around for a bit, then cranks his speakers up.
The most annoying sound I’ve ever heard pours out of the speakers. Everyone turns around and looks at us, shooting me dirty looks because it looks like the four of us are all together.
The singer goes off in a fake southern drawl, seemingly not quite sure himself if it’s country or late 90s numetal. “I'm through with standin' in lines to clubs I'll never get in… It's like the bottom of the ninth and I'm never gonna win… This life hasn't turned out”
“God!” I hiss, “Nickleback? Are you seriously going to play that?”
Fat Mike grins. “I’ve heard you bitch about it at the shop, bitch, so it’s like... psychological warfare or some shit.”
“Don’t call her a bitch again,” Eric says, getting up in Fat Mike’s face. “or I’ll skip the race and just knock you out cold.”
“I told you, bitch,” he says to Eric, “I call everyone that, so long as they acting like bitches.”
I grab Eric by the arm and try to whisper into his ear, but he’s so tall he has to lean down. “We’ll take the actual bike path around Central Park. It’s longer, but our road bikes should get us to the finish faster—”
“No,” Eric says. “It’s under construction like a quarter mile uptown, I saw it when I was jogging the other day. That’s probably their trick with ‘by any route you want,’ trying to bait us into that while they tear through the middle with their off-road tires.”
“Shit,” Ruth says. “You’re not even supposed to bike through the park.”
“Well,” I say, shrugging, “we’ve got to risk it.”
“Let’s go,” Cunningham shouts at us, as if he weren’t the one holding us up all along with his ice cream. “Cops are gonna get set off by our music if we hang around here.”
“Turn it off then, dumbass,” I say.
We all line up right in front of the sign that says not to ride bikes, and Fat Mike starts a countdown.
“Five!” he shouts. “Four, three, two... GO!”
I’m already in the highest gear, and Eric and I get an early lead. I hear both of our gears click at the same time as we gain speed, but just as we get a good pace going, there’s what looks like a field trip of first graders all lined up and following their teacher. They are completely clogging the sidewalk—which is what it’s for, it’s not for bike racing, I remind myself—and Eric and I both have to turn off and go through the grass.
Fat Mike and Cunningham peel off on the other side. All the kids look at Fat Mike, whose speakers make his bike the loudest.
The thin road tires slow Eric and me down, and Fat Mike pulls far enough ahead that he pops a wheelie just to taunt us.
We reach the chain link fence surrounding the baseball diamond, and Fat Mike and Cunningham go right through the gate and bike across the diamond.
“This way,” I shout.
I pull back onto the paved walking path, and Eric falls in right behind me as we continue on the sidewalk. To our right are a bunch of tall rocks, artificially placed, of course. A lot of people are climbing on them, and some are looking down and watching us. I cringe thinking what they are saying, probably something like, “Look at those assholes racing on the sidewalk.”
We turn left at a fork and hit a small bridge. A young couple jumps out of our way and scowls at us as we pass by.
“Sorry!” I shout back at them.
“There,” Eric says, nodding his head forward.
There’s a big grass field down the hill and in front of us, and there’s people laying
down, picnicking, playing music—just enjoying the park. Fat Mike and Cunningham are tearing through the field, barely dodging the people sitting down. They weave in and out between them like it’s some kind of Olympic slalom event. Their tires roll over picnic blankets and dogs’ leashes.
The road ahead is clear, and Eric and I shift into low gear long enough to gain some serious ground on them.
Fat Mike and Cunningham end up exiting the field on the sidewalk just in front of us.
We start to gain on them, and eventually we pass them.
Fat Mike just laughs as we pass—maybe he’s not really taking this seriously?
Eric pulls in front of me, and I follow him toward the narrow road that goes around the pond. As we get closer, we see a sign and a roadblock. The sign reads “DETOUR” and an arrow is pointing right.
“Shit,” Eric says, and he steers off the sidewalk onto the dirt road. I follow him.
We switch into higher gears and ride bumpily along the dirt road until we finally see the other end of the lake.
I look back to see Cunningham ram his bike into the roadblock. It falls down flat and he goes straight through.
By the time Eric and I are back on pavement, we see Cunningham and Fat Mike several hundred feet in front of us. The end of the park is in sight—the skyscrapers forming a seeming wall at the end of the greenery.
“Give it your all!” Eric shouts.
I get behind him, and he pedals hard, his ass raising up off the seat to really drive hard.
I try not to get distracted by how hot he looks, and I pedal as hard as I can.
We catch up to Fat Mike and Cunningham, and I hear “Eye of the Tiger” playing out of Fat Mike’s speakers. Did he seriously think he had enough of a lead to mess around with his playlist?
“Shit!” Cunningham says, looking back at us. It’s clear we’re going to pass them, and—
Fat Mike spins back and does a 180, and he goes straight for me.
19
Eric
When Fat Mike spins around, I see a look in his eye that tells me exactly what he’s going to do. I slam on my brakes and let my bike tire spin out enough that I turn around too, just in time to see the fucker charging toward Ruth.