UNcritical mass: San francisco, 2001

Anarchists.  That’s what the San Francisco Chronicle called them.  Officially — if anything is official about a group that refuses to admit they have leaders.  In fact, they are a motley crew of bicyclists who gather at Justin Herman Plaza the last Friday of every month to muck up the traffic via a never-to-be-announced route. 

​The point is to protest the lack of bike routes, or the lack of bike riders, or some other oversight by society.  It’s hard to establish a point when you have no leader. 

As for me, I just like to ride a bike. 

I had tried to be an anarchists once before.  I got to the plaza at 6:05 and found the other anarchists had already fled the scene.  If there’s one thing I learned about anarchists that night, it was that they always leave on schedule. 

This night, the last Friday coincided with the opening of Pacific Bell Park.  A lady on a Miata was handing out maps of the route while a thousand people milled around, slowly peddling in circles, waiting to anarch.  Sloppily dressed environmental types.  Women without makeup.  Everybody but me in a snappy helmet.  Some joker had on a canary Harpo wig and another had dressed himself up like George Washington.

Six o’clock came and still we waited for instructions.  The second thing I learned about anarchists:  They need instructions. 

The route said we were to head up Market Street to Drumm to Washington to Sansome, then take the Embarcadero past Fisherman’s Wharf to Fort Mason, head back down Chestnut Street, south on Van Ness to Pacific, right to Scott, ending up at Alta Plaza Park for a “Party at the Playground.”

It turned out the map was for the cops. 

Market Street to Drumm to Washington  to Sansome went well.  Then, when a guy with a boom box peddled straight across Broadway, some anarchists behind him revolted and turned left, taking with him the rest of the group.  Up they went through the center of the North Beach strip joints toward the Broadway Tunnel. 

I waited with the boom-box guy but soon even he had to acknowledge the mutiny.  Reluctantly, we turned around and followed the thousands of slowly turning wheels through the traffic, pedestrians and tourists. 

Our group stopped for nothing.  Not cars.  Not cops.  We spit at red lights.  We whopped.  We hollered. I felt like I was in the Bolshevik Revolution.

In the Broadway Tunnel, now devoid of cars, I let out my first full-throttle scream. It was lost in the echo of the others.  Such power!  Fifteen across, bikes as far ahead as you could see and backed up all the way down to Battery.  I had no idea where we were going and I didn’t care.  I was a rebel without a cause, an anarchists without a map. 

We were within sight of the end of the tunnel when we got the first hint of trouble ahead.  We’d come to a standstill and the crowd got quiet and anxious.  One biker turned around and - in a panic, it seemed - raced back through us. 

Was it the cops?  Were they going to mow us  down?  Arrest us all?  More pictures of the Bolshevik Revolution danced through my head.  It wasn’t a particularly successful revolution, as I recalled. 

Should I flee with my cowardly comrade?  I hadn’t thought to bring along identification, only my ATM card.  Wold the paddy wagon make a stop at the Versateller on the way to the slammer?

It turned out there were no cops at all, just a bit of indecision on the part of our head mutineer.  Our non-leading leader lifted his bank over the median and zoomed back toward North Beach.  Like sheep, we all followed. 

More whooping.  More hollering.  There is nothing like a tunnel to bring out the whooping and hollering in you. 

“Pac Bell Park!: someone yelled.  “Yeah!  Pac Bell Park!”  One giant mass turned onto Columbus and coasted toward South of Market.  

The night was balmy, in the mid-70s.  Everyone was out, half of them headed toward Pac Bell Park.  Our group - which had moments before flown through the tunnel- was now hopelessly clogged in Columbus.  Cars attempted to cross at their green lights but we swarmed them, forcing them to a standstill.  

Obviously, they didn’t know the rules.  Our rules. 

At Second Street, a couple of anarchist-leader types pulled their bikes into the middle of Howard so that we could flow through without interruption.  This was the first time I saw any cops, as well as the first time I saw any of them take any action.  I sped through the red light, hopeful that I’d be lost in our numbers.  I left my leaders to pay the fines or scatter the wrong way down Howard to escape arrest. 

Anarchists, as it turns out, are not particularly loyal. 

Pac Bell loomed ahead in all its opening-night glory.  About a thousand of us dead-ended into 40,000 fans who were clamoring to get in.  Obviously, nobody had put much thought into what to do next.  Then somebody turned left and we all headed toward the Embarcadero.  

But after mucking up the biggest game in town, the serenity of the waterfront just wouldn’t do.  We turned around and meandered back toward Pac Bell.

Baseball sucks!” one of us shouted.

“You suck!” someone shouted back.

“Get a life!” another of theirs yelled.

“This is it…” I offered weakly.

We headed down King Street, twenty across and moving nicely at last.  But if you know the neighborhood like I do, you know there’s nowhere to go on King except up onto the freeway on-ramp.  Mercifully, four cops on motorcycles with blue lights blazing kept that bad idea from happening.  

But now the group was no longer whole but wandering around in lost little splinter groups.  One turned left and dead-ended on a lonesome road that ran parallel to China Basin canal.

Reluctantly, we turned back toward the ballpark.  Then, at Fourth Street, someone yelled to go right.  I had my doubts, but being a good little anarchist, I followed over the bridge toward Hunters Point.  When I saw that only about ten of us had been that stupid, I turned back to join the others.

I can’t say the Giants fans were cheerful about seeing us again.  Had they had baseballs, surely they would have thrown them at us.  Helmet-less and head down, I peddled past, keeping my whooping and hollering to a minimum.  

Onto the Embarcadero, sweet and warm and as wide open as Wyoming in late spring.  Before me, the Ferry Building’s clock tower rose luminous in the warm night sky.  It was 7:20 and I was still in shorts and a T-shirt.  An incredible San Francisco night that happens maybe five times a year.

By now, there were only about a hundred of us and not a leader in the group. Somebody pulled out a cell phone and got word that the main pack was headed up Market Street.  We should all turn around, it was determined.  Not me.  I was facing home and I kept going in that direction.  I left the others and continued solo.

Or so I thought. Behind me, about a dozen bicyclists continued along the Embarcadero, toward Pier 39 and beyond.  It was a while before I realized they were following me.  That they didn’t know I was going home and they thought I had come cosmic sense of where the route was supposed to be.

Eventually, I had no choice but to stop and shoo them away.  They had that sad look my dog used to get when he tried to follow me to school. 

So, was it worth it?  Well, if the point was to have fun while getting somewhere, then it had all the appropriate ingredients except that we didn’t actually get anywhere.  Except Pac Bell Park.  We went there three times.

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