Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Critical Mass

This was during a Cyklojizda bike ride, just as the group were waiting on Italska, next to Hlavni Nadrazi, for the police to clear the street ahead, which was Seifertova.

This was the end of the ride after we got back to Namesti Miru, in even more rain than on the route.

This was one of our stops, in this case because the police were closing the route through Kacerov.

This is my favorite shot from the bike ride, just taken with my cameraphone, but blurred because it was gloomy, rainy and....a cameraphone. This was the best that I could do, but it ended up being quite good, I think, for what it is.

This was the start of the ride. We eventually got onto Sokolska and Nuselsky Most, which is normally closed to bikes (unless you're on the sidewalk, although I don't know the exact rules about whether you can ride or if you have to walk it). Here we were still leaving Namesti Miru.

Here are some more of the vintage-look bikes. The one in the foreground is an electric bike disguised as a non-electric one.

Here's the folding bike again. It's made by Brompton, a company in England that sold a lot of them in York when I lived there. It isn't really small enough to stuff in your backpack, and it has the disadvantage of small wheels, but it's easier to stuff in the corner of your office or put under the table in a restaurant, etc.

I also attended the Auto*Mat Cyklojizda just under a week later. Although there was a proper mass ride, which was well attended and received by the city, this event was also a chance for bike shops to promote their products. Some of these bikes are just direct human-powered, chain drive bikes, while others are electric, and the little one on the ground over on the upper left is a folding bike, which is in the folded position. Some of the bikes in this photo are designed to look vintage, but virtually all of them are state of the art.

I took this at "Den bez aut," the "day without cars," which used to be a Critical Mass event coordinated between the city of Prague and Auto*Mat. This was the first year that I went with only the city organizing it, as the city and Auto*Mat events have supposedly been separate for a few years. The embankment on the Vltava was closed to cars in the vicinity of the Karluv Most and Most Legii, although I've forgotten if it was exactly between them. In any case, there were freestyle (stunt) bicyclists there doing shows, but there were especially large numbers of businesses selling food, bikes, and bike parts. This was the display for the Author bike company.

This is a more realistic view of the 2009 Den bez Aut ride, with riders jamming Resslova Ulice, heading for the Tancici Dum (Dancing House) and the River Vltava.

This protestors from the World Carfree Network (really and truely worldwide, but based in Strasnice) were participating in Den bez Aut, or the day without cars, the largest Critical Mass-style bike ride every year in Prague (unless the organizers, Auto*Mat and Cyklojizda, have to substitute something else, which they occassionally have to do). The ride attracts thousands of people from around the world, even if this photo makes the even look small, and even the conservative mayor, Pavel Bem, has supported this event, actually.