Horrifying Halloween Critical Mass

With an epic thunderstorm and torrential rain at around five o'clock, everyone was beginning to worry that the Halloween Critical Mass would be a washout. However, the pedal powered party people of Manchester are made of sterner stuff, had spent far to long on the costumes and own sufficient waterproofs to not be put off by rain on a warm autumnal evening. Besides, I'd spent far too long sorting out a music mix for the ride so I wasn't going to let the effort go to waste. In the end between 150 and 200 people turned out, which last year would have been a good turnout on a dry day!

And the costumes really were good.



The ride was colourful if somewhat wet.



Some had painted faces,



others had gone to town on the outfits.



The orange devil with trident was the full works,



whilst little more than bandages were used to horrifying effect.



The ride was pretty wet at times but that just seemed to add to the atmosphere.

The ride ended at Platts Field Park, for the pedal powered film night.



The boat house was dressed with lanterns providing a wonderfully warm welcome, and the interior was even better.



A big thanks to Anna & co for organising the film night.

Wish You Were Here, on your bike....

This year's Manchester Day Parade will include an entry from Manchester's cycling groups. Under the banner of GMCC I have been accepted as an entry by the parade organisers. I have yet to discuss any details with Walk the Plank, but the general idea is to reflect on how much better Manchester would be if everyone cycled more.

The overall theme is "Wish You Were Here" so the current best approach to the theme is to turn that into "Wish You Were Here on your bike..."

We will be open to collaborating with other groups who have entered if appropriate. At this stage we have no idea as to whether we could enter as a giant Critical Mass bike ride or whether we will be restricted to a small number of people. This wonderful trike built by Pif-Paf from last year was an example of the kind of thing that inspired me.



I'm also a great fan of Rinky Dink the pedal powered sound system and would love to build something similar to use to promote cycling in Manchester.



Either way round this is both exciting and rather daunting. We will need lots of help to make the impact we need. This video from last year shows the scale of activity that went into many of last year's entries.



So as soon as I have any more details I will be looking for people to help create a positive image about the future of cycling in Manchester.

------------

P.S. I'm hoping we can improve significantly on the 2002 Croydon Cycling Campaign entry in Croydon Carnival...

Pedal Power at Pride

Looking at the floats lining up in Liverpool Road I only found one pedal powered participant.



I like the fact that there's a fire extinguisher on board, was someone not confident of the state of their wiring...



Sadly all the other floats on wheels were lorries or cars.

Pedal Powered Karaoke!

Piccadilly Gardens 21st August - part of Platform 4.

Looked like a Pow-Wow Pedal Power production...