Jim Redd's Website Legacy

Shortly after the first Chicago Critical Mass Daley Plaza ride, Jim Redd, one of the organizers of those first rides, set up the first website at chicagocriticalmass.org. To really understand what went into creating Chicago's Critical Mass scene, you need to read Jim's early ride reports. The following is an excerpt from Jim's first ride report.

September 5, 1997

The first Daley Plaza Critical Mass ride

My son, Adrian, and I bike a lot together. We've ridden the entire Blue Ridge Parkway, spent a week camping and biking the old mining roads in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, and, last January, we single-tracked Tarahumara Indian trails in the Copper Canyon country of Mexico. In Chicago, I bike to work every day, and Adrian is a bike messenger during the summer.

He goes to college in Olympia, Washington. This summer, when he came back to Chicago, he mentioned that he had participated in something called a "Critical Mass" in Olympia. He showed me pictures of bikers riding through the middle of town. He explained to me that "Critical Mass" was big on the West Coast, especially in the Bay Area. We talked a little about the philosophy behind it, and perhaps I entertained the notion of something like that in Chicago, but neither of us pursued it.

Then, on July 25, my neighbor mentioned a news item he had picked up from the S.F. Chronicle Web page. He printed out a hardcopy of the Chronicle's report of the arrests in the SF Critical Mass. I read it, amazed that mere bicyclists could cause such a commotion. But when I realized the scale of the whole thing (5,000 riders) I think I said something like "the bicycle revolution has begun!" to my wife, only half-kidding. I immediately got on the web to find out the details of how such an event could happen, got linked into all the pages describing the event, saw the CM pictures, read Chris Carlsson's piece "Bicycling Over the Rainbow." It all resonated with me: the issues I had thought about and discussed only with a few friends for so many years were brought out into the open in SF. It was an incredible revelation! After seeing some great photos of the CM posted by Mark Motyka, I sent him e-mail, saying I would like to see something like this in Chicago, and he responded immediately. His enthusiasm was infectious. We talked on the phone. He gave me a list of "Do's and Don't's" of how to organize a Mass that were invaluable. He sent me information in the mail. What, me the organizer of a Chicago Critical Mass?

I have never even participated in any "street demonstrations," much less organized one. I have never been a political "activist." I always felt that you need a certain amount of charisma, uncanny political savvy, etc., to pull something like this off. Me? I'm a mild-mannered computer programmer with a wife, 3 kids, and a big mortgage. But yet...

It wouldn't hurt to play around with making a flyer. I like to do flyer design anyway. My first design didn't mention the term "Critical Mass." It said something like "Let's ride home together," meeting at some obscure vacant lot in an industrial area. I made 4,000 copies. It fell flat. I trashed them all. No one knew what the purpose was. Why on earth meet in this godforsaken place and ride home together? No one sensed the political/social overtones I had tried to communicate in the flyer. So I made a new one. This time I heeded Daniel Burnham's advice: "Make no small plans." (Burnham was an early Chicago architect and landscape designer, father of Chicago's park system). I put "Critical Mass" in big letters. I made the meeting place Daley Plaza in the middle of the Loop. I made the time 5:30 Friday. I included a "Car-free" symbol. This time, the message was clear. People responded. I put one in the hand of every biker I saw. I put them on lamp posts. Adrian passed them out to bike messengers. I went to bike messenger hangouts and talked it up. We put them in bike shops. Mark Motyka gave me the idea of making "handle bar loops." We put them on 500 bikes at the Chicago Air and Water Show and the Grant Park Jazz festival. We stood on the lakefront bike path and handed them to passing cyclists.

Then, when I began to see "clones" of the flyer appearing, I knew it was working. I met Michael, who volunteered to do media promotion. We planned a meeting to talk about the route. A dozen people showed up. I proposed we ride down State Street and up LaSalle (the heart of the financial district). Some said the route was "too aggressive" for a first Mass. I invoked Burnham's dictum, but we developed a "Plan B" anyway in case we didn't have the numbers to "hold our own" in the Loop. But the enthusiasm displayed at the meeting convinced us that we were on the right track, and that this thing might actually happen. I resumed my flyering with renewed dedication.

The day of the ride I was apprehensive. All along, skeptics had been saying "This is the midwest, not California. People just don't DO this sort of thing here." I feared the worst: maybe 10 riders (just my family and a few friends) outnumbered 5 to 1 by Chicago cops. What a joke it would be! I arrived at the Plaza at about 5:00. I saw 1 (one, uno) other rider and about fifteen cops standing around. I said to myself: Oh shit. As I sat and chatted with the other rider, a few more came up. I gave out a few route maps. A few more came. We were all just looking around at each other: no one knew exactly what to expect. So far, we were nowhere near a critical mass. Then, around 5:40, people started showing up from all directions! I couldn't believe it! I started passing out strips of colored streamers in an attempt to make things look festive. No one knew what to do with them. "Tie 'em on your bike!" I said. More came, asking for route maps. Then they started asking for streamers. It was catching on!

I found a rider with a big moose horn on his handlebar. I passed the word that the horn would be the signal to start. (Mark Motyka never told me how to actually START the thing!) It's supposed to be "anarchic" I thought. But, in reality, everyone was looking for some "leader." I had to assume that role by default.

The guy with the horn and I circled the Picasso, him blowing his horn. I looked back to the group of riders and they were all mounting up, moving, as if some beast had been roused. It was an awesome sight! They flowed in a true organic mass and circled behind me until I peeled off down Washington Street. Everyone followed, and the Chicago Critical Mass was underway!

Thanks to Jim, and the countless contributors he would inspire, we can go back to the old site and get an insider's perspective on how Chicago's Critical Mass took on it's unique character. After getting married at Daley Plaza before the CCM May 2004 ride, Jim and his wife Marcia moved to Ecuador. Check out Michael Burton's write up describing Jim's move and "retirement" (bottom of page).