Unfortunately I wasn't able to ride in the March ride. I was in Oregon visiting friends and riding on a much more police friendly critical mass ride. The police in Portland showed up, said hi and sat quietly by.

Oh and they showed up on BICYLES! Yes bikes.. not scooters, motorcycles or even in cars but Bicycles. They were friendly and supportive the complete opposite of the NYPD.

Now onto March's ride. As I said I wasn't around but fortunately several other people were. Here is an account from "Scott" whom has posted a ticket on this site and still continues to ride in Critical Mass (Thank you Scott).

It was the same old clusterfuck. They didn't enforce the limit of 50 rule but they did the usual blocking and splintering tactics a few blocks north of the Square on Park. They gave out almost fifty tickets apparently, and there were a few arrests too.
My friend and I were at the back so we managed to ride through and past all the cops (and unfortunate riders) who were by then all busy sorting out their ticket situations. As a group of about thirty we rode awhile unchallenged, including a bike lift in Times Square.
After the second meetup at Columbus we went back through Times Square. At Forty Second a cop appeared and was waving everyone to go left. Some did, some didn't, and some other cops grabbed some guy and although I didn't see it I think they may have tackled him pretty good.
They had him up against a mailbox by the time I rode past. We regrouped with the survivors of that one later and limped back to Times Up. My friend had a close call at one point that night when a cop grabbed him but couldn't hold on as my friend took off and got away.
So except for some small lucky bunches the cops effectively shut the ride down. It was about 150 riders to start. There was lots of press this time.

Possibly it was the press that kept the cops from enforcing the rule or the outright illegality of the rule itself. The 5 borough bike is suing the city over the 50 person/bicycle limit as it effectively shuts down their club.

BikeBlog had a different take on the ride. Check it out.

I end this entry with a call for help. This site is an excellent resource for us to organize and highlight what is happening to the Critical Mass rides and to Cycling in general in New York City but I need help!.

No HTML or programming experience is needed. If you can send an email you can help out with this site. I need people to post video, check the latest tickets, promote the site, write blogs, etc. Contact me if you're interested in helping out!