Hearts in Tandem

For those of you who know us, the reasoning behind name of this blog seems obvious enough. Austin and I are urban bikers and have been for several years. We don't own cars and manage to ride pretty much year-round. But some of you might not know that we actually met on bikes, so I thought I'd take this Valentine's Day post to explain more about the blog name, and about first meeting, which should reassure you that our relationship isn't *completely* unromantic. For as unromantic as the proposal may have been, I think we have a great how-we-met story.

Celebrating the end of yet another successful Critical Mass.

It all started with Critical Mass. To steal a quick explanation from Wikipedia:

The first ride ... took place on Friday, September 25, 1992 at 6 p.m. in San Francisco. At that time, the event was known as Commute Clot and was composed of a couple of dozen cyclists who had received flyers on Market Street.

Shortly after this, some participants in that ride went to a local bicycle shop for a screening of Ted White's documentary Return of the Scorcher, about bike culture overseas. That film noted that in China, both motorists and bicyclists had an understood method of negotiating intersections without signals. Traffic would "bunch up" at these intersections until the backlog reached a "critical mass," at which point that mass would move through the intersection. That term from the movie was applied to the ride, and the name caught on, replacing "Commute Clot" by the time of the second event.

By the time of the fourth ride, the number of cyclists had increased to around 100 and participation continued to grow dramatically, reaching about 1,000 riders, on average. It is estimated that there are Critical Mass-type rides in more than 325 cities to date.

Here in Chicago, Critical Mass meets on the last Friday of every month at Daley Plaza. The rides often have themes (May Day! Save our Schools! Halloween!) and competing maps. In the summer months the rides swell to several thousand people which can get quite unwieldy, but fun nonetheless.

An example of a Chicago Critical Mass map, from 9/2007

However, in 2007 some folks in the bike community decided to start neighborhood rides as well, on the first Friday of each month. The very first Wicker Park Critical Mass was on the first Friday of September, 2007. I decided to go because one of my friends was going. It was pouring rain until about 30 minutes before the ride, but in the end I went and hoped the skies would stay clear. Austin also came with some of his friends, who were celebrating their 6-month anniversary. As a resident of the 'hood and a Critical Mass enthusiast, it was only fitting that he join the maiden ride.  

     

Us on the day we met, on the beginning of the ride.

As it turned out, the weather was perfect, and the ride itself was very relaxed and fun. I was snapping pictures when Austin rode up beside me and struck up a conversation. The ride ended at an art exhibition, and after we looked at the art we decided to get drinks at a fancy beer bar. We drank, we talked, we kissed, and as it turned out, we both had tickets to the same exact concert the next day, where we met again, drank again, talked again, and kissed again. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. As we learned more about each other, the astonishing thing seemed not to be that we met at all, but that we didn't meet much sooner.

In the end, there really isn't such a thing as a perfect engagement, perfect marriage, perfect meeting, perfect anything. What really matters is that it's perfect for you. So far, so good.

Happy Valentine's Day