Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

Instructions Perhaps you're familiar with Critical Mass, the Food Not Bombs of bicycle parades. In or out of that context, the bicycle parade format has much to recommend it. Bicycles offer a legal opportunity to establish a presence in the street; in contrast to cars, they're much cheaper, don't automatically reveal their owners' identities, represent a participatory and environmentally friendly technology, and create an atmosphere of togetherness, since riders are not separated from one another or those around them by metal and glass. A group mounted on bicycles can take up a lot more space than the same number of pedestrians, and usually makes for a more impressive spectacle; they can also move much more quickly together or when it's time to disperse. Bicycle parades are flexible: they can be festive or confrontational, or switch back and forth between the two. A bicycle parade can bring together locals for a fun community event, or draw attention to a particular issue {local transportation policies, global environmental concerns, the crushing monotony of city life), or interfere directly vrith something objectionable by serving as a slow-moving barricade?or provide a blank canvas to which each participant can bring her owm intentions. Last but not least, riding bicycles is^n.

Following the Critical Mass model, some cities host regular bicycle parades on a given 100 day of every month, leaving from a well-known destination. Lacking this infrastructure

or desmng to forego it, you can promote a bicycle parade by stapling fliers around the handlebars of bicycles parked around town, stickering or marking on anything bicycles are often locked to {or anything bicyclists often visit?say, a popular grocery dumpster) or postering at bicycle shops. If the police in your area have repressive tendencies and you don't want them to show up and ruin the atmosphere by limiting your movements or threatening participants, avoid putting up fliers where they will see them. If police show up before the event with the intention to control it, they will probably succeed, but a single officer who discovers a parade already in progress may be powerless to stop it

Make things exciting. Unusual bicycles?home-welded double-decker bicycles or "choppers" with exaggerated front wheels, for example?are always a hit. Bicycle traUers can carry everything from small children to sound systems. To identify your purpose to the world, string a banner between two bicycles; this might make the most sense in the back of the parade, where it can be read by motorists behind you and discourage them from driving forward into the mass of cyclists. Musical instruments and other noisemakers attract attention and keep things cheery-when cars trapped behind your parade honk their horns, join in with a chorus of bicycle bells and whisfles, reframing frustration as affirmation. A parade of costumed bicyclists or, better, bicycle floats is perfect for Halloween-or any other day of the year. Have handouts for pedestrians and drivers stuck in traffic. Keep these accessible and positive: one Critical Mass bicyclist in my hometown used to pass out oranges with pro-bicycle messages written on them.

Bofli your route and your method of determining it wih depend on your goals. Your parade could lead to the site of a party or festival; it could wander according to the collective whims of the participants; it could be secretly plotted in advance by a rotating cabal of strategists. A bicycle parade can pass through a neighborhood, or interact with rush-hour traffic; it can take over a highway, or even storm through a shopping mall Well-attended, long-standing Critical Mass groups have often determined tactics and policies 'of' '"'"'"'

by "xerocracy": everyone who has an idea hands out fliers promoting her suggestion, and decisions are determined by a kind of de facto consensus.