Nearly 100 bicycles, some lacking brakes, others modified and accessorized, have gathered in front of Wescoe Beach. None of their riders are wearing spandex suits. Someone is in a cow costume.

Suddenly, without the sound of a gunshot or whistle, the hoard of cyclists hoot and holler its way down Jayhawk Boulevard and circle the Chi Omega fountain for a few minutes, blocking cars, before darting off campus and into Lawrence streets.

Bewildered witnesses have just seen the Lawrence version of a worldwide phenomenon called Critical Mass. It’s a bike movement that isn’t a race or parade, but rather a demonstration of pedal power in a motor-dominated world.

Malakai Edison, Lawrence senior, was a driving force in starting the ride in Lawrence two years ago. He says that for him Critical Mass is a form of political and environmental activism.

“It’s me taking a stance: I’m going to ride my bike instead,” he says of his motor-minimalist approach to transportation.

According to online sources, including www.critical-mass.org and critical-mass.info, the movement first mobilized 15 years ago tomorrow in San Francisco. Since then the leaderless, grassroots movement has taken off in cities across the globe.

Though Critical Mass is somewhat subversive—protest-riders scuffled with police, were maced and arrested in Minneapolis last month—Edison says that the monthly Lawrence ride is less about obstructing traffic and confronting motorists and more about awareness and education.

And to Edison, who’s been hit by car while riding on campus, education is important. He says that two years ago he was cycling to class when a car struck him head-on in front of the Spencer Museum of Art. Edison says he wasn’t injured, but that his bike was totaled.

He says three of his friends were hit in the few months following the accident.

Charley Berry, a Tulsa, Okla., sophomore and Critical Mass cyclist, agrees that people need more street wisdom when it comes to sharing the road.

“I almost got hit by a negligent scooterist,” Berry says. “People don’t pay attention. It doesn’t matter because you’re a bike.”

Both Edison and Berry make the point that streets, including ones within Lawrence and around the University of Kansas, are not geared toward safe cycling. At the University, cyclists can be hazardous to pedestrians on sidewalks or road bumps to vehicles on Jayhawk Boulevard. Berry says he’d only travel large streets like Iowa with a group.

Though Critical Mass rides offer cyclists safety in numbers, they create hazards of their own. For instance, stoplights can be a difficulty for Critical Mass bikers because they can break up a group that is usually on an undefined route. They sometimes run lights or halt oncoming traffic, upsetting motorists.

But Berry says knowing the rules of the road goes both ways. He says he once got pulled over by a bike-riding policeman for running a stop sign.

Though captain Schuyler Bailey of the KU Public Safety Office says that Lawrence Critical Mass riders are not a problem on campus, bicyclists still must follow traffic laws. Paul Fellers, a sergeant with the Lawrence Police Department, says that breaking traffic laws can be a public danger.

Hugh D’Andrade, a San Francisco artist and graphic designer who rode and publicized some of Critical Masses first rides, says he realizes that Critical Mass inconveniences motorists and sometimes breaks laws. It’s not that riders want to punish motorists or feel morally superior to them. “This is just a novel way to create social change,” he says.

D’Andrade says that he’s seen an explosion in the number of bicyclists and bicycle advocacy groups in San Francisco since Critical Mass began. Along with more bike-friendly laws, lanes and parking places in his city, he’s also noticed a change in driver’s attitudes.

“Now motorists treat us like we exist. We’re not treated like we’re borrowing the street,” he says.

In addition to its more activist aspects, for many riders, Critical Mass is also a celebration of do-it-yourself biking. Sam Owen, Albuquerque, N.M., junior, often rides a fixed gear bicycle, a bike-type growing in popularity within bicycle subcultures.

Fixed gear bikes are single speed, single gear cycles that can’t coast. While in motion their pedals continuously spin and riders slow the bike by forcefully resisting the pedals. Owen says fixed gear bikes are intertwined with Critical Mass in part because they are compatible with the movement’s grassroots ethics.

Owen says the affordable, self-made and maintained bicycles also give riders a feeling of intimacy with the road, as the stripped-down bikes lack shock absorbers and transmit the vibration of every pothole, crack and pebble the rider encounters.

“Critical Mass is not ‘let’s drive our SUV to the bike shop and buy a $2,000 bike to ride on the weekends,’” he says.

Owen, who works at Cycle Works, 2121 Kasold Dr., says that most road bikes can be converted to have fixed gears. He says about $50 for parts and a little know-how are all that’s needed for the conversion, and that the bikes are easy and cheap to maintain yourself.

Critical Mass riders gather on Wescoe Beach on the last Friday of each month. The leaderless, unofficial Lawrence group posts gathering times on a Facebook group, named Critical Mass, Lawrence. The next ride is Sept. 28 at 6 p.m., and everyone’s invited.