Jan 23 2008
CRANK Mob rules you!
In the old days the bike scene was stable. There was LACM, and it was somewhat weaksauce by today’s standards, but it was a bitchin revelation for it’s participants. Later Midnight Ridazz jumped into the fray, meteorically growing to 300 riders in one year. Still, MR growth was slow by today’s standards. Soon there was LACM, Midnight Ridazz, and Westside Ridazz. A year later it was LACM, Midnight Ridazz, Westside Ridazz, and Santa Monica Critical Mass.
That’s just a few rides added a year. You could go to all of them easily, and there were only a few new ones a year. You could keep up with it.
That’s CHANGED. Some weekends there are TWENTY rides listed on MR. Some are huge and others are tiny. It’s an ecosystem, a confusing predatory super jungle . . .
and CRANK MOB is king of the jungle. CRANK MOB is choose your own adventure, bring your own fun, potluck style crazy awesome. That describes CRANK Mob in a breath, and it sounds awfully similar to the ethic of Critical Mass.
CRANK Mob <–> CM <–> Critical MAss. CRANK MOB is the ambitious daughter of Critical & Mass. Critical always wanted to travel to Paris, and Mass always wished he’d gone to college. For CRANK Mob going to Paris, going to college, and achieving Burning Man heights of awesome artistic open source inclusive joy is automatic. Her parents, her background, her participants, her CONTEXT _ _ they guarantee it.
Someone like CRANK Mob typically doesn’t recognize how they’ve fulfilled and surpassed the dreams of their parents, how monumentally different their life has been. They’re probably not satisfied with what they have. They probably have dreams their parents don’t even get because those dreams are conceptually so far beyond anything their parents could have.
That’s how CRANK Mob should be. Are we really satisfied with CRANK Mob being the ride of the moment, the craziest ride in town, the ride you bring newness too? BOOOOORINNNG
Not me. I want to pervert her. Her parents had the sexual revolution, she should have the trisexual revolution
she’ll TRY ANYTHING.
We’re the ones with the whips, chains, plugs, and creativity to take her there.
What’s next? I don’t know, but it must be epic, it must be unheard of, and for our children it must be mundane and ubiquitous
It must be automatic.
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T*hat W*ould B*e G*reat
dont get an inflated ego there buddy. crank mob is cool and all but it’s no Midnight Ridazz. Midnight Ridazz completely started LA’s bicycle party ride phenomenon and it did so for 3 years before other rides started popping up. MR grew to 1700 (not 300) and it was Midnight Ridazz that enabled Crank Mob to even exist in the first place with the advent of the Midnight Ridazz website and inclusive nature. critical mass in LA had MAYBE 60 participants. It was Midnight Ridazz that grew CM into typical counts of 200 or more in LA. FUN is king. not some new party ride that just started this summer.
anonymous,
CRANK Mob is a MidnightRidazz ride, in the sense that it’s participants are participants in MidnightRidazz community, and it’s primarily organized and promoted through MidnightRidazz.com. The photos of CRANK Mob that the post links to are on MidnightRidazz! So I’m not sure what you are upset about.
For the Westside, and some would say for LA, CRANK Mob is the Midnight Ridazz ride of the moment. It’s doing some new things, things that haven’t been done on MR before, and putting some old things together in a new way. That’s no slight on Midnight Ridazz, it’s a reflection of how amazing these rides are getting. It’s not about size, thought no doubt CRANK Mob will grow, it’s about format and creativity.
I rode many of the original rides before MidnightRidazz.com existed and it was MidnightRidazz on the 2nd Friday of every month at Pioneer Chicken. Those rides were great. My first one was the Gang ride in Feb or March 05, and my favorite was the epic Prom ride on which Alec and I were the only dress wearing men.
We love CRANK Mob, and we just wanted to celebrate that!