[dc-critmass-list] snowfall makes for poor bikeriding [or maybe i'm just a poor bike rider]

[Luke Kuhn]

As for the snow, fit wider tires for the duration if you are on a road bike 
or hybrid. I have ridden in 8" of snow for short periods with hybrid tires 
fitted.  Also, there is a reason some people take off at the first sign of 
attack-these rides have not accomplished enough to justify accepting a risk 
of arrest, especially on a night where people have other plans.

I think the best response to police attack in a small or medium size ride 
would be to scatter and regroup at a pre-chosen point to continue the ride. 
If the group is small it is too easy for cops to grab someone anytime the 
bikes are stopped. If there is a road-rager, by comparison, he should be 
surrounded if he has done damage until we get at least an apology. If a cop 
has already grabbed someone he should be surrounded, but if he does not have 
anyone captured it is safest to evade. Best way is to charge through heavy 
traffic-and that's why the rides should avoid empty streets unless we ride 
in such a way that the cops disengage-and assuming they don't make trouble 
anyway.

Overall, I think in the regular rides we should avoid confrontations with 
cops as we aren't getting enough done to justify the risks. If the cops 
insist an starting things, we should evade. If the ride as a whole will not 
or cannot evade, than people should not hesitate to get out. The exception, 
of course, is if someone is trapped, arrested, or injured. In that 
circumstance it is more dangerous to leave them behind.
The time I had to go back through the ride to avoid a cop, he had directly 
threatened me after I tried to keep him from getting to the light first and 
cutting us off. Once threatened directly, I  could not risk him jumping out 
and grabbing before I could reaccelerate, and he had the path forward 
blocked. Once rolling, I could either go back through the ride or STOP to 
get up on the sidewalk. This was the time the rest of the ride had to evade 
onto 18th street.

A better solution, as I have said before, would have been if we were all 
practiced in emergency group maneuvers, such as the "fleet battle turn" 
adopted from naval warfare in which every ship(or in this case every bike) 
turns around simultaniously. It takes practice to do this without getting 
collisions, but it allows everybody to escape traps befopre the opposition 
can even react.

As things have stood, after that time last summer dodging a chopper and 
about 7 cop cars, I have had to treat every ride as a dangerous combat 
operation, and I cannot justify participating for so little gain unless I 
can get out under fire. Only when a ride has some serious political 
objective(like last April or during the People's Strike) are such risks 
acceptable to me.

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