I meant to do a write-up of last night’s Critical Mass, but by the time I got home, made supper, and drank a beer, I was too tired to do much of anything, so I went to bed.
Anyway, last night’s CM was marvelous–the best in months! The last really big one we had here in Kansas City was like in May or June, where we kept collecting people up as we went along and finished with about 25 riders. Last night wasn’t that massive–I’d say there were maybe 12 of us all told, but we were wired for sound!
Sarah and Christie’s long-awaited sound system took its maiden voyage last night, and it was Good.
They’d been talking for a while about how it would be cool if they could have some sort of setup that could ride on Christie’s BOB trailer. At first they were just talking boom box, then the idea grew. What finally panned out was a large plastic storage tub, with a marine battery box in it that had an on/off switch. That housed a car battery, with connectors hooked over its terminals running to an amplifier and the speakers. A small, portable CD player plugged into the amp, and a mixed CD with a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Janis Joplin went into the CD Player. The storage bin lid was bunjeed down and the speakers and CD player were bunjeed down on top of the bin lid. The whole contraption pumped out enough sound to have us heard from blocks around, and the oldies-heavy music mix seemed to go over well with most of the pedestrian crowd.
Christie, Cherie, and I took off from the shop, to meet the rest of the crowd down at the Westport Sun-Fresh grocery. There was a decent-sized crowd, including a guy with mad Fixed-Gear skills and two newcomers to KC. The ride itself was pretty smooth–we cruised around the Plaza, blasting music, ringing bells, waving to people, and grinning like maniacs.
The most amusing part of the evening, however, was when Christie, Cherie, and I were heading back downtown. We were coming close to Crown Center (for the out-of-towners, this is a ritzy Hallmark-Owned shopping-and-entertainment complex) and I suggested that it might be kind of cool to take the music machine through the Crown Center plaza, so we did. Just as we rolled past the first skywalk of the Crown Center complex, Janis came across the speakers, and announced that she had a political message.
We cruised through Crown Center to Janis Joplin’s pleas to the Lord for a Mercedes, a color TV, and a night on the town.
The capper was that when Janis got to her entreaty for “a night on the town,” we passed a big crowd of young guys who were obviously out on the tear, and they heard that line and started wooting and aaaaowing at us. I reckon by Last Call, the three women on bicycles with a home-made sound system became a whole phalanx of buxom biker babes.