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Critical Mass is a cycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month; its purpose is not usually formalized beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and traveling as a group through city or town streets on bikes. The event originated in 1992 in San Francisco;〔 by the end of 2003, the event was being held in over 300 cities around the world. Critical Mass has been described as "monthly political-protest rides", and characterized as being part of a social movement. It has been described as a "monthly protest by cyclists reclaiming the streets."〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher=Urban75 )〕 Participants have insisted that these events should be viewed as "celebrations" and spontaneous gatherings, and not as protests or organized demonstrations.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://pghcriticalmass.org/ )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】date=August 30, 2004 )〕 This stance allows Critical Mass to argue a legal position that its events can occur without advance notification of local police. ==History== Critical Mass-like bike tours with hundreds of participants took place in Stockholm, Sweden in the early 1970s.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=November 16, 2009 )〕 But the first ride within the present wave took place on Friday, September 25, 1992 at 6 pm in San Francisco. At that time, the event was known as ''Commute Clot'' and was composed of a couple of dozen cyclists who had received flyers on Market Street. Shortly after this, some participants in that ride went to a local bicycle shop for a screening of Ted White's documentary ''Return of the Scorcher'', about bike culture in the Netherlands and China in comparison with that of the United States. In that film, American human powered vehicle and pedicab designer George Bliss noted that, in China, both motorists and bicyclists had an "understood" method of negotiating intersections without signals. Traffic would queue up at these intersections until the backlog reached a "critical mass", at which point that mass would move through the intersection. This term from the footage of the movie, was applied to the name of the ride, and the name caught on, replacing "Commute Clot" by the time of the second event.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Critical Mass (cycling)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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