Who Knows What's Going On? Not me.

How many times have you been on a Critical Mass or Midnight Ridazz and been asked “What is this? Where can I find out about this?” by a motorist or pedestrian. For me it’s like a million. Every time I feel stumped. What’s a good answer. I’d point them to Midnight Ridazz but it’s hard to spell. Usually I just tell them to Google “critical mass”.

It’s not just that. There are so many times when I’d like to find out the history of a ride and there’s just no way to do that. Say I’m new to the bike scene and I want to know about Cub Camp. Well, I can read the Cub Camp announcements and that will give me a basic idea. After that how do I find out more? I guess I could ask Marcus or Richie or another Cub. What if they’re not available? Should I just scour the 1200 odd Cub Camp posts? That’s going to take hours and hours.

“Well, maybe Cub Campers want to keep a certain mystery to their ride” you say. Sure, maybe they do. What about rides we want people to know about? For example, Santa Monica Critical Mass. For the last 10 months Santa Monica Critical Mass has been plagued by an over zealous police force. How can we inform other riders about this? Where can you find a comprehensive account of the history of the conflict between SMCM and SMPD?

The answer is you can’t. I suppose we could try to use the existing forums for that purpose but the fact is that forums aren’t designed for documenting events. They’re designed for conversations. You’ll find that out when your comprehensive account gets buried beneath hotter topics and is difficult to keep updated.

This is a problem for hard activism as well. Suppose that you want to lobby local governments for bicycle infrastructure improvements. How do you find out who you should be talking to? In Santa Monica you would mostly work with the City Council, Planning Commission, and Planning Department. Do you know how I found that out? Hours of talking to people. LA is dramatically more complex, with Planning, DOT, DWP, MTA, City Council, the Mayor’s Office, and the County all playing roles. There aren’t that many bike activists who can explain this structure to you (I certainly can’t) and they’re already pretty busy. Heck, how do you even know what person to talk to? I know a few activists but I would still need to make a few phone calls just to answer an easy question about who’s responsible for a particular aspect of cycling infrastructure. That’s before you try to learn about the actual people that make up these departments.

What if you’re new to cycling? Can you point me to one source where you can find basic information about dressing properly, types of bicycles, cultural information, and the history of mountain biking? You’re going to spend a lot of time on Google.

Currently our most common method for sharing cycling knowledge is by conversation, either in forums or in person. Unfortunately, while that’s highly personal, it’s a slow process, and it doesn’t exactly provide us a quick reference for facts when we need them later. It drastically limits the rate that the cycling community can learn.

So here’s a question: what’s a better way? Check here Monday for a proposed solution, and share your ideas below! Or tell me this isn’t really a problem. Or try to predict what the proposal is.