[masraum]

Wow. I'm shocked at what I just saw. I'm not sure if it was sanctioned, but it was very, very poorly managed.

For about 10-15 minutes, hundreds of bikes flowed down 2 lanes of the street in front of our apartment. We are at a fairly big intersection for the area. When the light turned red for the bikes, they just kept on streaming. I think they kept streaming through somewhere between 5-10 cycles of the lights. During that time cars backed up because the bikes didn't stop. As the cars got pissed and started honking, the bikers just yelled and whistled and kept going. We did have a few cars eventually get pissed and slowly work their way through the bikes. Inevitably, someone on a bike would just fall over not having hit the car or even been near the car. At one point during a red light some guy came out and held his hands up and tried to stop the bikes. A few stopped and then started again, one fell over and the rest just flowed around him.

At what I think was the middle of the "parade" the bikes were straying into at least 1 and sometimes both of the oncoming lanes of the road.

At first, it seemed like a hoot, but as they kept streaming and the cars backed up more and more, I started to think they were a parade of douche nozzles. It was like they were being bullies. I kind of wish I'd been on the roof of the apt with a few hundred water balloons. Every time the light turned red and they ignored it, I think I'd have started throwing. I found myself wishing popped tires and skinned knees on them. Another fun thought was a large truck with one of those enormous, douchey train horns, just for the red light runners.

I didn't think to take video until it was nearly done, and managed to catch one of only 2 times that the bikes stopped for a red light.