At 7 pm, this time the meeting point should be. A few hours before, he was only announced on the Internet. Like every last Friday of the month when Hamburg cyclists in reflective vest meet for the critical-mass-tour through the city. Just 20 minutes later, the big square is already occupied by thousands of cyclists: you are in small groups, talking, music is booming from loudspeakers, some mounted on small trailers. Just like Andy. The 41-year-old, tall cyclist is something like a veteran of the Hamburg Critical Mass rides. "A few years ago there were only a few, now we are thousands," he says.
Cyclists in their bright jerseys are standing there, next to them a man with a St. Pauli Hoodie and rusty folding bike. A group of girls, maybe 20 years old, holds large colorful Holland wheels and chatter happily. Gray-haired couples, wearing helmet and safety vest, are standing by, a group has adorned their bicycles with colorful flowers and sunglasses. Men with heavy touring bikes wait, hipster with beard and dark glasses pushing their fashionable entrance bikes through the crowd. A colorful city between the beginning of the 20th and beginning of the seventies has gathered here.
Then the crowd sensed a feeling of unrest, the conversations became louder, somebody began to ring, more and more ringing, some lift their wheel up into the skies of Hamburg: the "bike up", the start signal. Like a herd of horses, for which it goes from the stable to pasture, the mass moves in the direction of movement. Above the convoy, bass-dominated music hovers, pedestrians waving, pull their Smartphone to take pictures. Andy also joins in; his music has now fully turned up: "Techno, AC / DC, Evergreens," he plays, "that is always good". The first meters he has to push, and then she rolls on, the Critical Mass, the critical mass of the thousands, which once a month slides through the city like a Blindworm and for a short time forcing the otherwise dominant to a halt.
Around 3500 bikers will have ended up according to the police in reflective uniform, who bend about three hours in a two-kilometer-long Polk crises-crossing on the wide streets through the city center. "We do not hinder traffic, we are traffic" - that is the message. They would have to register; there would be those responsible, which could be held liable, in the case of accidents. The participants, however, simply rely on the road traffic regulations, which allow cycling in the association from 16 cyclists. If a traffic light shows red, the bandage continues to cycle. There is indicated by hand signals, where it should be long. Like a swarm, which suddenly changes direction, so the Radvolk meanders through the city? However, one change with the lead, which is cycling in the front, discusses with the others: the goal is only at the end only really fixed.
The Critical-Mass movement was created in San Francisco in 1992. In the meantime, they exist in more than 300 cities worldwide - with an increasing trend. In the masses one is only perceived as a traffic user, it says on the relevant Internet pages. One wants to show that the wheel is an equivalent to the car - or better. Just as cars dominate the cities, the Critical Mass cyclists also want to determine traffic. Nowhere else in Germany is the number of participants as great as in Hamburg. Almost 5,000 were in July of last year, more than twice as many as in Berlin. Why? Perhaps the suffering pressure of the cyclists in Hamburg is greatest. "Maybe it's the fun factor," says Andy in safety vest. Music supporters are at the same time at the Elbe, there is even a sausage trailer.
