But, doesn't it all come back to the adage of it only taking one to make everyone look bad?

Knowing that our planned ride today had a couple mile stretch on a multi-use paved path and that the trail can have a lot of walkers on pretty days, we left early. Best laid plans and all that--a mile of the trail was being used for an organized walk, but, the trail was not closed. We were allowed to continue (which was good as at that point you're looking at a 5+ mile detour on some pretty nasty roads).

The trail at that point is about 10' wide and the walkers were all approaching us. We road slow (well under 10mph), stuck to the far right edge and kept an alert eye for humans under 3' tall, and proceeded with caution. We probably passed more than 100 walkers. Almost all of them were pleasant (ooh...lookie junior...a bike). One or two were not. The path was theirs to walk 6 abreast and we were to use the grass (seriously).

As we road on after that, I paused long enough to realize that 90% of those walkers and us coexisted just fine. 5% were oblivious and caused a few minor irritations and less than 5% were just rude. Yet, until I stopped to think about it, in my mind I had labelled those 90% with the same brush that I labelled the rude ones.

My point? How many cars don't see the 90% of us that obey the rules of the road, switch to single file in traffic and actually wait at red lights? They only see the 5% that ride 2 abreast in heavy traffic, run red lights and cut across intersections in unsafe manners? While I can agree with some of the basic tenets of Critical Mass, their approach is the rude 5%--in trying to make a point, they label all of us with a very bad brush.

Which asks the next question...in the Critical Mass movement are 90% well-intentioned and only 5% those we hear about?