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Last night I joined Critical Mass for its annual New Year's Eve bike ride from Union Square to Belvedere Castle in Central Park. With a large enough group of riders (60-75) you pretty much rule the road, and this crowd was noisy--hooting, blowing off noisemakers, and imitating car alarms. I enjoyed riding through the tunnel under Park Avenue (in the dark), skirting Grand Central on the elevated ramp, and even crossing the post-Giuliani Gestapo cattle chutes they set up at Times Square every year to keep revelers under strict government control. (That sounds harsh, I guess, but the cops used the same techniques to corral Iraq War protesters last February, and no doubt this year's New Year's is more practice for the coming Republican Convention debacle.)
At Belvedere Castle we had an excellent vantage point for the fireworks that blew off when '03 changed to '04. The police helicopters keeping us all safe from terror had an even better view of the show. After the Castle several of us rode down the newly-completed bike path that runs along the Hudson, and watched the moon set over New Jersey. Great night. Happy New Year to all.
UPDATE: An animated .GIF with pics of the event, by Kristin Lucas, is in the comments to this post.