About

Kidical Mass, the child-friendly mass bike ride, hits the streets. It's a fun, child- and family-friendly mass bike ride on city streets, demonstrating that children are road users too, and calling for safer provision for people to choose bicycles as transport. The ride is marshalled, free to join, and open to children, families, friends and adults without children. It is being organised by local cycling organisations Bricycles, Brighton Bike Hub, Old Shoreham Road (OSR) Bike Train, Brighton Multicultural Women's Cycle Club and Brighton & Hove for Clean Air, with funding from The Big Bike Revival. Kidical Mass is inspired by the global Critical Mass cycle protest movement, where people ride en masse for safety in numbers, and take over the road. Iliana Koutsou of Bricycles, one of the ride organisers, said: “Kidical Mass in September had three times as many people as expected, and was great fun. It showed how much people, including families, want safe routes for riding on bicycles. It’s great that the Council have now agreed to build the cycle lane from Brighton pier to Valley Gardens, but we now need our Council to increase the pace and scale of rolling out more cycle lanes. So we’re going to ride again, but bigger and louder this time!” Daren Callow of OSR Bike Train said: “It’s been a disappointing year for children riding to school, with no new cycle lanes being built. Let’s hope that support for Kidical Mass demonstrates that people want people-friendly improvements to Brighton & Hove’s streets.” To add to the fun, participants are welcome to come in fancy dress, decorate their bikes, and bring bells, whistles, flags, bubble blasters and bike-mounted sound systems. Duncan Blinkhorn of Brighton Bike Hub said: “We’re inviting participants, especially children, to make their own posters and flags for the ride, with pictures and slogans such as ‘Make our city #SafeToCycle’.” The ride will go at the pace of the slowest person on a bicycle, so that nobody gets left behind. All children must be accompanied by an adult.