I meet Ruth at the shop on Friday. I’m wearing my bike gear, and hoping that not many bike people will recognize me as Eric Prince. Then again, I need at least someone to recognize me for photos of this to get out. Me and Ruth biking together in an event like this will play up pretty good for the panel, although I am slightly worried about potential bad press from the guys Ruth is worried about. I might get lumped in with them if I’m not careful.

I arrive early and hang out a bit. Critical Mass starts at 5:00 p.m. when the shop closes, just as Ruth is finishing up for closing, I see hundreds of people with bikes begin crowding the sidewalks all around the shop.

“This is pretty big,” I say to Wilson.

“You gotta have a lot of people to reach ‘critical mass,’” he says, grinning and air quoting.

The door swings open, and two guys ride their bikes into the shop. They have bikes with huge, comically thick tires, like some kind of monster truck bikes. One guy has some kind of huge Bluetooth boom box thing hooked up to his bike, and it’s blasting an old Beastie Boys song from the 80s.

“Critical Mass!” one of them shouts as he pops a wheelie and rides through the tiny aisles of the shop.

Wilson laughs nervously as the tire hits a helmet and knocks it off the shelf.

“These the guys Ruth doesn’t like?” I ask Wilson.

He leans in toward me. “Yeah.”

They make a few circuits of the shop, then stop next to Wilson.

“Hey,” one of them says, “you’re that Eric Prince dude, right?”

I nod.

“I’m Fat Mike,” the guy with the speakers on his bike says. “And this is my buddy Cunningham.”

Fat Mike is lanky and tall as a bean pole. Cunningham has thick, muscular legs but a bit of a gut.

“Fat Mike used to be fatter than me,” Cunningham says. “But then he got into bikes.”

“We used to just troll people on Xbox Live all day, but now we can troll cars at Critical Mass,” Fat Mike fills in as if I care.

Ruth stares daggers at them.

“Chill, Ruth,” Cunningham says. “What you don’t see can’t hurt you.”

“I’m going this time,” Ruth snaps. “And I’m watching you two.”

Fat Mike turns a knob on his speaker, and the volume gets so high that I see Ruth’s mouth move, but no sound is audible. When she stops talking, Fat Mike turns the volume down and says, “What was that? I couldn't hear you?”

Just as her mouth opens again, he cranks the volume.

I see Ruth’s face turn red, and her jaw clenches.

I shove Fat Mike’s hand off the knob and turn the volume all the way down.

He looks at me. “What the fuck? Just chill dude, it’s just a joke.”

“Jokes are funny, that wasn’t,” I say, holding my hand on his handlebars and daring him to touch the fucking knob again. “Why don’t you guys go outside?”

“Yeah,” Cunningham says. “It’s lame in here, let’s bounce.”

Fat Mike stares me down for a few moments longer, and I finally let go of his handlebars after sliding his front tire toward the door.

He glares at me over his shoulder one more time before rolling out.

“I told you,” Ruth says.

“There are hundreds of people,” I say, kissing her forehead, “we’ll just steer clear of those two.”

* * *

Ruth and I start the ride out by getting near the front of the pack. The big group of bikes completely fills the road, which doesn’t actually grind traffic to a halt, as driving in Manhattan is rarely ever faster than riding a bike.

I can hear Big Mike’s speaker from behind us, and as we ride, the music gets closer and closer.

After ten or fifteen blocks, they are right on our backs. I turn around and see that two of them have seemingly multiplied into ten or so guys. One of them has a rickshaw type thing hooked to the back of his bike, and there are two guys standing up in the back chugging beer out of brown paper bags.

What is supposedly a bike safety event feels a lot more like a giant party on wheels. I’m pretty sure I can even smell someone smoking weed from the middle of the pack. There’s a pack of women biking completely shirtless, which is not illegal in the city, but it definitely draws a lot of eyes as we ride through.

Occasionally someone on a bike from another road will merge in from an intersection, and they are swallowed up into the big bike mob—the critical mass reaching closer and closer toward a total meltdown.

“Let me run point!” Fat Mike shouts as he rushes up past Ruth and me.

She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “I’m not letting that asshole in front again.”

“What happened last time?” I ask.

“He got arrested.”

I laugh. “Maybe that’s good?”

“It makes us all look bad,” she says.

And just as she says it, I see Fat Mike and Cunningham popping wheelies at the front of the pack. The car in front of them brakes, and they slam their fat wheels into the back of the car.

The car stops completely, and the door swings open.

“Get the fuck off my car,” the driver—a twenty-something guy with tattoos—shouts back at them.

Fat Mike jumps off his bike and lifts the handlebars up, slamming his tire back onto the car’s trunk. He bounces the tire up and down and cranks his music up louder. “What?” He shouts, holding his hand up to his ear.

“Jesus,” Ruth says. “Is that the only ‘joke’ he knows?”

The driver gets closer, and Cunningham gets up in his face. “You mad, bro?” He shouts over the music.

Cunningham lifts his handlebars up and holds his front tire out between himself and the driver, blocking him from getting to Fat Mike.

Traffic starts to move again, and most of the cyclists part around the fight happening, though most of Fat Mike’s crew hangs around, pointing and laughing as the driver struggles to get to Fat Mike.

Just as he gets around Cunningham, Fat Mike jumps up onto the car, and he mounts his bike while on top of the car. He peddles just enough to start moving, and he coasts down the front windshield and hood, then drops onto the street in front of the car.

He turns the music down and shouts back, “You’re holding up traffic, bro, now we’re forced to drive over you.”

His crew takes the hint, and they all start jumping on top of his car and riding their bikes over the top.

Of course, they don't actually keep going, they circle back around to taunt the driver some more.

Without realizing what I’m doing, I ride my bike straight into Fat Mike. I pedal hard, gaining as much speed as I can, and I T-bone the shit out of him.

He’s thrown from his bike and slides across the road.

“The fuck, man?” he says, looking up at me.

I see his whole crew circle around me like hungry, but scared, vultures.

“It’s just a joke, bro,” I say, “Can’t you take a joke?”

“Not cool, man,” he says.

I eye the driver, who whispers thanks to me and jumps in his car. He drives off while Fat Mike’s crew focuses its attention on me now.

The two guys in the rickshaw jump out to join the circle.

I look back and see Ruth approaching. I signal for her to stay back, but she moves forward. Behind us, a lot of the other bikers not with Fat Mike have stopped to watch nervously. Some are taking pictures.

Ruth grabs my arm, and I expect her to whisper for me to drop it or to pull away, but instead she shouts at Fat Mike. “You fuckers are ruining Critical Mass for everyone! You’re doing the opposite of what is supposed to happen here!”

“Ruth hiding behind her billionaire boyfriend,” Cunningham says.

“She’s borrowing his balls,” Fat Mike says, pulling his bike back up off the road.

“You’re banned from Critical Mass,” Ruth says. “All of you assholes. You’re using all the people trying to enjoy it as a shield to be dicks. I’d like to see you try this shit when it’s just the ten of you on the road alone.”

A few of Fat Mike’s “crew” shrug and ride away.

“Seven of you now,” I say.

“Alright,” Fat Mike says. “You and Ruth race Cunningham and me. The losers are banned from Critical Mass.”

“You’re on,” Ruth says.

“Alright,” Fat Mike says. “We start in the Southwest corner of Central Park, right by Trump tower, finish-line is the Northeast corner.”

“You’re not allowed to bike through Central Park,” Ruth says.

Fat Mike shrugs. “Critical Mass, bitch.”

I grab Fat Mike by the collar, “What did you call—”

“Sorry!” he squeals. “I call everyone that, it’s not like a gendered slur or some shit.”

“Drop it,” Ruth says, putting a hand on my back. “Let’s just race them.”

I turn around and look at her, “Are you sure we can win?”

She looks at me and then at their bikes. “We have road bikes, they have those stupid fat tires they use to ram into cars. I think we’ve got the speed advantage.”