Moonlightmass, the monthly full moon social bicycle ride through Green Point has been cancelled indefinitely by the City of Cape Town. I remember the time founder Dan first told me about it and on the inaugural event only a few dozen riders pitched up. That was back in January 2012. Now it has become the biggest social ride in Africa with over 4000 riders regularly turning up each month to take part.
As it stands…the next scheduled moonlightmass ride on 17 November will no longer take place as the event permit has been withdrawn.
Here’s the end of the letter from the City of Cape Town that Moonlightmass organisers recieved recently.
You can read the full letter and the reasons why it was cancelled HERE.
Moonlighmass has responded with the following.
“RESPONSE TO CITY STATEMENT 11/11/13 : 21:50
Trying to keep #moonlightmass as a social fun ride, we did not share the challenges of negotiating with the city with our community. We did it to prevent the ride from becoming a protest or statement ride. We wanted to maintain the purity of #moonlightmas.
From our first meeting with the city officials, it became clear to us that they could not rap their heads around this unique ride. We were questioned how it is possible to cycle while wearing jeans, how is it possible for hundreds of people to cycle through the city without littering, no water points and no toilet faculties… it just didn’t make sense to the officials.
At no point did we plan for the ride to become a rebel movement and from the moment the city summonsed us to discussed #moonlightmass in April 2012 we accepted and attended every single meeting in order to bridge and address all safety issues rising from this community driven ride.
For the sake of transparency here are the details of the meetings we had with city officials:” [Read more HERE]
Rather sad to see the event being cancelled, but the city’s concerns are understandable.
Hopefully they can work things out and come to agreement.
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