The city’s Critical Mass crackdown has apparently reduced the number of participants — or maybe it was the weather. Either way, the spirit and ingenuity of the riders remains intact.

According to BikeBlog, rather than succumb to the scooter cop horde like "lambs to the slaughter," cyclists gathered for Friday’s mass decamped from Union Square, walked their bikes to the 4 train, and regrouped on Broadway for an unmolested ride.

Ironically, the group was too small to be in violation of the new permit law, yet officers still pursued the cyclists underground with "erratic fervor" to question them as to whether they had swiped their MetroCards. One rider was reportedly issued a summons for taking his bike through an exit door.

Other than that, we were scot-free.

As we headed up Church St. towards Canal, it seemed that a lot more people knew who we were. There was a lot of friendly supportive honking from motor vehicles and crowd waving. We stayed mostly downtown and our numbers grew a little as others joined in and meet up from Union Square…I still think we were always just under 50…so we were technically legal.

It was a successful critical mass…no tickets, no arrests and no cops.

Video: Time’s Up! and Team Spider via BikeBlog