DAILY CAL: A Boy and His Bicycle

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A Boy and His Bicycle
Seen a red and gray 27-speed Diamondback? Contact david@dailycal.org.

By David Pekema
Daily Cal Columnist
Monday, March 14, 2005
Category: Opinion

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I'm not hard to spot in class. I'm that stunningly handsome guy sitting in the front row with a moderate sweat going at 8 a.m., a bicycle helmet dangling from his backpack and grease marks on his right pant leg.

Moving out of the dorms and into an apartment a mile from campus brought numerous changes in my life, among them the need for a bicycle. Sure, I could have just ridden the bus or walked to class, but then I wouldn't have perpetual helmet-hair or well-toned glutes.

The summer before my sophomore year I purchased what was possibly the world's sweetest bike and decked it out with every accoutrement I could find. Arriving in Berkeley with my new ride, I, like a six-year-old finally freed from his training wheels, was looking forward to riding all over town. Unfortunately it did not take me long to realize Berkeley can be a forbidding place to ride a bike.

I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, but having given it significant thought I'm fairly certain the city of Berkeley, in collaboration with the United Parcel Service, has made it their mission to make the lives of cyclists miserable.

It took my bike and me a whopping two days before our first incident. Riding down Bancroft Way toward Ned's I heard a police siren, and upon turning realized I was the offender and no, I wasn't on Candid Camera. Running a stop sign-at a T-intersection mind you-is apparently against the law and worthy of being ticketed. Having ignored signs my whole life, this thought never crossed my mind, but I wasn't about to argue with the officer. My fabulous glutes and I tried to flirt our way out of it, but the officer went ahead and wrote the ticket.

A few weeks went by and I didn't let my brush with the law bother me. That's until I got the notification of my fine in the mail. Expecting a penalty equivalent to what one would get for a parking ticket, I was left aghast at the sum of $143. No, that's not a misprint. One hundred forty-three dollars: That's more than most bicycles in Berkeley would sell for!

This uber-fine would not have bothered me so much if Berkeley were a little more bicycle-friendly. Unfortunately, not a day goes by when I'm not slamming into potholes, forced into a "Ben-Hur"-esque death-match with buses on Bancroft Way or getting flipped off by Volvo-driving maniacs. And if that isn't enough, every time I head for class I'm forced out of one of my precious bike lanes and into traffic by a caravan of two-ton delivery trucks.

And this is where UPS's role in this anti-cycling campaign comes in. I hadn't read this in Business Week, but UPS recently made the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Channing Way its new western distribution center. What other explanation could there possibly be for the four vans I saw simultaneously parked along Channing Way? UPS currently has an advertising campaign featuring the slogan, "What can brown do for you?" I'll tell them what they can do-get the hell off our Bicycle Boulevards.

If the city would work a little harder to keep its bike lanes open for cyclists and deliver bicycle-related information to freshmen, I would not have blamed them for giving me the ticket. Sure there's a Web site on cycling in Berkeley and on campus, but trips to the city's homepage aren't all that common for most freshmen.

And how is it that a town bent on keeping speed-happy cyclists in line could come ridiculously close to making prostitution enforcement a very low priority for law enforcement? Maybe the Police Department should spend more time watching the bicycle racks to make sure students' bikes are still there when they get out of class.

During that same magical semester I was one of the lucky 200-plus students who had their bikes stolen off the UC Berkeley campus. That's right-in the span of four months I got a $143 ticket and had my bike stolen. That $143 could have gone a long way towards installing a security camera for the racks in front of Moffitt Library.

I eventually and reluctantly got a new bike, but was left feeling that this city is giving its cyclists a real lube job.

OK, so I like to complain about biking in Berkeley, but I still ride everywhere I go-I'm pretty sure I'm the only cyclist in town that stops at every stop sign. Cycling is a great recreational activity and in this city it's the ultimate form of transportation. Like that legendary Queen song goes, "Fat-bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round," or more to the point, "I want to ride my bicycle."

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