Made it to my first mayor's reception on Friday and weee whoooo was it
f u n! And with all the energy that big power Car Free Berkeley
Councilman Kriss Worthington was able to put together on such notice, I
can see why Berkeley is far ahead of the curve where accommodating its
cyclists is concerned. I say short notice because the ride to Oakland
evolved out of discussions that I had had with Kriss just two days
before. And getting to Berkeley to see how much has changed and why it
has changed since I used to bike its streets nearly two decades ago,
is due in large part to Wes Anthony. Wes drove me and my tandem trike
the 75 miles (2 hrs worth of driving) from Santa Cruz in the van he
uses to move his musical equipment around. And not only did Wes bring
me up for the mayor's festivities but as one of the top sax players on
the West Coast, Wes is both playing our Festival
http://www.nationalbicyclegreenway.com/Events/Festival
for free with
his band Banneda Togetha, as well as supplying the sound system that
all of the musicians and speakers will be using next Sunday August 17
at a huge discount. Wow.
And when Wes and I got there, late due to freeway traffic , the
Berkeley City Hall steps were covered with cyclists. Some of the buzz
centered around the beautiful Hi Wheelers (3) that the Rideable
Replicas <http://hiwheel.com>
people brought out. And at 6'3" almost
hiding behind all the excitement that Greg, Adam and Mike's show
stopping machines created was Mighty Jim Muellner on his stealth ground
hugging tricycle that had been the unequivocal star of 12 city mayor's
receptions before.
The results producing Berkeley Friendly Bike Coalition
(http://bfbc.org)
was well represented with more people than I had time
to meet And NBG TransAm Hall of Famer, Max Chen was there. At the
center of the 25 or 30 people that were there (not all of them got in
the group photo) was a man in whose eyes you can see the love he has
for the people he represents. The man to whom I refer is Berkeley
Mayor Tom Bates. And it was easy to see why he remains the subject of
so much media attention for his sleeping with the homeless near the
beginning of the year. He really cares.
I learned from Kriss that back in the 60's when Berkeley was the first
American city to take back its streets with traffic diverters
(barricades and speed bumps) that Mayor Bates and his wife Assembly
member Patricia Bates were at the front of the charge. And here now 40
years later when cities across the US are struggling to calm their
traffic, the Berkeley I saw on Friday was peaceful and tame.
On our 6 mile ride to Oakland we passed thru a number of quiet
neighborhoods lined by massive shade trees. Many of the streets on
which Sara Syed, one of the Berkeley traffic commissioners sent our Hi
Wheel leaders on had been deemed as official Bike Boulevards, complete
with signage both on the street itself and on 8 foot tall signs. If you
want to see what some of them look like, go to:
(http://www.nationalbicyclegreenway.com/gallery).
And as I rolled along I reflected back on my youth riding in Berkeley.
In the 60's despite being always in the news for its politically
correct unrest and being ahead of the curve on many leading edge
movements such as free speech, world peace, non nuclear proliferation,
open space preservation in the form of the People Park riots, health
food awareness, paranormal studies led by the Berkeley Psychic
Institute, Eastern thought and etc, little if any attention was given
to the efforts of its cyclists. All this at a time when one of the
best bike shops in the Nation, Velo S****t
(http://www.shopinberkeley.com/v/velo),
was selling state of the art
bikes that were getting pushed further and further into the beautiful
hills that I myself used to train on for my 1979 crossing of America.
This was so because all the turbulence of the times brought cars to
the university and to the protests and all the organization that
preceded them. To make matters worse, the hippy homeless abounded in
their VW vans and dilapidated school buses You just did not ride a bike
in what is still referred to as the Berkeley flats. WoW has Berkeley
changed!!
On the way out of town on the freeway, we passed under a bike/ped only
bridge that connects most of Berkeley with its waterfront. And
directly adjacent to I-80, right along the edge of the San Francisco
Bay was yet another bike path!! I managed to get a photo of it. It's
also at our gallery.
Seeing all the change that has taken place inspires me. It gives me
great hope. It shows that if we stay the course, that one by one and in
time two by two and etc, we can make it a better America for those of
us on two wheels!! Thank you Berkeley for coming so far and to the
Berkeley Friendly Bike Coalition for keeping the pressure on to move
your city toward being a model cycling community!
Yahooooo!!
btw: San Francisco today, Monday, and then we get to how much Palo
Alto honors its cyclists on Wednesday followed by San Jose and Santa
Cruz on Friday!!
--
MARTIN KRIEG: "Awake Again" Author c/o BikeRoute.com
79 & 86 TransAms, nonprofit Nat. Bicycle Greenway CEO
Ever wanted anything so bad U were willing to die for it?
Really die? By moving thru clinical death and reversing
paralysis, *I saw God* when I answered that question.
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