Look at the weather forecast for the next four days–Spring has finally arrived. Add in day light savings’ longer days and you’ve got the perfect combo for bike riding. Now, after all those weeks of rain, the hills are green and flowers are everywhere. Sunset rides in shorts, night-time rides without a jacket–it’s weeks like this that living in the East Bay couldn’t be better.

Muddy chain rings, muddy cleats, muddy legs, muddy faces–basically muddy everything. That’s right, last Saturday was the East Bay’s annual mixed terrain alleycat. I went and checked out who was riding, the course and the prizes. It looked like a lot of tough competition. At one point, the guy who won King of the Mountain (which was the top of Tunnel Road) got off his bike and ran up the grassy hill carrying his bike on his shoulder to ensure…

Lately, I’ve been taking pictures of people posing with their bikes. These cyclists seem to put a lot of love and care into their pedaling machines—from the paint jobs, to quirky components to customization. I’m the same way about my vintage Mondonico, so can understand the lengths people go to in order to keep their bikes pretty. Here’s some of my recent photos. And beware, I’m hunting more of you down.

Did anyone see this story in the L.A. Times? In L.A., a group of 20 guys on bicycles surrounded two alleged bike thieves, stripped them down to their boxers and sent them on their way. Pretty funny. The L.A. Police Department says bike theft is on the rise there—up 29% last year, with almost 2000 bikes reported stolen. Yes, it’s L.A., not Oakland, but it seems like bike theft is on the rise here too. Two weeks ago a friend…

After a brief hiatus… your original Keeping it Wheel blogger is back. And now that the clouds have finally parted and the rain has let up–I’m going to be out and about, riding around and looking for all the interesting North Oakland (and sometimes beyond) bike adventures, culture, people and news. Please send in any scoops, ideas, events or photos. And in the meantime, Keep it Wheel.

Next Sunday, while you’re out shopping for pumpkins and tomatoes at the Temescal farmers market, you can also look out for Rick to get a quick, free bike tune-up. He bikes in with all his tools, pumps and work-stand on his hitch and he seems to do it all for the love of bikes–lucky us. Here are a few pictures of the man at work:

It’s the season for swapping and this weekend Walk Oakland Bike Oakland is putting on its Bike Love Festival and Swap Meet. As is the fashion with swap meets, you can search for that rare part you need or buy a whole new bike. There will be bike builders, shops and lone sellers hawking their goods. Dubbed a “swap meet plus,” people can also do an alleycat ride or chip in with the raffle. All proceeds go to Walk Oakland Bike…

Only a dedicated bike lover would forever stencil their body with a bicycle tattoo … and they’re a lot more common than you’d think. I’ve been searching around to find people with bike-related tattoos to put here on Keeping It Wheel. Below are a few recent photos I took of bicycle tattoos and their proud owners. If any of you have some you’d like to show off, please send in your photos.

Every Tuesday evening, dozens of roadies suited up in spandex and cleats head down to the Port of Oakland for the “POO ride.” This ride is not for the everyday bike commuter or even avid weekend rider. It’s as close to a bike race you can get without being in an official race — there are breakaways, sprints, and people getting dropped left and right. The ride entails several loops around the Port of Oakland, a 2.4-mile loop, and the…

Think group garage sale but with a bunch of nice and eclectic bike paraphernalia. It was pretty crowded down at Mosswood Park this weekend as folks set up blankets and laid out their gear to sell. There were a lot of good deals to be had, like bike jerseys for five bucks, but also some serious expensive gear, like the mint condition vintage steel Merckx and Pinarello frames for $900 each.

Once used mostly by messengers for identification in alleycat races, spoke cards have blown up. Although you still get them in alleycats, I now see all sorts of different decorative cards, birthday cards, and gang membership cards. In its bio on spoke cards, Wikipedia has this hilarious explanation on why non-messengers put cards in their spokes: “Other city riders sometimes fix spoke cards to their wheels as an affectation of messenger culture.” The next two weeks the Missing Link is…

From quite a distance down Adeline Street in West Oakland, I could see this multi-wheeled contraption covered in plastic ribbons. It was slowly creeping down the very center of the road, making it easy for me to catch up. I pedaled alongside the man, snapped a few photos and asked him some questions. His name is Milton Butler and he lives in North Oakland. He built up this multi-wheeled bike for fun and last year it won a prize at…

Scraper bikes and their loyal followers (including me) took to the streets of Oakland last weekend. Over 100 people (this is my own unscientific guess) got on bikes and joined the “Healin’ from Killin’” bike ride for peace. With 60 murders in Oakland so far this year, the scraper bike crew wanted to come out and ride against gun violence. We met up at Lake Merritt, circled the lake and cruised up to Broadway, where Baby Champ (aka Da Scraper…