Yes, the elusive wheelie (is that the right word to describe wheelies? Probably not, but just go with me). A while back, a friend sent me a YouTube link to a video of a group of guys riding bikes with quick release front wheels — they’d get pedaling to top speed then do a wheelie letting the front wheel roll to the side.  They’d continue riding on what seemed like these makeshift unicycles for blocks until their speed petered out…

In honor of Manifesto Bicycles celebrating it’s official one-year birthday today, I’m posting these outtake photos from the article I wrote last month. Happy anniversary!

I was recently riding down Powell Street towards Emeryville and noticed a ghost bike on the corner of Vallejo Street. This is one of the first ghost bikes I’ve seen in Oakland. I did some research and found out it was for Matthew Sperry, a musician who was killed by a distracted driver while riding his bicycle to work on June 5, 2003. When Matthew was killed there was a public outpouring of grief. There were protests, memorial concerts and…

My friend Chris McNally is an illustrator who lives in San Francisco and loves riding, racing, fixing and collecting bikes. (It’s almost bordering on obsession.) Lately, he has been making these screen prints of vintage bicycles and bicycle parts. They are big, around 15″ x 20″, and really beautiful. You can check out more prints on his website and even buy them at Bicycle Odyssey in Sausalito. These are a few of my favorites:

Recently, I stopped by the Edible Schoolyard, a garden and kitchen classroom at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. Here, students learn how to garden and find out about where we get our daily food. As part of this project, they’ve built a wheat-grinder out of an exercise bicycle. Kids can get on and ride while grinding the wheat for their homemade pizza crust at the same time. Here are some photos I took:

  Good morning! It looks like it’s getting a little more crowded here in Oakland. The population in every Bay Area county grew last year for the first time since 2000 according to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Alameda County added an estimated 20,722 residents. An Oakland man who is a member of the Surenos street gang is accused of raping a 13-year-old girl, according to police. He sent her threatening text messages while she was undergoing…

  Good morning Oakland North! It isn’t a big news day today; the top story is that the Oakland City Council deadlocked over funding for children and youth during their meeting Tuesday night. The city cannot afford the funding mandated by Measure OO, passed by voters in November, and the council cannot decide what to do. They didn’t agree to repeal Measure OO nor did they vote for a compromise that allows at least moderate funding increases for youth programs….

As a follow-up on my “missing pieces” post with photos of bikes with stolen parts, I’m dedicating this post to poorly locked bikes. I can’t believe how many bikes I’ve seen that aren’t locked up well. The biggest offenders are people who lock just the wheel. The Missing Link Bicycle Co-op reports on their website (with clever statistics) that, “Unfortunately, the Bay Area is among the worst areas worldwide for bike theft — over 4 billion bikes are stolen every…

I went down to Lake Merritt last weekend with my friend Jack Woodruff to shoot this audio-profile video of him working his recession-time gig as a street musician. He has played acoustic guitar for 12 years. Recently he had shoulder surgery and since he’s having a hard time finding a job in the service industry, he decided to pass some time as a street musician. When we pulled up to Lake Merritt, I noticed that it was fairly empty except…

  Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Kaiser Permanente, the Oakland health maintenance organization, is cutting 860 information technology jobs nationwide. About 130 of the 260 employees at the Walnut Creek center will be affected by the job cuts. Ex-1970s radical, Sara Jane Olson, was freed from prison in Chowchilla, California. She plead guilty and served seven years for placing pipe bombs under Los Angeles Police Department patrol cars and participating in a robbery of a Sacramento bank while she in the…

  Good Monday, The U.S. Department of Labor gave a $1.9 million grant to the new San Francisco Bay Area Clean Energy Career Project (BayCEC) last fall, which will train more than 250 students in clean energy careers such as solar installation, green marketing, and energy auditing and retrofits for homes and offices starting this summer and are free for laid-off participants. Five teens escaped from a San Mateo County juvenile detention facility but have been put back in custody…

  Good morning! There’s not a lot of news this Sunday. A 42-year-old Oakland man was killed during what appeared to be a robbery early Saturday morning. Police found Gustavo Martinez on the street on 33rd Avenue suffering from at least one gunshot wound. He was the 14th homicide in Oakland in 2009, less than half the 30 homicides this time last year. If you have an extra $2 million lying around you can buy the oldest home in Piedmont,…

  It’s the weekend! Former tree-sitter and Oakland man, Tristan Anderson, 38, was wounded Friday in the West Bank village of Naalin, during a protest against Israel’s separation barrier. He was hit in the forehead with a fist-sized canister fractured his skull. The Oakland A’s have decided to keep on looking for a new home. “We have fully exhausted our time and resources over the years with the city of Oakland, dating back to previous A’s ownership,” said A’s co-owner…

Inside Bay Area reports that a 37-year-old bicyclist is on life support and is not expected to survive after being struck by a car early Thursday morning on a busy Hayward overpass. Scary stuff. They also have a link to this interactive map they’ve created:  

  Good morning, North Oakland! The Chron’s Oakland columnist, Chip Johnson, reports that major crimes – particularly killings – have subsided so far this year just as more officers and new outreach workers have been deployed in the city. Since Jan. 1, felony crimes against people and property have dropped 23 percent; homicides alone decreased by 50 percent, to 14 slayings from 29 over the same period a year ago and robberies fell by 16 percent during the same period,…

This sweet couple is keeping it wheel with matching bikes they built up themselves: