bicycles – Oakland North

Local bicycle shops are dying off in the East Bay. In the last two months, five of them have closed their doors in Alameda County. One of them is Oakland’s Manifesto Bicycles. Owners Sam Cunningham and Mackay Gibbs explain how a decline in bicycle commuting and competition from online retailers affected their business and led…

Last week, BART officials launched a five-day pilot program to see if bikes and people could fit comfortably onto its trains at all times. Now they are asking the public to complete an online survey that seeks to measure whether the experiment was a success.

A bicycle rests on a pole at the Rockridge station

As BART accommodates more bicycles on its trains than ever before—more than 8,000 on weekdays in 2010—riders, bicyclists and transit planners are eyeing the transit system’s bike policy closely.

At the first stop on the bike tour, Linden Street Brewery, Robert Mueller (right) chats with owner Adam Lamoreaux about his beer brewing methods while group leader Karen Hester sips the Burning Oak Black Lager.

At the Eat Real Festival in Oakland’s Jack London Square on Saturday afternoon, crowds of people gathered on the waterfront, queuing up for $4 miniature sweet-potato pies and $5 citrus pork sandwiches on organic, brick oven flatbread. But in front of Bay Area Bikes, four cyclists had a different idea—riding gloves were slipped on, four helmet locks clicked shut, and the group rode away from the food festival to get an inside look at some of Oakland’s local food and drink makers.

At Spokeland, anyone can learn how to fix their ride, with bike tutorial workshops designed for everyone from kids and families to women and transgendered people.

bikers

For the past five years, Fix Without Dix (FWOD), an Oakland-based biking group for girls and transgendered people, has hosted Wednesday night social bike rides throughout the city. Sunday’s race, dubbed “The Tumbleweed Race,” was their first foray into hosting co-ed races, but certainly wasn’t their first time hosting an alley cat race.

Click to see how a fixie works

Bicycles have long been ingrained in the Bay Area’s transportation culture, so it’s no surprise that fixed-gear bikes—single-gear bikes with no rear freewheel, making it impossible for the rider to coast—have found a home in Oakland.

PARKing day participants

Trees, plants, benches and grass (or something like it) popped up around Oakland on Friday on stretches of concrete usually reserved for cars.

Big bikes, small bikes, kid’s bikes and tall bikes — they were all out in force on Sunday. It was Oakland’s first Oaklavía—an event that closed down the Broadway corridor, from Grand Avenue to Jack London Square, to all cars. Bikes, pedestrians, unicyclists and rollerbladers cruised up and down the street checking out the booths and activities on the sidewalks.

Some were in spandex, others in dresses or suits and they rolled into downtown Oakland for Oakland’s 16th Annual Bike to Work Day.

At a West Oakland warehouse, youth build their own custom bike creations – chopper bikes, tandem bikes, cruiser bikes, and sidecar bikes of various shapes and sizes and colors.

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.…

Oakland is full of unique and pretty bikes. Sometimes I like to just ride around the city and see what’s locked up. The other day I saw three different people riding Bob Jackson bikes. A few months ago I posted some photos of bikes I like–I tend to go for vintage frames–and decided to do a…

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…

The same folks that brought you the Oakland Scrape alleycat last year are putting together the Rad Massaker alleycat this Sunday. The race will be throughout Berkeley, Oakland, Piedmont, Richmond, and Albany and will “finish bbq style.” It’s ten bucks and all proceeds go to the local non-profit-Cycles of Change. For those of you who…

I had to do some tinkering on my bike the other day and didn’t have all the tools I needed–so I headed over to the Missing Link Bicycle Cooperative in downtown Berkeley. Their tool library is so cool. You just have to give them an ID and you can work up to two hours on…