nineteen; Daniella, Treck commuter

She’s in America studying European history because her native Poland was “suffocating” her.
On arrival, she did a short stint in Santa Cruz, waking up at 5am every day to work in a bakery.
She recounts the ritual of riding to work in a downpour so vividly; I get chills from the timber in her voice alone.
With understandable caution, she wont let me take her picture. Just this month someone tried to mug her on her bike.
“Riding a bike is just like a relationship,” she says, “your in the honeymoon phase now, but just wait until winter.”

eighteen; Rebecca, K2 commuter bike

Cross-legged outside of the Library, she holds her IPhone in the prayer position, as her husband collects books about Buddhism inside.
I can see the fifteen years she spent in Seattle in the color scheme of her weekend wardrobe; all black in the worst heat of August.
I hear her native Berkeley when she advises me to inquire about the true “organic” certification of Farmer’s market venders when looking for a bargain.
Coolly, she smiles when I tell her why I’m asking about her bike (she writes blogging software).
I write this timidly; no doubt she will remember the URL.

seventeen; Aaron, Cannondale Road Bike, aluminum, purple

Given that he once taught English in Korea and Taiwan, that he speaks fluent Spanish and that he “teaches English to rich kids in the city,” its shocking that his Friday night should be the victim of a random act of senseless miscommunication.
His movie missed, his bike locked then unlocked just as quickly.
He watches his girlfriend make it off the BART just as their movie (the reason they came up from Oakland) sells out.
But as soon as he sees her (the reason he moved from Eugene) the evening’s events, or lack there of, seem of little importance.

sixteen; Roberta, Huffy mountain bike (purple)

Passion beams through her every atom; she is a composite sketch of vibrancy bouncing between searching and researching.
Her Brazilian origins were a powerful prerequisite for the PHD she is working on now; it imbues her with an energy that is sincerely cellular.
When I ask her how she deals with the controversy over an issue like evolution back in South America, she laughs and explains that unlike America, fundamentalists are few and far from manipulating science.
She also confesses that the majority of her work is concerned with a small species of lizard; not how man came from monkeys

fifteen; Steve, Surly Fixed Gear (the winter bike)

At five, computers were his AYSO; how he learned to play with others. His parents, both professors, naturally scraped his TV at two.
He refers to going to MIT as when he lived in Boston and started riding a fixed gear.
What he did learn in college was how to interact with people, not how to program interfaces.
“I think, ‘what do I want the user to do’”
He makes his job sound like a Social Psychology experiment, trying to motivate button-pushers to learn, manipulating us through binary and html, imbedding his best intentions from a coffee shop in Berkeley.

fourteen; Jason, Peugeot road bike

He rides the line between wary and weary well; perhaps it’s a little of both.
It must have been something he had to learn in his six years studying in D.C. coming fresh from the Midwest.
He is a balance of functioning opposites; back from South Africa after organizing a traditional dance festival, though I mistake him for a Cal student,
he’s a not-for-profit Entrepreneur, competing for a job in a industry where people are trying to lessen competition and promote upward mobility for the less fortunate.
He loves his new bike, but is anxious about the long ride home.

thirteen; Emily, Huffy mountain bike (Craig's List $80)

She’s why people get nervous about going to Berkeley.
Yet strangely she’s nervous; about starting her graduate work at Cal (though her undergrad is from Columbia), about losing her German (not her Spanish, she was born in Guatemala while one of her parents was doing archeological research), about what she should do with her running (she ran D1 cross-country and track).
She looks at chemistry like college bachelors look at duct tape; it could solve almost any problem.
She dashes between South America’s pollution and the milk she’s getting at Walgreens without skipping a breath,
“I’m thinking about trying triathlons”

twelve; Dr. Robert Meagley, Schwinn Le Tour

Innovatively, he explains what he does three different ways to no avail.
Finally we settle on “inventor.”
As a young man, he devised pitches selling chain-link fence door to door, while studying firecrackers, building lasers and riding on the same bike he’s had for 30 years.
Eventually, he envisioned “future in his passion.”
So he built community college work in Delaware into post-PHD fellowships at Cornell and Berkeley.
Unfortunately, the recession has finally hit bio-nanotechnology;
Investors aren’t looking to gamble on protein detecting microchips,
he still tells me,
“Make what you love, just don’t make your passion a job.”

eleven; James, Surly fixed gear with a front brake

His philosophy undergrad shows when I ask him where he’s from. He explains politely that that is a 30-second question with a 30-minute answer.
After being laid off this summer in DC he took up riding a fix gear bike and a job pedi-cabing.
Strangely though he doesn’t think he could keep up with the campus cycling club,
“I just don’t have the wind for it.”
A smile the size of his Law School loans, a proper button up shirt and a beautiful girl with an accent on his arm;
He wears the heart of Saturday night on his sleeve.

ten; Robb, Steel Schwinn Commuter bike with a new used rear wheel

He wears a coffee shop o’clock shadow and torn jeans with the integrity of a degree in something he’s sure he will never find a job doing.
A certified cinematographer with no desire for L.A., he knows the nuances of Berkeley like a black box one act.
Peddling next to me, he patiently narrates the symbiotic character patterns of the seasons and populace,
“Early summer is bike stealing season.”
He pulls over, dramatically takes his hands off the bars and begins to count.
He needs all the fingers to tally the number he’s had taken in the last few years.

nine; Michael, aluminum fixed gear "Frankenstein"

He looks like he just fell out of Vice Magazine’s “Do’s” list, waiting for his girlfriend to get off work.
On closer inspection however it seems there is integrity to this structure:
economy.
He’d like to study art, like to ride a geared bike; he’d like to drive a car, but Berkeley only gifted him $200 to build his future with this year.
So he settled for architecture, an American Apparel hoodie and a bike with one gear and no breaks.
“Everybody I know with an art degree is looking for a job.”
This is the cornerstone of America’s future.

eight; Daniel, GT Avalanche Mountain Bike

His Austrian accent cellophane wraps his words with mad scientist importance as he explains he is working on a fellowship doing postgraduate research in Material Science; a huge title for a very small thing.
“I study structures smaller than the air you breath. You understand that your bike can support you, but as particles shrink they do not remain proportionally sound. Often they become far stronger ”
Going smaller always seemed right for him in science and in life.
Berkeley, to him, is a structure that works because it’s small; small enough for a bike, small enough for a community.

seven; Casey, Steel Schwinn Commuter ($80 Craig's list)

He wears his Midwest in the shoulders, lumbering around a messenger bag stocked with 50lbs of law books.
He’s spent the last three years doing social work and its apparent in the patience with which listens, the intention in his voice and his willingness to sacrifice.
Gave up the car, the job and self-sustainability for massive student debt and a job in the public sector.
“Effecting change systemically is something I can get passionate about.”
Aggravated by this steel clunker he now rides, he confides,
“I actually started racing six months ago, we’ll see what I have time for now.”

six; Tree, GT Timberline mountain bike

A traveler, Berkeley’s just another stop on the road he does not claim to be driving down (since the law separated him from his license ten years ago).
His hands dance like seaweed in a current around his tools. I believe he can make anything.
“I can build houses, but I’d rather not ruin my body like my Dad.”
He manages to float out, “We are all gods” and “No one is a god” in the same breath, and remarkably, I'm convinced.
A seller of remade broken things, he bends spoons into rings, and makes the eccentric look extravagant.

five; Colleen, steel Bridgstone track bike

When I asked her how she quit her job she said,
“I told them I needed time to study for my MCAT, so they finally decided to fire me for my tattoos.”
In a quarter life crises she gave up the office job for a basement bike shop, business casual for spandex, the water cooler for the velodrome.
She is the human manifestation of her bike; fast, inviting and neon pink. She talks in a language of stem, gear and seat post, I can hardly keep up.
She is what every guy hopes for when he calls up the repair department.

four; Aaron, vintage Schwinn rebuild

Only in Berkeley can someone seriously ask where the beans that brewed their decaff Americano (poured into a stainless steel eco-friendly mug) came from.
He’s thoughtful in his recommendations for bike shops,
“It takes a while to tap into the sole of a store.”
He expresses two issues of guilt; one that he still drives his bio diesel every two weeks and two that he pays the bills with a “joby job” working at a hospital.
He could easily be the subject of a This American Life vignette. “You have to be careful where you choose to plant your ass.”

three; Sverra, IRO fixed Gear

“The only thing I need money for is vinyl, bikes and travel.” Balanced between naïveté and wisdom, between unemployment and another barista gig, between fixed gear and free wheel, his smile reflects the joy of limbo.
His Friday night consists of a seven-mile ride from Oakland, free nachos on Telegraph and a warehouse party, a stretch from his boarding school on the east-cost.
Self proclaimed composer with no instruments, student with no school (“Ya know, whit the state budget cuts and all”) he has been riding bikes so long he actually needs to pause and reflect when I ask him.

two; Ayo, Giant Mountain Bike

Locking his bike to a tree with a 5lb Kryptonite “New York” chain, he’s so Oakland.
He rides a bike because he’s legally blind, thus they “punked” his license. He wears a full-face helmet, gloves and kneepads to the grocery store because after running stoplights and “paying for it” on the roof of a mini-van with a shattered face he just put new forks on his ride.
He’s smiling because he just got his bike out of four-months of “lockdown” for being “pulled over” with a concealed weapon; he no longer needs to walk to pick up his disability check

One; Ron, beach cruser

With a voice like a public radio DJ, he makes a lukewarm insistence that try to walk on his tightrope.
“Its addictive,” he tells me, and the swarm of yoga bodied twenty-something’s hanging around his slack line speaks truth to this.
His long kinked hair, callused feet and patchouli halo mark him as 25 years Berkeley. The façade waivers slightly when I ask him where he went to school (Stanford), and I can hear the rivalry get caught on the T.
He sits behind me on the tightrope, keeping it steady. I ask him what he does,
“I’m a teacher.”