forty-nine; Daniel, Road Bike (little brothers)

He’s holding a healthy chunk of man’s most precious commodity (time) and it’s burning a hole in his pocket.
He’s got time; to decide on a major (History or Econ), to sit up until 5am writing fanatically about protest, to follow the evening without (much) regard for midterms.
He’s thinking of letting his days in speech and debate “die with high-school”, but he still holds an intrinsic ability to speak intelligently (or not at all).
Berkeley was a choice he made over a beer and a professor’s turn of phrase,
“He just said it perfectly, just at the perfect time.”

forty-eight; Tristan, Ibis Cyclocross bike

He’s a grower: of plants, of family, and of future.
The independent landscaping business sprouted from necessity (his lady was having twins),
“It all changes when you have kids.”
The triathlons stopped somewhere around then.
But that was four years and a few community colleges ago.
Now he commutes to Cal from Oakland for a program in agricultural architecture and races Cyclo-Cross (he probably likes the dirt more, anyways).
The kids in day care, the Lady at work for a non-profit in the East Bay, he’s loading up on a little warmth and caffeine for a night of building trees.

forty-seven; Becca, K2 Commuter

With a Masters in Anthropology from SFSU, it only makes sense that she would become an educational culinary entrepreneur.
“I was fascinated with people and essentially food is people.”
A love for culture drove her to Mexico where she gleaned the only ‘formal’ training in cooking she’s received.
Tonight she was in the city for Yom Kippur service.
Though imbued with an inspired curry, apparently it missed the spot and it’s looking to be a long twenty-five hours until this can be reconciled.
Until then, she modestly recites the fine art of banana-leaf wrapped tamales for me (free of charge).

forty-six; Gabriel, Red Commuter

He’s spiked and studded, friendly and faithful.
We laugh about the ironies of Berkeley’s “liberal free speech” attitude as he walks to grab dinner for his lady,
“Like say whatever you want, as long as it agrees with them.”
Exhausted from hosting an all day card game, it looks like he’s going to miss the Dead and Gone show tonight.
He’s heading to San Jose in the morning for his sisters wedding, but he commits to a few minuets for me.
Kindly he invites me to bike polo in Oakland (they’ve got loaner mallets)
“My other bike is a skateboard.

forty-five; Barrett, Ten-Speed Road Bike

Flipping through discarded books and vinyl under a street light on his way home from practice, he feels that he really started to grow once his options were stripped down (referring to playing in a two-piece band on a borrowed kit).
His band is named after the giant squid and there’s truly something epic within him.
“The best work I’ve done has been shorts stories about my life.”
On paper he’s a philosophy major; in practice, a drummer; in spirit, a writer.
Under no delusions about his future, he knows that no one is hiring philosophers (not in this economy).

forty-four; Kyle, Mountain Bike (brand new, way more fun than a road bike)

It’s a toss up between civil and mechanical, but it is most definitely engineering.
Freshmen year is full these new definitions.
The kind that changes the way he perceives time,
“Fifteen minuets or an hour.” (Referencing to how long it takes to get to his hometown to grab essentials like…cereal).
“We’re getting started at 11pm.” (Referencing his bike ride).
He’s designing a human powered vehicle for competition and he thinks he wants to go into alternative energy.
I assume then that his eyes are on the future, but he his smile assures me that he is thoroughly enjoying the present.

forty-three; Peter, Mongoose, Mountain Bike

He left New York in the Navy, but kept it in his handshake.
He hopped from Georgia to Japan, from San Diego to Tahoe, from the Yankees to the A’s, from an intro Anthropology class at community college to molecular biology Berkeley.
He is the kind of man who earned his beard and the right to a G.I. bill side by side.
He’s in his last year at Cal, and when I ask him what he wants to do next he takes a contemplative deep sigh loaded connotation and offers up,
“Probably take a break.”
I’d say he deserves it.

forty-two; Valerin, Sister's Mountain Bike (a loan)

He’s Bay biking to the bone.
Not spandex clad entitlement; not fixed-gear fashionista; not even “gave up my car” commuter.
He’s never known the indulgences of personal petroleum powered transportation.
He runs a bike valet operation out of a shop in Oakland.
“Seemed like a good way to help people who weren’t driving.”
He’s sporting the wariness of a man who just had to ask his sister if he could borrow her bike because his was stolen (U-lock and all) from the S.F. BART station.
“Strangest feeling, you think, ‘I guess I parked it somewhere else.’”
It’s ‘us vs. them’

forty-one; Brittany, Vintage Cruiser with coaster brakes

Working at a corporate second hand store, riding a power-generating second hand bike, she’s making Berkeley new (to her at least).
It’s a far sketch from her hometown in Sonoma where she fell for the idea of high school art teacher in a big city.
She studies the ancient art of portraiture at a cutting edge design school, painting nuance onto the tight canvas and denim of her hipster contemporaries.
She is a neoclassic rock star.
For now she has to be taught (and re-taught) the tedious technique of vintage T-shirt on coat hanger,
You can’t spell retail without art.

forty; Enrique, Steel Single Speed (flip-hub rear wheel)

Walking out of church at 10:45pm he’s a solid wholesome 6’2” 190lbs.
He remarks that it’s fitting I should meet him on the 40th night.
I ask him if he missed morning mass because of a big Saturday night and he tells me that he was working graveyard for the campus escort service, walking people home too scared to go alone.
I ask if he meets a lot of interesting people that way and he tells me they’re usually drunk and disappointed when he shows up on a bike instead of a car.
It’s no surprise that he’s studying Law.

thirty-nine; Renne, Steel Road Bike

It’s been a long road to Biology at Berkeley but he’s a traveler: first Jersey then Colorado, first a skateboard, then a bike.
He’s been in California so few years that he doesn’t need a full hand to count them. It’s already starting to itch like cat fur under the collar.
A vegetarian studying to be a Veterinarian, he’s not the type to throw himself under a buss to save a squirrel.
Driven to a point, he shuts it off at eleven, letting me know he needs to run to ketch his girl and the tail end of the weekend.

thirty-eight; Morgan, Dad's Old Red Steel Commuter

Waiting for his friends on the fringes of campus, he says this year is going considerably better than the previous three.
He goes to one of those “transitional” high schools that you read about in the newspaper and suddenly feel better about paying your taxes.
He speaks insightfully about the problematic structure and focus of public education in America.
I ask him how he likes his school and he tells me,
“It would be better if it weren’t in Piedmont, its hard to relate when every other car is a Mercedes or a Lexus. That’s just not the real world”

thirty-seven; Duncan, Red Peugeot Road Bike

We talk coffee shop connoisseur and he professes his preference for the lighter grind and thicker grit of the off campus café a block away.
Bright but not overbearing, he feverishly juggles notes, laptop and books, with a unique style nuanced by caffeine and intellectual adrenaline.
Though he transferred from Calabasas two and a half years ago, he rocks carless co-op living like an East Bay native.
Majoring in Philosophy, he humbly settles on my simple definitions for epistemology (“Like thinking about thinking?”) and metaphysics (“Like thinking about why thing happen?”).
Clearly he is well studied in being a student.

thirty-six; Emma, Nashiki Road Bike

Though she’s Bay by birth, it must be hard to transition back after finishing up her Psychology degree at Vassar three months ago.
Working two jobs (the Bike Coalition in SF and a Thai Restaurant Berkeley) she shockingly still has strength to provide me with a handful smiles.
She has the San Francisco commute Cinderella syndrome; at midnight the BART turns back into a pumpkin.
Understandably skeptical of my intentions, she asks more questions than she answers.
“Do you really have a blog?”
She lets it linger like a philosophical proposition.
I blush, responding with the URL of a Philistine.

thirty-five; Craig, Shwinn Super Sport

Every move on the soccer pitch has a myriad of motivations, but one essential catalyst; Berkeley was always the goal, she just happened to be the ball.
That shot being gone (along with San Diego and school) now his love is for the game.
Recently hired at an indoor soccer club, he talks about the sport with the pride and presence of a sixteen-year veteran (skipped AYSO and started with heavy competition first).
I ask if he’s serious about tryouts for the international league and his friend smiles,
“I wake up at 6am most Saturday just to watch a match.”

thirty-four; James, Lemond Road Bike with Aro-Bars

The sweat on his brow has more to do with focus than fatigue.
The three-mile ride to make last call at a coffee shop is a speed bump compared to this summer’s ride across the country for cancer.
He was riding for a reason, not just completion.
He’s driven.
One lecture at Johns Hopkins about the way one relearns the meaning of images after brain trauma and he was hooked.
He watches from the back of the brain and determines what people see by how they think.
At Berkeley he studies the “why” of vision; he’s already completed the “how”.

thirty-three; Cara Shea Eberhardt, White Steel Fixed Gear

She’s a self-diagnosing psych major.
Nashville Ivy League by birth (her parents worked at Vanderbilt), Berkeley by choice (she had the grades and connections to go anywhere) and Brooklyn by summer internship, she is academia incarnate.
She spent a solid four hours neck deep in case studies this morning so she could cook dinner for her Roommates tonight, and her advice to me is to worry less.
Her house is one of reputation; with ten people living there every outing becomes revelry, every dispute an epic battle, and every meal a banquette (and there’s a guy living in the closet…literally).

thirty-two; Chris, Lemond Road Bike (for now)

A house full of Saturday night and he’s upstairs working on Monday morning.
Formerly the president Penn State’s cycling team, he doesn’t ride for Cal, he says,
“Because I go to school now.”
When I ask him why he chose Berkeley for Grad School he just smiles for a while and then jokingly tells me it was for the weather (he responds similarly way when I ask him if he’s competitive).
Clearly preoccupied with second floor computations, he only steps down stairs for coffee.
I spent four hours studying today; around him I feel a little guilty I stopped there.

thirty-one; Jim Black Cannondale Road bike

He rides up next to me with a thoughtful prudence that’s often mistaken for unnecessary caution; he’s smart not scared.
Smart is continuing to work in Journalism after establishing twenty years of solid contacts, but still studying up on software programming (“Newspapers are dead”).
Smart is stopping racing before it stopped him (he used to be Cat-1).
Berkeley Alumni, he loads my head with so many contacts and internships I have to turn off my ipod.
“I used to live to ride, now I ride to eat,” he yells “I don’t descend fast anymore, I have AYSO games to attend.”

thirty; Bird, Schwinn Beach Cruiser

We both confess that we don’t accomplish enough in a day, but I’d argue that she’s done quite a bit.
In Cusco, she missed Machu Picchu but caught a stay in a squat with some Peruvian punks promoting the rights of indigenous peoples.
In the Bay, she works twenty-hour weeks at a coffee shop, lives in a house Named Hell(arity) with thirty other people and volunteers for Food Not Bombs.
She’s got a thing for the hand-made and tells me to write Zines, not Blogs, and suddenly she flies off to read the backs of documentaries at the video store.

twenty-nine; Eric, Dad's hand me down road bike

The leap he made up the coast looks small when compared with the grin on his face barreling down a Berkeley hill after a class on Scrabble strategy at Cal.
He’s riding on nerves and anticipation; he’s just been told this will be the harshest reality shock of his academic life.
A third year transfer from Pasadena community college, he’s not here by accident, this is an example of the system actually working.
We coast side by side, he kicks a watermelon thrown into the gutter and we both confess to feeling the heavy head wind of rolling alone here.

twenty-eight; Peter, Black Vintage 10-speed

When we raise money to throw at some disease, this is one of the people who ketches it.
Shockingly, we both buy groceries at the same place.
He’s a Biological Physicist, doing research and working on his P.H.D. at Berkeley, writing genetic code; from DNA to RNA to Protein.
“I just thought it was interesting…” he says, “well, I kind of think everything is interesting.”
He’s got Ivy League in his every cell.
I ask him what he wants to do when he grows up, and he replies with the only practical thing I can think of,
“Become a Professor.”

twenty-seven; Senator Christopher Franco, Specialized Road Bike

Note: avoid asking Rhetoric majors to define Rhetoric.
He’s oddly wholesome, buying over-priced milk at 11pm on a holiday weekend.
There’s something unsettlingly car-salesmen in his concern when I tell him about the Cycling teams recent suspension.
“This sounds like a rather draconian way to deal with this situation, perhaps I can help.”
He assures me that it was with the sincerest altruistic passion that he decided to be the student liaison for his dorms and later to run for his position as ASU Senator.
I’m sure it’s not at all related to the compiling of his Law School résumé.

twenty-six; Nick, Vintage 10-speed (first day)

He’s a different kind of learner; feels that the world has more to offer than any classroom.
A self taught photographer, years ago he traveled through Portland and Seattle shooting bands, but settled back in Oakland. He says its for the weather but I can sense its people, which he describes using words that I would use to describe a blanket (“comfy,” “warm,” “soft”)
He’s endeared to nostalgia; rides a vintage bike, wears Buddy Holly framed glasses, and pays bill in trade and skill.
He has a genuine disposition that is from a better time: looks hipster, but lives hippy.

twenty-five; Kat, Black Centurion Road Bike-14 speed

Colleges were made so that people as creative as her could drop out of them.
She’s a rebuilder: going to Tech school learning how to weld, strapping kitty liter to the back of her play-it-again racer with a trashed tube (actually biting through it in an act of sheer engineering brilliance).
She has unabashedly started and restarted her adult life a handful of times, circa Seattle, circa New York, circa Berkeley.
She works in a bike shop (nine hours a day, six days a week), saw BOTCH play when she was twelve and laughs at my jokes; a true badass.

twenty-four; Bill, Lemond 21 speed road bike

Sipping High Life at an Oakland Art Murmur, he’s where artists go when they get tired of starving; community college graphic design.
His art is transcendental in theory but transparent in practice, and though he describes his “works” for fifteen minutes I can only piece together that they have something to do with cars…maybe.
I think he sees the world through his neon orange colored glasses.
Though he’s out alone in the cold, staring sourly at the star filled eyes of hundreds of hipsters, he tells me,
“I just met this girl, see, and we’ve got everything we need.”

twenty-three; Teresa, Black Mountain Bike

She’s as genuine as the calluses she earned pushing pencils in community college for the past two years.
Obliging but not foreword, she explains that she's a functioning Christian, apparently it runs in the family (her mother moved the two of them from New Mexico to run an incapacitated fellowship out of the ground).
She decided to study civil engineering because she has a passion for people and water (and she doesn’t like writing essays).
In spite of the doubts of those closest to her, she’s floating on fresh admittance to Cal,
“Coming here is a matter of pride for me.”

twenty-two; Jose, aluminum single speed with reversible rear hub

“I make choppy problems that my characters solve, like a tiny body that needs to open a huge door”
An eighteen year-old computer animator who never learned to illustrate figures, he’s starting from scratchpad.
His small hands draw his way into the giant gates of Art School aspirations, one community-college class at a time.
Uninformed of the storyboard he needed to follow to get into CalArts, he was just taking it frame by frame.
We chat the classics, waiting for his ride back to Richmond,
“There’s emotion in every move the 7-dwarves make.”
He’s starting to see the big picture.

twenty-one; Shayne, Steel fixed gear

He tries to pedals but his legs are as heavy as two-ton tree trunks after Oscar’s Burgers closes before he can order. His face is long with the prospect of riding back to Oakland on empty.
I’m a bit shocked that he stops to talk to me considering the effort he needs just to cross the street.
He dons heavy hipster garb yet absent the ironic snap and sneer that I expect; in fact he’s downright pleasant.
Patient with my questioning though not forthcoming,
He’s on the Dole so I point him to the $2 Thai joint I visit nightly.

twenty; Danielle, Fuji mountain bike

She’s the accumulated grind of three years of university, waiting in agony to start her long night in the studio. She can’t stand to write anymore; lost the patience to make subject and verb dance to the song of story.
She no longer can stomach a lecture,
“I have to eat something or chew on an erasure just to get through a class.”
She’s so far from the beginning (a private school in The Valley), yet so far from the end (a degree in urban design).
Soon she will paint civics, but tonight she has to sit through the prerequisites