one-hundred; Blake, Schwinn Premis

Sartre once said, “Every age has it’s own poetry.”
He’s just trying to hear it.
If journalism is dead then he’s a gravedigger.
If the Internet is pushing people away, then he’s pulling them back.
He’d like to think people read what he writes, but realizes he’s painting sepia-tone in a Technicolor world.
When he grows up, he wants to be a good son, a decent friend and a competent speller (can’t blame a guy for dreaming).
Foreign here, he’s always home where someone’s telling him their story.
He’s ridden awhile, and tonight this looks like a good stopping place

ninety-nine; Amber Bob and Ripple (the dog), Mountain Bike

The world often appears divided into binaries; black/white, giver/taker…
She’s a testament to the beauty of grey.
Her basket loaded with clothes for donation, she watches kids and teaches people how to weave hemp jewelry, (like Ripple’s collar, holding a cork-sized capsule with a personal message replacing dog-tags).
She got into FNB because, she “needed to eat, they were vegan.”
She gives back with her homegrown vegetables.
Family brought her back to Berkeley, though traveling peppered her heart across the states.
She even shares with her atmosphere, carrying tiny speakers flavoring the streets with a taste of 1967 era Beatles.

ninety-eight; Chris Perry, Bianchi Fixie

In order to define themselves, every generation simultaneously looks to and rejects the past.
He recognizes ours is an epoch without a voice,
We’re constantly denying our one element of unifying identity (the evasive “hipster”),
And that “now” is pretty cool and worth documenting as it’s happening, not in some Ken Burns retrospective 20 years afterword.
This outlook made him quit Cal Polly for the love of school,
Quit culinary school for the love of food, to make pancakes at a greasy spoon.
He says, “there will always be time,” tattooing T.S. Elliot to his sleeve,
“Life is very long.”

ninety-seven; William, Trek Mountain Bike

He repeatedly removes and replaces the lid to his coffee cup as though it’s a metaphysical quandary he’s debating.
Coffee is the ambrosia of intellectuals,
And his with his lineage, it must have been in his baby formula.
In some families all the children must go to war; in his they go to Cal.
He’s traveled more countries than US states (“Like 20 or 30?”),
Knows the bitter of Danish licorice and the sour of Hungarian textiles,
Insightful and informed, yet he lacks the predictable pompous of inbred academia.
He listens more than he interjects,
tastes more than he gulps.

ninety-six; Amos, Maroon Cruiser with fenders

He says that writing software is just like anything else;
Once you’ve been doing it long enough, it becomes natural.
“Just memorize the pattern of movements, and repeat.”
He says the same thing about juggling,
(apparently he’s good enough to have moved from tennis balls to the two-foot clubs hanging out of his backpack).
His outlook is more nurture than nature,
Though he draws the line at Rubik’s cube,
“I’ve never been able to do it.”
He’s seems to enjoying life the way our grandparents want us to,
He likes his job, his friends, his Sundays and his Hawaiian Burgers.

ninety-five; Jeff, Craig's List Cruiser

No, he did not go to the game,
But he is the after party.
He’s running with a rowdy pack of Saturday night, two 24oz Bud Lights, some skateboards and a genuinely genuine disposition.
Apparently he’s in sales and distribution of some sort, but he cant say much about his product.
Oakland is where he landed after Germany, though he discloses little more than that.
He’s playing with the idea of community college in S.F…but he’s also playing with the idea of buying a Kombucha (the green one apparently).
In line at the liquor store ,everyone is victim to impulse.

ninety-four; Francois, Mountain Bike

“It’s a book called the Bible, you may have herd of it, it’s written by God,”
He’s referencing the copy of Gideon’s in his chest pocket.
He’s not a Christian,
He’s just a well-read socialist, as was Christ.
The book is for research on a story he’s writing about Job’s wife,
“She really got the short end of the stick, on the whole sin thin thing.”
It’s been a little while since art-school, but he’s finding time to sculpt and animate.
He talks about media with realistic insight that’s rather prophetic for a guy who’s still publishes words on paper.

ninety-three; Lorenc, Black Commuter with Fenders

In Switzerland, children spend two weeks of every school year on a ski trip as part of their physical education,
They learn Swiss, German, French and English,
They fall in love on vacation, and travel to America, bouncing around the most elite Economic Universities in the world.
They study the most interesting Global Political Economic crisses in the past 100 years in the eye of the storm.
They settle on Berkeley for the weather…
Or at least he did.

ninety-two; Ewa, Bike

She’s wanted in her mother country of Poland for,
“Playing and dancing the streets, much like a child.”
Secretive, she only says what is asked of her;
She is in America to do some reading, she’s here indefinitely and if we are going to talk, it can only be about bikes.
She tells me about Polish critical mass, about laying down Astroturf and kiddy-pools in the middle of intersections,
She speaks of the ridiculous lengths the government went to in order to cover up a DIY bike lane painted by renegade cyclists.
She tells me all this and nothing more.

ninety-one; Kevin, Mountain Bike

Smiling over a postgame slice of veggie-laden pizza, he subtly discloses his ambitions for his MBA,
“I plan on going into renewable energy.
I want to change the world.”
He’s aware of the cost of his time here, but unlike many, he turns it to fodder, utilizing all his resources (be it international, elite-level business model competitions, or a soccer field and a nightcap at the campus bar).
His passion seems clean burning and sustainable,
His Teammates and a few Girls dressed for the mid-week holiday pull him into the bar.
A true gentleman, he bids me to join in.

ninety; Alex, GT Mountain Bike

There are those who drift through college, with a rough idea of a job doing something kind of enjoyable after wondering a while in the post collegiate glow….
… not his story.
Didn’t finish high school?
Not a problem, once he plotted it out;
Major in Macro Economics, do a semester at Cambridge Senior year,
Post graduation; go directly into the importing and exporting of calcium carbonate from Guatemala.
There are skeletons in everyone’s past, he decided to burry his.
All his math classes are old school pencil, paper and brainpower.
I guess you’d say he has a ruff sketch.

eighty-nine; Nick, Cannondale Mountain Bike

In Romania, while in the Peace Corps, he helped polish the character of a small town until it shown bright enough to attract the lightning-bug buzz of international tourism.
Now he’s driven by his passion for history (initially he wanted to teach it) to guide tours across the world.
He acknowledges the potential exploitation of indigenous culture,
“Its an inevitability of a global village,” he tells me,
“It’s about the intentions of those involved.”
His, clearly, are pure.
He’s studying for the GRE, and though he doesn’t know what he wants to do, he’s definitely capable of finding his way.

eighty-eight; Brad, Black Fixie, (with hand brake)

Though, “not a breeder,” going to a wedding tonight without his wife still feels awkward.
He’s old school L.A.
We reminisce like seniors over the old neighborhood, global warming and high school harassment.
He’s traded the vernacular of “dude” for and “hella,” only goes back home for family and tattoos.
Playing percussion in experimental bands and roasting coffee, he can’t remember why he moved here, but he certainly does fit.
Imbued with thoughtfulness, he apologizes for not having a pump to lend me, and yells after someone who drops their sweater.
“This BART drivers pretty considerate, don’t you think?”

eighty-seven; Anya Silver Commuter

She’s like the organic, local, apple pies she’s selling; an American spirit, that’s revolutionary in practice.
Moved to S.F. from Russia at five with her mother, a mechanical engineer, who settled for a paralegal job (her degree didn’t transfer).
This one’s passions, however, wont still easily,
She’s the wheels behind the local food movement, working at farmer’s markets three days a week, editing the Society for Agriculture and Food Ecology’s DIY zine and turning the earth into edibles in the community garden.
She tells me how to make my own butter and signs her work, “Be bold in your endeavors”

eighty-six; Robert, Bianchi Road Bike (with a homemade Smiths card in rear wheel)

Four Germen engineers walk into an American bar and decide that our social life is more like a cardboard representation than good time.
He would know, he used to spin at a theater in Munich and he’s wearing personalized Morrissey shoes.
By night, he stencils, drinks till he’s good and rosy and listens to Block Party,
By day, argues about the efficacy of design.
“They make us build massive amounts of models so rapidly, we can’t possibly get it right. If I had a week to compute I’d get it the first time.”
He certainly seems to understands America alright.

eighty-five; Rustin, Trek Mountain Bike

Hard as the world tries to define him; second-generation, Persian-American, Southern-Californian, Pre-Med, fourth year…he’s always been independent.
He lives in a Wild house, where people call to check up on him, where he danced and DJ’d on Halloween and where housemates smile when mentioning each other’s names.
A man of his own passions
His blog about music caused so much legal drama he stopped writing, he likes the more obscure Tarantino and has traveled a good chunk of Europe.
Skeptical of being painted as the “Dr., Lawyer or Failure” stereotype, he asserts (convincingly) that he’s actually “totally fascinated by science.”

eighty-four; Debbie, Cannondale Road Bike (dad's)

She has a 10:30 Boba appointment and this seems to be a fitting metaphor for her kind of balance,
shockingly lighthearted considering the weight of her workload.
Shooting for her PHD because she thinks teaching seems fun (in part inspired by her father who teaches adult ESL).
Traveled Thailand with her mom for fun, but ended up a volunteer for the Red Cross in a hospital for Agent Orange victims.
She’s not particularly political (didn’t vote in the last election) but she is profoundly principled (smiles at strangers).
I’d argue it’s her San Diego roots getting grounded in Berkeley’s soil.

eighty-three; Tj Trek Mountain Bike (Oakland Flea Market)

When he tell me that he worked in “anti-piracy” in the Navy, I think it’s strange that military is so concerned with Napster.
He means Actual pirates.
When he tells me that he spent 8months in South Africa I think Endless Summer.
He was volunteering for a youth organization in Cape Town.
He says Legal Studies; I think corporate law,
He means physics.
Genuinely considerate, he offers to move inside when I mention the cold.
His are not the drilled in manners of boot camp, rather the refined epaulets of real world knowledge.
Transfer students are what hold Cal together.

eighty-two; Paul, Felt Single Speed with Coaster Brakes

He’s got a year clean, but tells me that’s nothing in “user time,”
His habit started with a broken back and a prescription, and it ended with o.d.-ing twice in one week.
OC took away a lot of good memories (childhood tinkering on old single speeds) and burned in new ones (the phone number of his former dealer).
Last week he celebrated his birthday by signing the lease to his own bike shop, building a new life around an old passion.
And though he doesn’t claim to be an artist,
He welds $20 yard sale finds into $1000 track bikes.

eighty-one; Joe, Univega Road Bike ($20 thrift store)

Some are defined by the things they’ve done; he has done things, but he’s the one making the definitions.
He was in a Grind Core band that toured the East Coast; he’s traveled the entire continental United States and lived in several of them.
He doesn’t feel this entitles him to anything (in fact it’s a journey getting him to tell me anything).
My questions make him nervous, but he lets me walk beside him a few blocks.
It’s Halloween and though he tells me he “has little patience for stupid people” he certainly appears to be amused by them.