In a sea of a thousand bicycles, how do you make a single one stand out? You compare it to Tom Cruise, of course.
This bike is so excited to be yours it just might jump all over your couch! Don't worry, though, it won't try to convert you to Scientology like some other wackjob we know. ...
That handwritten attention grabber — with a photocopied picture of the movie star — hangs from the handlebars of a 25-year-old black, single-speed Schwinn World here at the Bike Barn.
The Bike Barn, in a way, is at the center of the bike universe. Davis, Calif., is the undisputed Bike City USA. It was one of the first cities to establish bike lanes, decades ago. The city's logo features an ordinary — those pre-1900 bikes with the giant front wheel. The League of American Bicyclists has praised it as the most bike-friendly community in the country. The city has even scrapped school-bus service because so many children ride their bikes.
Within Davis, the campus of the University of California attracts even more bikes. All college campuses are teeming with them, but Davis is in another league. With the core of campus off limits to most cars, the roads have become a two-wheeled version of a California freeway, with hundreds of students dodging one another around traffic circles.
At the center of the campus sits the Bike Barn — a remnant of Davis's roots as the "cow college" extension of the Berkeley campus. Built in 1910, it was a dairy barn for years. Now it houses a bustling bike shop where students repair more than 10,000 bikes a year.
But it still hasn't lost its barn atmosphere. On a recent morning, Robert St. Cyr talks about all the changes he's made in his 10 years as the shop's manager — the improved customer service, the redesigned shop. Then one of the student mechanics shrieks. A small brown rat has scampered down the wooden stairs from the upper reaches of the barn, scooted 20 feet along the wall, climbed up a pipe, and is now perched above a sink, sipping from the dripping faucet.
Bike repairs are forgotten as Mr. St. Cyr and the three mechanics consider what to do. Hitting it with something is ruled out. One student suggests trapping it in a bucket and tossing it outside. "Just so it can run right back in?" asks another.
Mr. St. Cyr grabs two large bowls. He approaches slowly, trying not to spook the rat. The rodent is unperturbed. In a flash, Mr. St. Cyr squeezes the bowls around it. Just as quickly, the rat squirms out, falls into the sink, and causes his captor to drop one of the bowls, which shatters. Now the bike mechanics must deal with a wet rat, scurrying amid shards of glass.
After 10 more minutes, the rat problem is solved. The answer involved a trash pail, more shrieking, a swift kick, and a sledgehammer. It wasn't pretty.
Do not smoke this bike. It will not get you high — Stick to paint thinner. (Please note: Bike Barn does not endorse drug usage.)
The unconventional ads are written for each used bike by whichever of the dozen student mechanics fixed it up for resale. Josh Claypool isn't writing any of the ads yet. A freshman studying engineering, he started at the shop just a week ago. And on this morning, the rear wheel of an old three-speed Columbia Tourist is giving him fits.
He needs to get it off the bike to fix the flat tire, but the rusty wheel won't budge. Mr. Claypool yanks left, pulls right, and bangs down, hoping sheer force is the answer. It isn't.
Annie Condas comes over from her repair stand to help. A senior who hopes to become an orthopedic surgeon, Ms. Condas walked into the Barn as a freshman, knowing nothing about bikes. "I knew they had two wheels," she says. "That was about it." She thought the shop was hiring a sales clerk. She would type on a computer, maybe sell a few headlights. Now she can completely overhaul a bike.
"Some girls come in and don't know how to shift gears," she says. "But I used to look like that." Her piece of advice for new students: Learn how to change a flat tire. "That," she says, "should be a requirement to come to Davis."
Her experience, however, doesn't help with the stuck wheel on the Tourist. She loosens the axle a bit more and suggests smashing it with a mallet. Mr. Claypool tries that without any luck. He looks disgusted. "Why can't I get this off?" he says to no one in particular.
Mr. St. Cyr comes over, complains about department-store bikes, and wields a screwdriver like a magician's wand. With a small flick, he pops the axle out of the frame, and the wheel drops to the floor.
"That's why I get paid the big bucks," he says.
This bike is skinny like Nicole Richie, but without the drug habit. (Does not include ridiculous best friend, Paris, either.)
When you repair 10,000 bikes a year, you see some crazy ones. One guy regularly brings his bike in with broken spokes and busted rear wheels. The problem, Mr. St. Cyr tells him, may be the garden that he grows on the rear rack. He carries 150 pounds of dirt and geraniums around the campus.
But mostly the shop deals with cheap department-store bikes. "You pay $50 for one from K-B Toys or Wal-Mart, and then instantly, the bike falls apart," Mr. St. Cyr says. And then he corrects himself. He shouldn't call them bikes: "Really it's an imitation bicycle."
He outlines a few of their failings. The brakes squeal terribly on the painted rims, giving off a toxic smell. And the wheels are so weak, he says, that properly inflating the tire will sometimes bend them in half.
His three bits of advice for the new Davis student: Get a reconditioned used bike from the 1970s or 80s. (Like that Schwinn that's as excited as Tom Cruise.) Anything with more than three speeds is overkill. No shocks or springy seats.
And he wouldn't mind if graduating students took their two-bit bikes with them. But they don't. He estimates that the campus is infested with 2,000 to 3,000 abandoned bicycles, left locked to racks. "I've been walking by some of those for years," he says.
Before we fixed it, this was trashier than Kevin Federline. ... OK, who am I kidding, nothing is trashier than K-Fed.
Here's a surprising thing about the university in Bike City USA. "It's the scariest place I've ever ridden," says Mr. St. Cyr.
"You can ride through gangster neighborhoods, and it's safer than riding through here," he says. "Students will obey basic traffic signs off campus, but the minute you get on campus, it's just lawlessness. That's how you survive. That's how you get around on campus and you realize that no one behaves in a predictable manner. The pedestrians don't look when they cross the street. The cyclists just ride wherever they want to ride, and no one pays attention."
Sounding like a grandfather complaining about the younger generation, Mr. St. Cyr derides the students who ride while listening to their iPods or talking on their cellphones. All of that has made it even more dangerous.
But this cold January day, he says, is nothing like the first week of classes in the fall. That is mayhem. The campus is crawling with freshmen on bikes. Not only do they not know how to fix a flat, says Mr. Claypool. The real problem is that even here in the bike capital, some of them can't stay balanced on two wheels. Maybe that should be an admissions requirement, too.
http://chronicle.com Section: Notes From Academe Volume 53, Issue 25, Page A48
