This customer is much more polite than our usual ones, who revel in the competitive bike shop landscape and our almost desperate shows of servility as we struggle to keep our customers from leaving us for mail order outfits. “I was hoping you might have some idea how to fix it.” I bought this light here a while ago and it no longer works all the time,” he says. His movements are fast, jerky, and almost frantically uncoordinated as he gropes around in a huge metal basket mounted to the front of his wheelchair, and eventually comes up with a little bike headlight. His feet are slightly pigeon‑toed on the platform of his machine. He has a complete pair of legs, but I can’t tell how atrophied they are beneath his jeans and running shoes. What else could be wrong? Without intending to, I begin to speculate about depth of this guy’s paralysis. Will this be another flat repair? No, this electric wheelchair has good tires. You can’t just roll a customer and her vehicle into the storage room and write up her work order for your next day off. Myself, I feared the wheelchair would fall and crush me-and the worst part would be that I would still have to finish the repair. She was probably terrified of falling out onto the floor. ![]() The poor helpless woman was perched precariously up there, grimacing and trying to be a good sport while clutching desperately at the arms of her chair. I summoned one of the other mechanics, and we slipped a huge wooden plank under the wheelchair and shoved, lifting the whole thing up on two wheels so I could get to the punctured tire. She had a flat tire, and, for better or for worse, we carried the weird-sized spare inner tube she needed. Its occupant must have weighed about two hundred pounds, and her motor‑driven machine weighed even more. The moment I saw this guy’s wheelchair I have a flashback of the last one I worked on, a few years ago at Broad Street Bikes. The only wheelchair parts we sell are tubes and tires-and we carry these only as a community service. The perfect customer never rolls in on a wheelchair. It’s not that we’re greedy-we’re just trying to stay in business. We count on this high-profit customer to subsidize the repairs that go wrong. When his bike needs a tune-up, there’s never much wrong with it. He will come in regularly to get rid of almost-new, perfectly good equipment in favor of newer, higher-tech brand‑new perfectly good equipment. My ideal customer is old, non-athletic, wears Oakley sunglasses, and drools with excitement when I describe why the latest Composite Metal Matrix T‑6 aluminum bicycle will help him regain his youth. The passerby can afford to smile-he doesn’t have to work on the wheelchair. A passerby has beaten me to it and holds open the door, smiling. I rush to the front door to open it for a man in an electric wheelchair. Oh, God, he’s trying to get in, all right. Every May, the campus participates in Bike to Work Day, a day when riders across the country make their daily commute on two wheels instead of four.įor more bicycling resources, visit UC Berkeley’s parking and transportation website.Oh no, I’m thinking, not today.Riders shouldn’t expect a free tune-up the co-op offers free repair instruction and maintenance education, so cyclists are able to do it themselves. The student bicycle co-op, Bic圜AL, stationed in the MLK Student Union, provides a space for campus people and the public to learn how to maintain and operate their bicycles.The workshop allows cyclists ticketed by UCPD to have their fines reduced. The classes, open to the public, teach cyclists the rules of the road, how to ride predictably and how to quickly maneuver to avoid a collision. To help cyclists navigate city streets, the campus and its partner, Bike East Bay, offer a two-day workshop for people who want to brush up on the basics of biking.People without their own wheels can grab a Ford GoBike from one of the several bike-share stations close to campus.UCPD provides bike theft prevention tips, from how to lock your bike to licensing and engraving your bike so it’s easier to identify should it get stolen.A bike map, created by the parking and transportation department, shows designated cycling routes, secure bike parking areas and self-serve maintenance stations and offers safety tips.(UC Berkeley photo by Elena Zhukova)īerkeley’s campus offers its riders a variety of resources to encourage cycling: ![]() ![]() For cycling enthusiasts or novices thinking of giving biking a try, Berkeley’s campus offers resources for everyone.
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