Pedaling Away to a New View of the World
Riding, fixing bikes pointing urban kids in the right direction
Paul McHugh,
Chronicle Outdoors Writer
Thursday, August 12, 1999
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URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/08/12/SP20650.DTL
Hang around folks like Marilyn Price and Victor Vesey long enough, and you'll find out how to construct a magic carpet.
Take a box of old and new bicycle parts, assemble, tune and paint them, then turn this refurbished bike over to an urban kid who lacked the opportunity for independent motion.
Shazam! You've just helped a youth pedal away from the realms of grime and crime, and launched him on the road to self-confidence and physical health.
Price and Vesey are among the many Bay Area leaders of a movement that transforms cast-off bikes into tools for social change.
The first step is simply to provide disadvantaged kids with group rides that give them a fresh view of the world. The second is to encourage them to be responsible for keeping their wheels moving by learning basic maintenance and mechanical skills.
The next step can go almost anywhere. Graduates of these programs can score jobs as skilled bike mechanics. Some dream of opening their own shops. Actually, the core lessons of self-respect, the value of discipline, the gains from work, even healthy definitions of fun, can be applied to life in general.
Price often can be seen loping up and down stairs to her offices in the Re-Cyclery Thrift Store, near the freeway in downtown San Rafael. Price, 58, is the image of vibrancy, from her curly black hair to her muscular cyclist's calves, although the demands of her job don't allow her to pedal more than an hour per day.
Inspiration for her crusade came in 1986. Price looked from Mount Tamalpais' forests out toward San Francisco's concrete canyons. She thought about the kids she had served while volunteering at St. Anthony's Dining Room. Couldn't they also benefit from pedaling up here, for a change of pace and a breath of fresh air?
Two years later, by deploying a cluster of donated Schwinns clamped to her car on a donated Yakima rack, Price began offering outdoor escapes for inner-city youth. After a decade of evolution, her Re- Cyclery runs the thrift store, and a warehouse/shop in San Rafael's canal district. Here, local kids swarm the bike stands and learn to wrench on their own machines. By accumulating credits at this shop, they can earn a bike helmet, a refurbished bike or a computer. She has also started a new program to bring cycling to youth in Marin City via a van three days a week.
More than 4,200 kids have taken bike outings since Price's pedal projects began. About 400 volunteers are on call to assist with trips and shop activities; 200 turn out to run the Bike Swap in June, a major annual fund-raiser. In addition, sales of rebuilt bikes have reached $126,000 so far in 1999 -- a pace that could double last year's total.
``Terrific people make these programs run,'' Price says. ``The key element can't be taught. Volunteers and mechanics must have the sort of charisma that kids find attractive. Tough love is part of it. Kids have to both love and respect the teachers.''
Similar programs are sprouting up around the Bay Area and across the United States. No individual can be credited with planting the first seed.
Price got the idea for her first Trips for Kids program by reading an article about psychologists who ran bike trips for troubled children in Los Angeles. Later, when Price was ready to start a bike recycling shop, she was able to garner tips by researching shops in St. Louis, Indianapolis and Portland -- as well as a shop called Bike Traffic in San Francisco's Fillmore District.
Community activist Charles Higgins, 37, founded the Bike Traffic shop in 1993 as a way to get Western Addition kids focused on healthy activity. Its success stimulated him to start the Bicycle Community Project. His new operation received space in the Presidio, where it can form a hub for alternative city transportation, Higgins believes.
In the meantime, the original Bike Traffic has been spun off under control of a new director, Nino Parker. A second satellite, the portable Bike Hut at Pier 40 on the Embarcadero, is now the tiny fiefdom of Victor Vesey.
Vesey, 31, typifies the scrappy, counter- cultural heroes who get these programs to fly. A Santa Cruz native with a degree in sociology, Vesey began to see bikes as tools of empowerment for the underclass during a period of international vagabondage. He learned shop chops by fixing a basement full of bikes for a German theater group. Then he ran a free bike store under a railway trestle in London.
Back in the United States, Vesey volunteered to assist mechanic Robin Havens, 26, start a bike program under the aegis of Delancey Street and the Juvenile Justice Program. They established a Safe Haven bike repair shop for youth in Hunter's Point. Then he was tapped to run the Bike Hut full time.
On the waterfront, the Bike Hut is a cheerful, incongruous presence. Its tiny interior is festooned with bike parts. Its exterior is peopled by tourists who rent bikes, passing cyclists who stop in for tuneups and a stream of young apprentices.
One new apprentice is Nahem Wallace, 16, a slender youth from Bayview with a quiet, sensitive demeanor.
``Get one cool, committed kid like Nahem,'' says Vesey, ``and your whole show takes off. Now, I can finally put the Hut in someone's hands and walk across the street for a cup of coffee.''
He's only worked since July 1, but Wallace already can take pride in stripping down bikes to frames, then rebuilding them himself.
``I like it all,'' Wallace says. ``Meeting new people every day. Learning
about all the makes. I get parts for my own bike; it works a lot better now,
and looks good too. My dad likes me doing this. Otherwise, I'd be sitting
around at home watching TV. This is a much better spot to hang than any place
in my neighborhood.''
-- Trips for Kids -- Guided rides for sponsored groups up to nine in number on three Marin County routes. (415) 458-2986. Donation of bikes/accessories, and purchase of refurbished bikes can be made at the Re-Cyclery Thrift Store. Hours: 2-6 p.m., Tuesday- Friday; and 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday. Location: 610 Fourth St. in San Rafael. Youth activity classes at the Re-Cyclery warehouse, 135 Alto St., San Rafael. (415) 455-8876, or www.webcom.com/tfk -- Bike Hut at South Beach -- Rental of new Bianchi bikes, repairs, youth classes, volunteer opportunities. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Wednesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday- Sunday. Located at Pier 40 on Embarcadero at Townsend. (415) 543-4335. -- Pedal Revolution -- Large, self-supporting shop offers bike sales, repairs and recycling. Trains youth-at-risk, ages 16-22. Hours: 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m., Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m Saturday; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Location: 3085 21st St. (at South Van Ness) in San Francisco. (415) 641-1264.
-- Bicycle Community Project -- Youth classes at Presidio facility. Volunteers with bike and computer skills needed. Donations of bikes/accessories must be arranged in advance. For information, write: BCP, P.O. Box 29482, San Francisco, CA 94129, or call Charles Higgins at (415) 561-6578.
-- Bay View Safe Haven -- Bike repair training for urban and at-risk youth, located in the Joseph Lee Recreation Center. Primary need at present is for volunteers with basic mechanical skills who like to work with kids. (415) 512-5170.
-- Bike Traffic -- 1418 Turk at Fillmore, in San Francisco. This shop lost its lease, needs a new space. Some evening programs will begin again in September at Ben Franklin school in San Francisco. To help, contact director Nino Parker at (415) 251-1095 or (415) 831-4053. http://www.biketraffic.com/
