(electric) biking Oakland

bike parking rack

In a past life, I worked in Berkeley and used to commute by bike from the Oakland hills a couple of times a week. I was 10 years younger then, and biking on a regular basis and so in better shape. It was still hard work, mind you, but I didn't think twice about riding to and from work unless it was raining hard. The 1000' elevation gain was a consideration, but didn't stop me from doing it. That was then, this is now.

I don't ride nearly as often now, and my body is 10 years older, so that hill is a lot more daunting than it used to be. There's also the smaller but still daunting hill between us and the nearby regional parks. My wife and I had ridden it a number of times together, but it's enough of a hill to make it hard work right at the start of the ride.

Cars Out

These days I'm also a lot more aware of the impact of cars on the environment. Our main car is a 2002 Prius, but that just means less impact, not no impact. After checking out electric scooters and electric-assist bikes several years back and finding them wanting, a couple months ago I read about Pacific E-Bikes on TreeHugger. They're close by in Berkeley, so when I was in the area I went and took a test ride. I was impressed enough that I later borrowed one for a longer test drive and so my wife could try it out, too.

My wife thought it was OK, but didn't think she'd ride it that much. I liked it, and it made it up the hill OK, so we bought one ($897 + tax) and I brought it home. I've since used it to go out to the Habitat construction site, run errands, and even do some grocery shopping (a 12 pack of beer fits nicely on the rack, and we have panniers for the rest.) And my wife has ridden it a lot more than she expected. She's ridden it down to the village, but mostly over to Redwood Regional Park.

It's still work to go up a hill (sometimes a lot), but it takes enough of the edge off that I can once again ride up the hill to home. And for shorter rides like over to Redwood, as my wife says, "it makes biking fun again."

the Tribune Tower

Yesterday I took it for a longer, more challenging ride. I started with the easy ride (mostly) downhill to Kaiser. I had a break between appointments, so I went and had breakfast at Mama's Royal Cafe. I also took the opportunity to snap some pics of local signs. After that it was over to Chinatown to check on a possible source of LED undercabinet lights for our kitchen. I criss-crossed Downtown and Uptown taking pictures of signs and buildings. It was a lovely day at this point, with puffs of fog blowing past in a blue sky.

After that, I headed up Telegraph to the Tip Top Bike Shop (which has finished their expansion into the space next door.) There I bought a water bottle holder for the bike, a rear-view mirror for my wife's helmet, and the East Bay Biking Coalition's 'west of the hills' map showing suggested bike routes around the East Bay. From there, it was past the newly re-opened Kingfish pub (alas, they don't open until 4pm on weekdays.)

Finally, it was time to head for home. I'd ridden up the hill to home before, taking one of the less steep routes (e.g., the trail up Shepherd Canyon), but today it was time for a work-out for me and the e-bike. I headed up past the Claremont Hotel into Claremont Canyon, and the bike did better than I did. A couple parts of Claremont are pretty steep (>9% grade), and I had to stop and take a break, but the bike's battery lasted through it. Once I was up to Grizzly Peak the e-bike and I had an easy time of it; once I reached Skyline it was downhill to home.

In short, we love our new e-bike. It's still not zero impact, but is way better than even our Prius, and it's good exercise for us, too. If you've considered biking for transportation but need a little extra oomph, consider an e-bike. It's also a wonderful way to see Oakland. No worries about parking (except where racks haven't been installed to replace the old parking meters), and you see a lot more at a slower pace than driving. Even if you don't ride it every day, each bike trip is one less car trip.

Here are some resources for biking in Oakland:

• Walk Oakland Bike Oakland
• East Bay Bicycle Coalition
• Public Works Bicycling and Pedestrian Information

(Also note that Pacific E-Bike has some electric scooters available, too. I haven't tested either of those, but I plan to in the future.)

see part 2 here

Chabot Space & Science Center

Chabot Space & Science Center

Nestled in the Oakland hills between Joaquin Miller Park and Redwood Regional Park is the Chabot Space & Science Center. I should have included it in my post on Oakland institutions, because they've been doing science and astronomy education for over 125 years. It was originally in Downtown, but moved to the hills in 1915 because of increasing light pollution. The current location opened in 2000. In all my time as a Bay Area resident (even in the last 9 years that's it's been a few miles away) I'd hiked or biked past it many times, but I'd never visited it.

Soyuz Descent Module

So Saturday we changed that. I read about their Dinner, A Movie and the Universe program somewhere, and we decided to take advantage of it. We started with a short hike in Redwood, then
went inside. We had to select which movies we wanted to attend and gave our name for dinner reservations, then proceeded to wander amongst the exhibits. It's not a huge museum, but there are lots of exhibits, with many of them "hands-on" for kids. We watched a short movie on the history of the telescope (interesting, but no Oscar-winner) in the planetarium theater, then headed over for dinner. There was some confusion about our reservation, but we were seated after a short wait. For $15 you get a choice of appetizers, salads, entrees and desserts; beverages are extra. It was good, not great, but inexpensive for 4 courses, and the service was good. After dinner we returned to the planetarium for a 'digitally animated alternative music show' called Sonic Vision. We didn't particularly like that even though I like some of the music, because it was really loud and didn't really have much to do with space or science. It was more of a 38-minute music video with acid-trip inspired graphics projected on the planetarium dome.

Unfortunately, as frequently happens in the Oakland hills, the fog rolled in around dinner, and we had to settle for two movies and dinner, and not much of the universe, beyond what's in the displays. Overall I'd recommend the Chabot, particularly if you've got an inquisitive youngster. If the $10.95/$14.95 admission is too much for your current budget, you can still make a nice day of it. A free hike in Redwood, a picnic dinner, followed by free star-gazing through one of the telescopes (Friday and Saturday, weather permitting) and you can have a very low cost but lovely outing.

weightless?

signs: Ringlets Salon

Ringlets Salon

Almost next door to George Kaye's is the Ringlets Salon. I saw a picture of it lit and it appears to be well maintained, so hopefully I can see it in action at some point.

signs: Mullen's Liquors

Mullen's Liquors

Continuing the long line of liquor stores with classic signs is Mullen's Liquors at Broadway and 40th. It's not a great sign by any stretch, but is notable because it has functioning neon.

what's in a name?

Oakland is not just a diverse city, it's geographically large. So it's no wonder there are a host of neighborhood names.

Names are wonderful things. They can give a sense of place, of history, of belonging. Of course, they can also be confusing if you don't know them. When I started driving in the Bay Area, I knew where the Nimitz Freeway was (it was part of CA-17 then), but Grove-Shafter? It makes traffic reports less useful if you have no idea what freeways they're talking about. I've learned many of them over the years. Fortunately traffic reports don't rely solely on names anymore -- which is good, otherwise you'd have to know that I-580 is the MacArthur, the John T. Knox, the Eastshore, the Arthur H. Breed Jr., and the William Elton "Brownie" Brown, depending on which section you're talking about. (Of course, if it were in southern California, it would be "the 580".)

Similarly, there are a bunch of Oakland neighborhoods that I don't know the names of. So I was delighted when Google Maps added neighborhood names. It's not perfect, as neighborhood boundaries are even more confusing and less well-defined than city boundaries, but it is a big help. It's very handy when you're looking for a restaurant or type of shop in a particular neighborhood. Yahoo! Maps goes one better, and has nice color-coded regions on the map to show the neighborhoods.

Then there's the issue of nicknames. The Hoover/Foster neighborhood is probably more widely known as Ghost Town (or Ghosttown). There are several theories on the origin of the name, from the presence of multiple casket companies to highway 24 the Grove-Shafter I-980 splitting the neighborhood and leaving it a virtual ghost town. The name also brings up the issue of spelling and punctuation. Is it Ghost Town? Ghosttown? Hoover/Foster? Foster Hoover Historic District? Foster? Hoover? (Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?) Google Maps shows it has Hoover/Foster. Yahoo! Maps shows it as Hoover (though you can search on Foster, too.) My recent sign posting suggests Foster.

So what happens when a business includes the neighborhood as part of its name? People tend to feel it's more a part of the neighborhood, more a local business, and lets people know where to find it. Unless you move, like Pill Hill Printing on San Pablo must have. It's either in Oakland, Berkeley or Emeryville, depending on which map you look at, and it's either in the Golden Gate or Paradise Park neighborhood. But it's no where near Pill Hill.

Finally, there's the question of what do the residents themselves think. I live in the Montclair neighborhood, but when people ask where I live I say Oakland. Partly because people elsewhere don't know where Montclair is, but largely out of a sense of pride in and connection to Oakland in general. (The usual chain is Oakland, near highway 13, Montclair, near where Snake and Colton cross.) Maybe I don't feel a strong connection to the neighborhood (though I love living here) because I couldn't afford it these days. But lots of people have a strong connection to their neighborhood, sometimes even after they don't live there anymore.

So what are the name(s) of your neighborhood? Do you identify with it or with Oakland more strongly?