After an Uphill Climb, City’s Cyclists Exerting Their Power

Bicycling here is not for the faint of heart.

You’ve got those urban Alps that residents sportingly call hills, wide boulevards dominated by speeding cars, neighborhoods riddled with bewildering warrens of one-way streets and a citywide obstacle course of potholes, grates, curbs and train and trolley tracks.

Yet it’s not enough to stop San Francisco’s cyclists, a dazzlingly diverse and determined group. They include weekend riders, daily commuters, adventurous tourists, messengers, athletes, activists, anarchists and environmentalists.

Each group has its own wish list of improvements the city should make, and none are shy about asking for what they want. Little wonder then that scarcely a week goes by without biking and bicyclists making news.

“The bicycle culture in San Francisco is very strong--they really know how to make themselves heard,” said Alan Cote, contributing editor to Bicycling magazine. The monthly recently ranked San Francisco eighth of the top 10 cities for bicycling in North America. It’s the first time the city has cracked the 9-year-old list.

“The city also recently passed some bike-friendly legislation, like adding bike lanes and parking, and this really impressed me,” Cote said. “It’s a huge step forward for San Francisco.”

Bicyclists also have won other recent victories in their quest to make the city more bicycle-friendly.

The legislation that impressed Cote, written by San Francisco Supervisor Leslie Katz, includes requiring developers to serve cyclists who commute to work by installing showers and lockers in large new office buildings, as well as in existing buildings undergoing major renovations. Fines for parking in a bike lane have been increased to $100, and there are plans for a centralized injury hotline to help maintain statistics about biking accidents.

Other cycling advances include a two-mile-long bike lane on Valencia Street, a wide, flat artery that runs north-south through the city’s Mission District. A two-block stretch of Duboce Street, a back alley used as a short cut for motorists, was made bicycle-only earlier this year. Recreational cyclists benefit from the six streets in Golden Gate Park from which cars have recently been excluded.

“This kind of legislation is about much more than just cycling,” said Katz, who enjoys biking across the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County on weekends. “It’s about a lot of things that matter to us: air quality, the environment, health. It all ties into helping San Francisco become a better place to live.”

Making Bicycling’s Top 10 list was gratifying, but Katz doesn’t expect that to placate the activists in the city’s cycling community for very long.

“That kind of activism isn’t unique to cycling--it’s unique to any issue in San Francisco,” she said, and laughed. “We appreciate being known as a little different than the rest of the country.”

In July 1997, thousands of cyclists descended on downtown San Francisco in a protest by Critical Mass, a loosely organized advocacy group that holds regular rides to force motorists to respect cyclists’ road rights. Riders jammed rush-hour traffic. Fistfights broke out with angry drivers. Dozens of people landed in jail.

Another group of cyclists--bike messengers--took to the streets last week for a milder and different sort of protest.

The messengers, perceived by some as a rogue subculture of in-your-face daredevils, often give San Francisco’s cycling community an outlaw edge. Their latest innovation--riding no-brakes, no-gears track bikes to deliver packages--surprised many messengers by making local headlines.

Last Thursday’s work stoppage to protest working conditions was a calculated bid for attention. More than 100 messengers gathered on Market Street for a noontime rally. They were joined by Mayor Willie Brown.

“The thing is, we feel we’ve been treated so poorly and for so long, we have to fight for what we want if we’re going to get it,” said Jim Kaiser, a messenger for seven years. “The issues are very complex, and everyone has different needs based on who they work for. The basic thing we agree on is we want paid vacation time and paid sick days.”

Most also agree on the fact that they’re fanatics about bikes.

When Jennifer Eyl moved to San Francisco from Georgia two years ago, she rode her bike. The whole way. It took her three months, and when she arrived she got a job as--what else--a bike messenger. Although she longs for the improvements the bicycling community lobbies for, in her eyes, San Francisco is doing well.

“I think San Francisco does have a way to go, but I grew up in Atlanta, which was a real nightmare for bicycling--no way they would make the Top 10 list like San Francisco did,” she said. “Compared to Atlanta, San Francisco is a dream.”

Eyl supported Thursday’s protest, but said she manages to find her own compensation in the hard work of messengering. After a point, the lack of bike lanes, the shortage of bike racks, the rude motorists and the traffic fade away.

“If you’re good at your job and you’re having a good day, it can be amazing,” she said. “Everything is timed right, everything works, you feel like you’re floating. It feels like there’s a pulse in the city, and you’re floating on it.”