I did some early spring cleaning Saturday afternoon, and one objective was giving away my bike. I don't ride well in city traffic, and although I thought I'd give it a spin around Lake Merritt once in a while, the three-mile lake loop is better suited to people on foot -- which is my preference, too. It was nothing special, and it was taking up precious real estate on my balcony.
My plan was to take my wheels to Cycles of Change, an Oakland non-profit that "makes healthy and reliable transportation accessible to all" through earn-a-bike programs, tools and advice for people fixing their
bikes, repair classes, and more. But when I got to the Zipcar I'd rented for the occasion, the bike didn't fit, even with the seats folded down. And I'm not one of those people who can just pop off a bike wheel, either.
The Zipcar was parked at the Chevron station at Grand and Perkins, which a neighborhood list serv recently reported is a "hot spot" for the Oakland Police Department, with 119 calls last year. I had other errands to run, the Zipcar meter was running, and I really didn't want the bike. So I decided to wheel it around to the bus shelter and leave it -- unlocked, with the cable wound around the seat stem and key in the lock as if to say, "yes, really, you can have this" -- for someone who truly needed a bike. Surely it would disappear by the time I returned later that afternoon.
It didn't. And I still didn't want it, so I left it there.
The bike was gone when I passed by again Sunday afternoon. Maybe someone who missed a bus late Saturday night decided to use it to get home. Maybe someone who'd had a few too many took a joy ride and abandoned it a few blocks away for someone else to find. Maybe someone who didn't have the right change for bus fare used it to ride to work, then took it home to their kid.
Maybe the police impounded it and will take it to Cycles of Change after all.
