re-cycles bicycles is my new favorite bike shop. as i mentioned, a couple weeks ago a friend of mine loaned her bike to me so i could get myself to and from bart, as i’m in the middle of nowhere public transportation-wise. and the front wheel of it had gotten stolen. and she’d taken the crippled bike back to her house. and it was me back to the godsawful 14 ac transit bus line, for which i’d wait in the morning sometimes as much as 40 minutes, only to have the bus driver slam the door in my face as i was getting on.

so i did research online about places i could buy a used bike in the east bay. i had nearly given up by this point, however. why? bikes are ridiculously overpriced. for what some people pay for bicycles, i could buy a motorcycle. or go to australia. put a down payment on a boob job. i went to missing link, random bike shops in berkeley, to find they were asking for $175 for a beat-up, rusted piece of crap you couldn’t get more than $20 for at a yard sale.

given this, i was ready to bus myself over to target last saturday, pay $80 for some cheap brand new bike made out of 10,000 pounds of steel, but then caught sight of this yelp review, telling me about a used bike store i hadn’t heard about, recycles bicycles. looking at various public transit websites, trying to figure out how in the hell i’d get myself to target, which was in albany, from almost fruitvale. i discovered that one bus would get me there, and not only that, re-cycles bicycles was on the bus line. if i didn’t find anything at the bike shop, i could just get back on the bus and head over to target.

i was at recycles bicycles for almost 3 hours. why was i at recycles bicycles for almost 3 hours? i’d called 2 hours previously, telling them i wanted a crappy commuter bike for $150 or less, and it needed to be short enough for someone who was 5′2″. good news, the guy told me, we have exactly that bike, the guy in back says it’s a darned good bike, and it’s $129. i’ll be over, i said.

by the time i got there (damn bus), the bike was gone. the front sales-person dude, an older guy, told me that he was new to the bike business, but he really liked the people in the bike community, it’s very grassroots, diy. i didn’t want a mountain bike or a ten-speed where i’d be hunched over the handlebars; instead i wanted a kick-back, cruiser style bike.

they had one, but it was about 1-2 inches too big for me; the guy told me to stand over the bike, with the frame between my legs, and pull the bike up to see how far it had to go to hit my pelvic bone. i chose not to reflect on the fact that it was not my pelvic bone, per se, it was hitting. (in fact, i’d see the guy go thru the same ritual with other customers, and they were clearly embarrassed, though trying to hide it, which was amusing.) this bike hit my, um, pelvic bone without lifting it up, and they told me it was too big for me.

but it was blue. had a big comfy black seat. and had wide handlebars. and kick-ass knobby tires. wait for howard, the guy said, he really knows his business, he can help you. so howard came out, apparently the genius working in the back room, and he told me the same thing: it’s close, but i wouldn’t want to sell you a bike that’s so big for you. i’d already gone thru every other bike they had in stock, though, and unfortunately needed a bike that day, and couldn’t wait. so i explained that being a midget-type person, i’m used to things being too big for me, and in fact the bike i’d been riding previously was just as too big for me, and i was fully cognizant and aware of the risks. he nodded his head and said, well take it for a test ride then. i left my bag inside the store.

i really liked the bike. but when it came time to stop… it didn’t stop. it stopped after a certain amount of time, but in no way were the brakes grabbing the tires, and me coming down a hill, car coming out of nowhere, there’d be me flying over the roof of the car.

that’s why i was there for almost 3 hours. because howard, and later his little assistant (who was, at first look, kinda bizarre, almost frodo-like, very young, intense blue eyes, moppy blonde hair falling over his face, wiry frame, but when he later got handed my bike, he was so enthusiastic and into it i couldn’t help but like him), spent that entire time trying 1) various bike pads and then 2) completely took out the brake lines and tried others and 3) tried different brake levers and 4) analyzed my hand size, the handlebar-shape… several times i went out to take the bike for a test run, and each time the same thing: the brakes were simply not working well enough.

this took quite a while. they did this in between their other customers. their other customers were looking at, and buying, used bikes that were $275, $495. my bike? a cheap little $129 bike. i kept telling howard to, without him asking, heck yeah, go ahead and get this customer first, and so he would, then he would come back to my low-budget bike and continue to work on it. i didn’t care about the wait; i was killing time that day anyway.

after 2-3 hours (and a trip to the corner store, and a smoke outside, and wandering and pacing and watching interactions with various customers, and growing very hungry), my cheap, crappy little $129 bike had received:
1) complete reworking of the brake lines
2) completely new brake pads, several times over
3) new brake levers on the handlebars
4) foam tape wrapped around the handlebars

how much extra did they charge me for this? absolutely nothing. not only that, but i got to watch the soft-spoken howard discuss idealist grassroots politics with an older woman customer who had a formidably colored purse the size of a small dog.

given my friend (who’d loaned me her bike) now has a bike with a missing front tire, i’m going to make certain she goes to re-cycles bicycles. (and i’ll, of course, pay for her new front tire.) re-cycles is funky and honest and no-pretense enough that i simply like them, without even trying.