SF Bay Area

Riding down Telegraph Avenue from the Temescal District toward Oakland’s Uptown means taking a journey through several worlds. Telegraph Avenue takes you under the freeway, past fast-food joints and liquor stores, through a neighborhood of Korean restaurants and nightclubs and straight into the small, vibrant heart of Oakland’s cultural renaissance: First Fridays Art Murmur. On the way, the trickle of bicycle traffic steadily grows and takes over the right lane. By the time you arrive at 23rd Street and Telegraph Avenue, cars are stacked up while bikes slither through; it’s hard to find a place to lock up: bicycles are piled on every street sign and parking meter.

Kassie Rohrbach, executive director of Oakland’s newest advocacy group, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO), sees Art Murmur as a bellwether. “I think it’s really telling how many people who want to participate in an event like that come by bicycle.”

After years of decline, Oakland is experiencing a revival centered on indie culture and community. The flavor of the movement is local and people-powered. Mark Nichola, a volunteer who runs Mess with Bikes Night at Rock Paper Scissors Collective (RPS) sees bicycles as a natural component of Oakland’s arts culture: “Why bicycles and the art scene and Oakland go together so well is the politics of people wanting to power things themselves and wanting to connect to the world around them, which is easier to do on bicycle or on foot than from a car.”

Bicycles are not only transportation: they are works of art. “Inevitably, artists get hold of a bike and they want to make it a work of art,” said Jason Montano, owner of the Montano Velo bike shop and designer of Broakland fixed-gear bicycles. Nichola agrees. He is curating Beyond Bicycles for RPS. The show will feature “the many ingenious uses of human power past and present” in installations at the gallery and at locations throughout Oakland.

The Oakland Museum of California is also celebrating the bicycle in a show at the Oakland Airport. “The bicycle is like other parts of our culture where people are taking a consumer thing and making it part of their identity,” said Carin Adams, curator of the show, which will feature everything from a historic penny-farthing to a modern tall bike, made from two or three bicycle frames welded on top of each other.

There is a strong “do it yourself” element to both the bicycle and art scenes in Oakland. At Art Murmur, attendees don’t just admire the art, they are invited to participate in creating it. Oakland cyclists have striped renegade bike lanes on Telegraph Avenue and stenciled the streets with an image of a rider carrying a child on the back of a bicycle. To Nichola, this makes perfect sense. “Riding a bike is kind of an alternative infrastructure. If you want to figure out your own way to get from point A to point B or to haul something without buying a car, getting insurance, buying gas, it’s an alternative way to do it.”

Manifesto Bicycles sits at the intersection of cycling and culture in Oakland. Mackay Gibbs – who co-owns Manifesto with her husband, Sam Cunning – said they wanted to open a shop, “that wasn’t just about bikes, but more about the people who ride bikes and what they’re into. They like music, art and coffee.” She feels that people who live in Oakland and don’t experience it by bike are missing out. “I want more people to have that experience.” Gibbs is passionate about Oakland and inspired by its diversity.

“I think that diversity is what has driven the renaissance in the art community,” said Kassie Rohrbach. “The reality is that people bike across all different classes, race, age, culture. We want to represent all of them because Oakland is so diverse.”

Next time you’re in Oakland, bring your bike: it’s the only way to fly.

oaklandartmurmur.com

walkoaklandbikeoakland.org

rpscollective.com

oaklandsmuseum.org