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“I’ve got a bike, you can ride it if you like/It’s got a basket, a bell that rings and things to make it look good/I’d give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.” 

– Pink Floyd, “Bike,” 1967. 

Though Syd Barrett may have penned the words to the ditty above 33-odd years ago, Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean’s set of wheels for Tuesday morning’s “Bike to Work Day” ride concurred on all counts. 

The first bike the mayor has pedaled in 40 years did indeed have a basket, a bell that rings and lots of things to make it look good (glitter, streamers and a set of day lilies on the handlebars Dean assured were “real, not plastic”). 

To top it off, the bike – actually, adult trike – was on loan from Rahila Jarret, who uses the cycle to deliver Daily Planets and to pedal her 7-year-old daughter, Arlice Hague, to school. 

“We’re hoping that Bike to Work Day will encourage people to ride bikes. This is a very good way to travel,” said Dean, who wore a bright yellow construction hard hat with “MAYOR DEAN” emblazoned on the sides. “Berkeley has one of the highest bike-riding rates in the state, and the highest in the Bay Area.” 

Of course, correspondingly, Berkeley also has one of the highest tallies of bicycle accidents in the state, and Tuesday’s procession from the intersection of Channing Way and Milvia Street to temporary City Hall a few blocks off was also intended to bring attention to steps the city is taking to increase bike safety. 

“We do have one of the highest rates of bicycle accidents in the state. But logically, if you have five times the number of people biking, you’ll have five times the accidents,” explained Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who rides his bike to work nearly every day, and even takes it on buses and BART throughout the Bay Area. “There are ways to make it safer to ride bicycles. Bicycle boulevards will be a major thing.” 

The city plans to create additional “bicycle boulevards,” bike-priority streets. Not coincidentally, the launching point of Tuesday morning’s ride was at the intersection of two already existing bicycle boulevards. At the junction the Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Coalition set up an “Energizer Station,” handing out drinks, food, stickers and various other bicycle paraphernalia (including wildly popular temporary tattoos) to any passing cyclist. 

“The bicycle boulevard plan is what Berkeley is doing to make the streets safer,” said Caycee Cullen of the BFBC. “Most people don’t choose bicycle (transportation) because they fear it’s unsafe. People can feel wherever they are in the city, they can ride on a bicycle boulevard and get around safely.” 

In addition to Dean and Worthington, Councilmember Betty Olds also rode in Tuesday’s procession, hitching a ride in the back of Bill Mitchell’s baby blue pedicab. 

Mitchell, an industrial hygienist, last pedaled as a “cabdriver” four years ago. Working out of the MacArthur BART area in Oakland, Mitchell charged four to five dollars a mile, and averaged about eight-to-10 mph.