Diverse cycling crowd meets in San Jose's historic Faber Cyclery

A good sized crowd at
Fabers waiting for the
program to begin.

A crowd of about 65 people (well after a show of about 64 hands we'll call them cyclists) showed up last week for food, drink and a discussion the "State of Bike Planning in the South Bay". The event was hosted by Faber's Cyclery, the mysterious old house on S. First St. with the equally mysterious history. The building was erected in 1882 and was home to a saloon and a rumored house of prostitution for a while before become a bike shop at the turn of the century.

From the treehouse. Photo: Justin Tirano

San Jose's first velodrome was built in the 1890's and by the time the bike shop opened up soon after the turn of the last century, cycling was all the rage in America. Alex La Riviere, the longtime owner of Faber's, welcomed the crowd last week with a bit of history. He spoke about the introduction of the modern bicycle predating the automobile and the airplane

Got an older model bike. Well,
Faber's has the parts.

Prior to the informal get together John Ciccarelli of  Bicycle Solutions led a bike tour throughout downtown San Jose highlighting many of the new bicycle improvements.

John Ciccarelli, Colin Heyne of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, Oxo Slayer of Kimley-Horne & Associates, John Brazil of the City of San Jose's Department of Transportation each gave a brief presentation on their contribution to cycling in the San Jose Area.

Oxo Slayer has been working on planning for the new San Jose BART extension for five years now and shared some info on station area planning, especially at the proposed Berryessa station located next to the San Jose Flea Market. This station's importance will grow as cyclists start to become familiar and use the planned bicycle lanes on Hedding St., which will create a vital corridor to the west connecting with the City of Santa Clara at Valley Fair Shopping Center.

Katja Irwin American Planning Association received much praise last week for her putting the whole event together.