Laney ESL Instructor Nikki Ellman rolls out of campus at the end of the day.
Nikki Ellman teaches ESL at Laney College, and she is one of the most devote bike commuters in the Peralta community. Two or three times a week, she hops on her mountain bike, complete with cargo toting panier bags, and rides 5 miles from her Berkeley home to Laney College. A full-time faculty member, Ms. Ellman has been biking to Laney for the past 10 years.
“It’s just really fun. I just can’t imagine commuting any other way,” says Ms. Ellman. “I only take my car when I have to be at Laney at 8am or when I’m leaving late in the day.” She also doesn’t ride during heavy rains, although drizzle is OK to ride in. She didn’t own a car until the age of 25. As she does today, she felt trapped in a machine.
Though most of the route is through on bike boulevards between Oakland and Berkeley, riders “You have to be alert and pay attention” she says, “you have to assume that drivers will do stupid things.” Despite being vigilant, riding she says relieves stress, and she gets to work feeling refreshed. However, she cautions people not to commute leisurely. “I’ve had lots of close calls,” she says.
Ms. Ellman remembers her earliest bike ride at age of 7, sitting on her father’s bike rolling through Central Park on a sunny afternoon day. Born and raised in Manhattan, New York, she took her bike everywhere, dodging traffic while going to school, running errands, visiting friends, or simply rolling through the park. “I rode all over Manhattan. I rode over the George Washington Bridge. I would go from one end of the island to the other for fun,” she recalls.
Bicycles are such a essential part of Ms. Ellman’s life, she also rides her bike to the grocery store and for errands. She has also taken bicycle touring vacations to places like Armenia and Vietnam. “[In Armenia] people walked everywhere. You would see wagons and horses everywhere. Nobody biked,” she says. “It was so unusual to see 2 American women on bikes.”
Her cycling tour of Vietnam ended in Ho Chi Minh city. “It was incredible,” she recounts. “At some intersections, there were no lights. People would weave their way across the intersections. Sometimes there was a policeman. There were lots of motorcycles and bikes. It was terrifying!”
Ms. Ellman’s route to and from Laney College takes her some busy streets and some quite side streets such as Broadway and Shattuck. Even with her lifetime of bike riding experience, she still advise everyone to follow the rules of the road and take, as much as possible, the least crowded streets or streets with a bike lane.
