When °”TV bike guru David Takemoto-Weerts takes a vacation trip to a city, he doesnât photograph the usual landmarks.
âIâll ask to see his pictures and theyâre all of bike racks,â said his wife, Barbara Takemoto-Weerts.
David is retiring next month after 29 years as the universityâs Bicycle Program coordinator, a job in which he determines the best size for bicycle roundabouts, thinks up better parking arrangements, encourages riders to register their bikes, collects abandoned bicycles and auctions them off, and generally serves as an expert on all things two-wheeled.
Cliff Contreras, director of Transportation Services (TAPS) and Davidâs longtime supervisor and friend, said transportation officials from other universities think of him as a resource.
A Tandem Retirement
When David Takemoto-Weerts retires in June, it will be a few days after his 39th wedding anniversary. Itâs only fitting, then, that his wife retires from °”TV on the same day. She's been working here 22 years â some of it part-time â and he's been here for 30.
The two met as undergrads at UC Santa Cruz, but started dating as grad students at °”TV. Davidâs love affair with cycling, inspired by one epic day of cycling as a freshman (see video above), grew in Davis when he worked as a student mechanic and then manager of the Bike Barn.
Married under the redwoods at UC Santa Cruz, they moved around California before returning to Davis to raise their son and daughter. Barbara spent several years working as an accountant at the °”TV bookstore before joining the Shared Services Center, where she now works as a purchasing coordinator.
While bicycles have shaped the course of her husbandâs life, Barbara is interested in them âonly by association.â They do complement each other on two wheels, though: Theyâve ridden a tandem bicycle together since before they were married, and Barbara has always been the stoker, or rider in the rear.
âIt takes a special person to be the stoker,â she said, explaining that she doesnât have any control over when they stop or where the bike goes (although David said he defers to her if a decision comes into question). But that doesnât mean she wants to switch saddles.
âIâm not interested in that.â
âOftentimes if somebody is grappling with an issue thatâs bike-related, someone will say, âJust ask Dave,ââ Contreras said.
David has worked to make the university more cyclist-friendly, and along the way the number of people who ride to campus has grown to nearly 50 percent. The League of American Bicyclists also named °”TV a platinum Bicycle Friendly Business and platinum Bicycle Friendly University under his watch, both in 2013.
While his position is no longer part of the Police Department where it originated, one of his proudest achievements is the recent collaboration between TAPS and the police to create , an online course for riders who receive citations â similar to taking traffic school instead of paying hefty fines.
David is analytical and detail-oriented. Anyone asking about bicycle parking is likely to get a long story about the advantages the campusâs newer racks have over the old concrete âwheel bendersâ he and Contreras are working to phase out before his retirement. David's wife warns that when he says, âTo make a long story short,â settle in for a long explanation.
Outside of bicycles, his passions include the history of aviation and space exploration â topics he fell in love with during a trip to a library in his native Long Beach when he was 15. He often walks the TAPS hallways wearing a NASA cap or a shirt bearing images of vintage aircraft. Heâs one of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratoryâs volunteer , who explain and promote NASA missions to the general public, and set up a telescope on Hutchison Field for passers-by to use during a recent partial eclipse.
He has a penchant for vintage bikes, too. He prefers the style and construction of bicycles of the 1970s, and one of his other career-defining moments can be seen just off campus at the corner of Third and B streets, inside the former Davis Teen Center.
In 2000, David won a federal grant for the university to purchase a collection of . , so named for its former owner, formed the foundation of a bicycle museum that helped convince the U.S. Bicycle Hall of Fame to move to Davis from New Jersey in 2009.
David continues to work as the head docent at the museum, explaining the evolution of the bicycle to visitors. And if they happen to ask any questions about bicycling on campus, heâll know the answer.
âWeâre doing all these things to promote bicycle use and heâs got his hand in all of them,â Contreras said. âHeâs been a wealth of info for us and the campus, and the campus is better off for it.â
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Media Resources
Cody Kitaura/Dateline, Dateline, 530-752-1932, kitaura@ucdavis.edu