Morning Links: Pasadena bike club refuses to support Gran Fondo in bike-unfriendly Beverly Hills

I’ve made the same argument more than once.

While I’m normally willing to back any event that promotes bicycling, it just doesn’t make sense to support a bike event in a city that doesn’t support us.

Like the Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills, for instance, which hosts the Gran Fondo Italia at the end of this month. And where anti-bike councilmembers have blocked plans for desperately needed bike lanes on a soon-to-be-reconstructed Santa Monica Blvd.

Nice to see I’m not alone.

Wesley Reutimann, president of the Pasadena Athletic Association bike club, forwards an email he sent in response to a request that the club actively promote the event among its members.

Thank you for reaching out to our club.

As President of PAA cycling, a 350 member bike club, I am unable to promote this event or any other in the City of Beverly Hills as long as its elected leaders and City staff do not take the safety of ALL road users seriously.

Over the past few years the City of Beverly Hills has repeatedly failed to support local efforts to improve the safety of its streets. At the same time neighboring LA, West Hollywood, and Santa Monica have made significant investments to protect vulnerable road users like bicyclists (e.g., bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd).

Until the City can address these issues (e.g., existing bike lane gap on Santa Monica Blvd), I will be compelled to take my business elsewhere, as well as encourage that of our entire membership to do so as well.

Please feel free to relay my message to your contacts in the City.

Best regards,

-Wes

Exactly.

Meanwhile, Better Bike offers their typically insightful take on the same subject.

Update: Just to clarify, I’m not asking anyone to boycott Beverly Hills or the Gran Fondo; I trust you to make your own decisions.

However, if you haven’t already registered for the ride, consider planning your own ride with friends or your club that day, and donate the money you would have spent on registration to Better Bike or the LACBC to keep up the fight for bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd.

If you have registered, or want to ride the Gran Fondo anyway, ask ride officials to use their influence to demand better accommodations for bikes in Beverly Hills.

……..

Semi-equality at last? Both the Amgen Tour of California and Colorado’s USA Pro Challenge consider multi-day women’s races.

……..

Local

KPCC’s Larry Mantle talks about the new three-foot passing law, and eventually gets it mostly right, while the Times offers one last look before it takes effect today.

Watts wears pink on October 4th as the East Side Riders Bike Club and Los Ryderz ride for cancer awareness with LA Councilmember Joe Buscaino.

Yet another bike rider is injured in a collision on PCH in Malibu over the weekend.

The Culver City Bicycle Coalition hosts a meet and greet from 6 pm to 8 pm this Thursday.

 

State

San Diego’s long delayed bike share program may be the most expensive in the US.

A Sacramento writer says if cyclists want respect, we need to act like we deserve it — something no one ever says that about motorists, no matter how many laws they may break. And someone should tell him that bike riders are already subject to all existing traffic laws, including hit-and-run.

A San Francisco supervisor suggests making the NACTO Design Guides the official policy of the city.

 

National

Bicycling’s Elly Blue looks at the Kentucky cyclist wrongly convicted for riding in the traffic lane, and offers advice on how to prevent future miscarriages of justice.

Bicycling says the worst city for cycling isn’t a city at all. And only 40 miles from their pick for the best.

Writing for City Lab, Sarah Goodyear says a little bikelash may be a good thing.

A new bike helmet is designed to act like a black box in a crash.

Kansas City considers a new law banning harassment of cyclists and other vulnerable road users.

A blues musician is pedaling a 1,200 pound piano bike the length of the Mississippi.

Louisville KY plans the world’s largest underground bike park.

A New York TV station disputes claims that bike lanes improved traffic times.

 

International

A UK writer says cars are the real wheeled pests, not bikes.

The Cycling Embassy of Great Britain offers their uniquely comprehensive roundup of bike blogs, here, there and everywhere.

An Aussie writer says there is no war between motorists and cyclists because many of us have a foot in both camps.

 

Finally…

Turns out the Columbia men’s cycling kit sucks almost as much as the women’s. Nice way to celebrate the big day, as a Des Moines wedding party attacks a 68-year old bike rider.

And Omaha police refuse to charge a driver for hitting a cyclist because he didn’t have lights or reflectors on his bike — four minutes after sunset.

 

5 comments

  1. KB says:

    Is a buck every seventy hours or so a lot when you get twelve months of riding in a row for that much? I would pay that just for not having to maintain my own bike.

    The real story is as always. A pathetic corporation bringing as in nyc merely millions of trips not billions while providing almost no jobs as well and in SD PAYING as in Santa Monica NOT enough for the blight.

    Shared bikes in such a place should make those in Paris look like toys. Instead of bankrolling fission research punks like billy gates should pay for fleets of potentially road hogging delights from there popularity and bankrupting of car dealer and garage builder capacity.

    $300 for a bike headlight is not a lot if u get what that can profitably bring as it now does. Such a light will burn for many lifetimes of riding needing only cheap batterries at most often every few years.

    Shared bikes can kill bad blighting bike shops that sell crap for half or less as much for the greater profit margin to people who can and should afford better.

    Owning an unshared bike is comparable to doing the same with contraptions even more lame.

    While it sits people without comparable bikes sucks fumes and kill not just because only they are pricks.

    We read how the iPhone six will be a great rental for meetings. Better bikes though are beyond even facetious or not rental.

    Be ashamed to ride your own bike at the expense of poor penetration and all too often not sudden enough death for us.

    Anything less expensive then owing a car is NOT expensive but rather cheaper. I want to depoit ten grand to share a $5k ‘bike’ but instead only lizzards bankrolling pimple age freeks with chump change and parental underwater v8’s in obsolete baked on crates do present to crush us not even glummly in accepted hell stakes when we are not the flakes.

    We carry our own seats around but barely frown when a share program sucks the hounds on stock brokers with accessories to help all peddle not just lacy stockings and velvet gowns to better bury us in.

    Not renting at all times the greatest bikes is the ultimate sin. Every city remaing so far abstaing is a reason for hope. Someday soon onecmay except themselves from the plague so far of treason against our noblest skin.

  2. James says:

    Beverly Hills is a truly nasty place. Tacky, ugly, vulgar, it reminds me of the garish displays of wealth favoured by new wealth from Russia and Saudi Arabia. It is a terrible shame at this city seems to be in the way of people travelling between the west side and central Los Angeles. It really should be located somewhere in southern Orange County where it would be a better fit with the culture of upscale white trash and a absence of pedestrians.

    The last time I walked into Beverly Hills I found that the sidewalk I was on disappeared. I was surrounded by apartment tomwers yet there was no sidewalk to be seen. It was as if I had stumbled into the twilight zone and found an alternate version of downtown Vancouver, BC designed by Robert Moses.

    On another occasion I was walking (apparently a crime) on the sidewalk (fascinated by the crimes against architecture on display) and a police car pulled up and followed me at a walking pace, while the officers inspected me to see if I was a threat and glared at me with such hatred that I was convinced I was about to be pinned to the ground and beaten. After a while they drove off.

    In my experience I am most likely to be followed by a car driving in the bike lane just outside of Beverly hills. This usually involves honking, yelling and is usually followed by an illegal and dangerous pass. I get the impression that the Beverly Hills princess believes that because his virtual gated city has no bike lanes they should not exist elsewhere.

    • bikinginla says:

      To be fair, Beverly Hills does have two bike lanes, including a great one on Burton Way that’s my favorite route to Downtown — if I can survive the trip through the Golden Triangle to get there.

      And I know what you mean about Beverly Hills cops. I got the stare down from a couple of Beverly Hills cops who slowed down to watched me as I left my doctor’s office on Robertson, for chrissake.

  3. LAProDude says:

    Very glad to see much-deserved criticism of this event. The event is a joke for numerous reasons, and the City of Beverly Hills’ support of this event is laughable and should be highly scrutinized.

    First, it is 100% for-profit event, unlike so many great charity cycling events out there. They don’t even attempt to make any appearance that they have an affiliated charity that they work with. It is not a local promoter and there are no ties whatsoever to the local cycling community at all. This same promoter has come and gone, faded then re-emerged numerous times. Why isn’t City of Beverly Hills asking why so many of these events have died on the vine. San Diego = gone. Philadelphia = gone. Beverly Hills = came, died, died again, re-emerging now. Why have so many past partners, employees, vendors, cities, sponsors abandoned ship after 1 year? If Beverly Hills did their homework, they would quickly discover the answers…

    The promoter regularly exaggerates the number of registrants at his events. He reported to City of Beverly Hills that the first edition in 2011 attracted 1,300 riders. Anyone who was there knows that there was nowhere near 1,300 cyclists. Not even close. Maybe there were 500-600, tops.

    It will be interesting to see what happens this weekend and what the turnout is. Online registration was supposed to close last night. I’d be shocked if there were even 150 registered participants. Keep your eyes out and don’t be surprised if the whole thing folds in the next few days. And if you are one of the ones who have registered and paid your $130 fee, keep a close eye out.

Discover more from BikinginLA

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading