Weekend Links: Marathon Crash non-Race is back on for Sunday, along with a long list of upcoming bike events

The popular event formerly known as the Marathon Crash Race is back on for this Sunday.

After being cancelled by city officials last year, the officially unofficial ride — now renamed the Marathon Hustle Ride —  will follow the LA Marathon route on closed streets hours before the runners take to the course.

Meanwhile, KPCC profiles Finish the Ride’s Damian Kevitt as he prepares to run the marathon this Sunday, two years after he lost his leg in a horrific and still unsolved hit-and-run.

He may have lost a leg, but clearly, his heart is fully intact.

……..

An open house will be held this Saturday to discuss the complete street makeover of Western Avenue through San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes; opposition is anticipated to bike lanes planned for the street so bicyclists are encouraged to attend.

Bike the Vote LA hosts an organizing meeting this coming Monday, March 16th. The new group has taken the lead in getting Los Angeles-area bike riders involved in this year’s election process.

Stan’s Bike Shop in Monrovia is hosting a Taco Night on Saturday, March 21st to raise funds for the shop’s Tour de Cure team.

A new app will allow you to soak in the sounds of next Sunday’s Valley CicLAvia, providing walkers with an “interactive soundscape” of the San Fernando Valley for the March 22nd open streets event. And yes, I’ll be there on my bike.

Kickstand-Kids-flyerKickstand Kids will host a Family Bike Event in Fullerton on Sunday, April 12th to raise funds to buy bikes for the children of New Alternatives. They’re asking for donations of kids and adult bikes, as well as helmets or other gear in good shape; contact daniswid@gmail.com, or donate online through their GoFundMe site.

Don’t forget LA Bike Week starting May 11th through 15th, including the annual Blessing of the Bicycles at Good Samaritan Hospital on Tuesday the 12th.

The Eastside Bike Club celebrates Bike Month with their annual Dodgertown Bike Ride on Saturday, May 16th, riding from El Sereno to take in a game at Dodger Stadium.

And the 15th annual LA River Ride rolls on Sunday, June 28th; the River Ride just keeps getting bigger and better every year.

……..

Local

LA Times readers react to the paper’s story about the proposed California bike helmet law; the Orange County Bicycle Coalition’s Pete van Nuys gets it right.

UCLA’s Daily Bruin calls on the Westwood Neighborhood Council to approve the much-needed bike lanes on Westwood Blvd; the new Remove Nothing plan would do exactly that, adding bike lanes to the busy street without removing a single lane or parking space. So what’s the problem?

The LAPD explains the story behind that Tweet we linked to earlier in the week about a Newton division officer pitching in to help replace a 4th grader’s stolen bike.

Manhattan Beach residents want more money for bicycling in the city budget.

Glendale police respond to a fatal hit-and-run by targeting traffic violations, including headphone wearing and sidewalk riding cyclists.

 

State

The Bike League has issued a report card showing why California has jumped into the top 10 bike friendly states, and what we still need to work on. Personally, I’d much rather see modified strict liability, placing greater responsibility for avoiding a collision on the larger and more dangerous vehicle, than the vulnerable user law they suggest.

Laguna Beach will host a bike rodeo on Sunday, March 22nd.

Seal Beach’s Main Street Cyclery celebrates its grand opening under new ownership this Saturday.

San Diego is working on solutions to roadblocks facing the 24-mile Bayshore Bikeway.

A Merced elementary school principal is said to be improving after he was critically injured in a collision with a pickup.

A San Francisco TV station’s People Behaving Badly segment looks at brazen bike thieves in the city’s Bayview District.

A Sausalito councilwoman wants to limit the number of rental bikes allowed into the city; evidently, all those rental cars, and non-rental cars, are okay, though.

 

National

A cabal of elder engineers is apparently dedicated to stamping out what they perceive as deviant bikeway designs.

A new Bluetooth bike lock unlocks automatically through your phone and shrieks at potential thieves.

New Mexico’s annual Tour of the Gila is back on after an anonymous Colorado cyclist steps forward to sponsor the event.

A Wisconsin man is combining his love of biking and baseball by riding to all 30 major league stadiums this summer.

New York police are looking for a cyclist who wacked a motorist with his U-lock during a dispute. Seriously, no matter what the other guys says or does, never resort to violence.

New York’s MTA isn’t even interested in testing a rear wheel guard that could prevent cyclists and pedestrians from being crushed under the rear wheels of a bus.

Baltimore bike riders can get a full year of free, secure parking.

Atlanta police apparently aren’t interested when a driver A) leaves the scene after hitting a bike rider, and B) pulls a gun and threatens to kill the cyclist after the rider follows him home to talk about it.

Good Samaritans, including a corrections officer, save the life of a Florida cyclist when he collapses while riding his bike.

A Florida bike rider continues her fight for a 76-mile bikeway from Naples to Miami, although some Native American’s aren’t so sure it’s a good idea.

 

International

Good offers a good explanation of Vision Zero and why it matters, while City Fix says if you want a cycling city, design for traffic safety.

A 39-year old British soldier with early-onset Alzheimer’s embarks on a nearly 10,000 mile ride around the US and Canada.

London’s Evening Standard says the city’s new 20 mph speed limit will save lives, and drivers will just have to deal with it.

Scottish cyclists call for a version of Strict Liability, which assumes drivers are at fault in any collision with cyclists or pedestrians; thanks to John McBrearty for the heads-up.

A new Dutch bike shakes its handlebars to warn of potential danger from the front, and its seat to warn of danger coming from behind. With our traffic, it could become the worlds first publicly rideable vibrator.

Caught on video: Bike racing becomes a full-contact sport — as if it wasn’t already — as a spectator grabs the handlebars of Australian rider Loren Rowney during a race in the Netherlands, resulting in a major endo and a broken collarbone as she sprints for the finish.

German carbon wheel and frame maker Lightweight combines with Audi to create the latest overpriced, high-tech racing bike from a carmaker dabbling in bikes.

A sidewalk riding New Zealand cyclist faces charges for running down a pedestrian and breaking his hip.

 

Finally…

As if LA drivers aren’t bad enough, now we have to worry about killer cows. A Florida bike rider somehow shot himself in the chest when the gun in his pocket discharged.

And no. Just…no.

 

4 comments

  1. Goldy says:

    In fact having spent some time at a local retailer, the one SNL’s northern occupations spoof of or not has had them turncoat, I learned, despite it being behind the glass, of “aware” mode, that builds on the popularity of human power, embodied by the now vintage Superbowl ad showing the then ultimately losing teams quarterback wearing not a helmet, not needing a smaller troop carrier for the final yards walk to the stadium despite being surrounded by hostiles. Rather they break the million dollar bus windshield, letting there roar accost him, requiring he ‘phone up’ a few seconds early.

    So I wondered, if only, if only the bud maker would let the phone hear what it’s exterior microphones had access to, so for example in “aware” mode or not, you could record for the record gunshot etc. signals.

    I still do not know, but it does not take an Iphone to do that. Frankly any device having a headphone jack must allow it in the future, must, and if operating your feet or whatever it should be illegal to impersonate a deaf person, as they would not dare try to cross the street without haptic feedback on board in the future, nor be welcome to.

    Yes, Virginia, there is now an Ap for walking, that is a free download for those who have not spent $300 for the name brand earbuds available everywhere in stock locally. If you would rather not carry thousands of pounds around you, then spend hundreds, or not, to take away the noise, but not lose safety audible signals, and even have the streetscape become the museum, with annotation provided potentially, not just by the app maker.

    be sensitive to the tv station that risks it’s livelyhood in making the primary bill payer, the car dealer, lose, by bundling this functionality. Heroically, or recklessly, they have helped disrupt the madness. Scheduled to shut though, there millions of watts, and former businesss model,are obsolete now. We no longer need to watch remotely, but listen, to only what we want or need to.

    In LA traffic, without supplimental computional processing augmentation our ears are nearly useless in protecting us from being run over. To not wear earbuds is to go naked, and should be illegal. Till then choose the app carefully. when killed make sure the provider has decent pockets in case a commercial did not abort when the sound of aspeeding right leaning SUV should of triggered the jump the curb at all costs alarm.

    Any questions?

    • Brian Nilsen says:

      Only one question:

      What in the hell was that incoherent rambling?

      • Goldy says:

        i appreciate the question. Humans who do not die biking versus those who do do not constitute a sifficient percentage of those reproducing or failing to for simple natural selection to select for those whose ears and a sssociated neuronal accouterments, so we must instead pick up tools, notably AI that can hear, not years away radar or optical rear light based nonsense.

        Our hosts point made several times that warning of passing traffic isas good for safety as something you used to have to elbow kids aside at Spencers to buy was that we just have to grin and pray we wont be fodder for more regulations blaming the killed not the killers or there machines. Such is the emaciation of hope we are tought to fear, for in hope we can find for the ordinary and even able bodied tools we should if not must not just can use so more then luck or mercy will result in us thriving despite too many others with meat not silicon in control.

        By finding incoherance where only hyperfocus existed you show yourself to be o mortal bloody brain in sight, dependent upon followup in yoir facetiously seeking further light when clearly you reign as a creature of moral night.

        Complete streets include law protecting the air, and those who behind tank like armor come to do worse then stare. NBC offers to be our guide, and allow us to hear outside despite carry then around our ears. Motorcity puts subwoofers in the dash, this they do for stinking cash, caring not that it better sets us up as lives not spared. Buy even overpriced Boise and you are a saint, compared to the likes of those who drive not toys but killing wheels too often on stimulant pills.

        Shift your paradigm, to bike without a license does not mean only glasses are still a good idea. NBC turns the narrator into a bettering for the walker so connected to, as does “Aware” mode, think sonically a well, haptic is primitive, expect a colorful pallette of embedded sounds if you wear the right safety gear… its not just about holding the calls and texts, but letting the chips help us dodge Chevy’s etc. headed to fell us otherwise.

        the right buds wont but get you off the road in time, haptic bliss will still take at least some other App or person. Expect a Miracle. Always expect it when needed, and we are still all need. Cars are beyond pathetic, to think they belong anywhere but museums is to be bought, not taught, lethally caught, better off shot.

  2. Goldy says:

    I also dissent about the agist assault, our mobbing, our elders, desire however reflexive, to deliberate before acting, go yes talk, not just meaure, first.

    In the bible we are taught to turn away and not look back, to proceed nievely, to shut down Sweetbriars who increasingly become bastions of sodomisation, challenging our values, befuddling, daring risking disruption, claiming agency for themselves.

    But reality is made of facts. Environmental impact study opponents are the devils work, those who wish to deny us institutional assistance in evolutionary progress mere mutations long ago slain when of horsemen ilk. Kill them again we must. like then, is is in the wisdom of all of us that we must forever and always trust. The crowd can and should gaze long enough, at least long enough, before paving further; there are more then red yellow and green to by light signal information be scene. That author has motocity bloody hemroids for sure, even if not in either diapers she be.
    re
    http://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/11/engineering-establishment-sets-out-to-purge-deviant-bikeway-designs/

    not the other story i pasted previously too fully below, this is the preferred version of my followup comment, despitestill containing it as i had not seen it shen i wrote my first comment, Ok? (serendipity has it still only partly read in my paste tray as chrome moble crashes within a fewseconds for me if i visit it on the linked page u provide bArely giving me time to select and copy the writing)

    13/03/2015 Google+
    Join us Log in
    Hi-techSmart bicycle vibrates to warn of danger

    SCI-TECHhi-tech
    Smart bicycle vibrates to warn of danger
    It’s being touted as the first smart bicycle, which warns riders of traffic dangers and obstacles.

    The brainchild of a group of scientists from the Netherlands, it is equipped with a radar mounted just below the handlebars that checks the road ahead for unexpected movements and objects, as well as a camera above the rear wheel that keeps check on what’s going on behind the rider.

    The cyclist is warned of any potential danger either via a vibrating saddle if the threat comes from behind, and through vibrations in the handlebars if it’s in front.

    “Vibration appear to be a very effective way to warn a bicyclist, and we have done that by putting vibrating elements in the handlebars of the bike and also in the saddle of the bike and in that way we can very effectively warn him of danger from the front, from the back, but also indicating left and right,” says Maurice Kwakkernaat, a senior research scientist at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research working on the project.

    Aside from the intelligent warning system, the bike also boasts an electric motor, offering assisted speeds of up to 25 km per hour. It is aimed at bringing down the rate of accidents in the Netherlands, which saw 184 cyclists killed in crashes last year alone. According to bike’s developers, many accidents happen when cyclists look behind them or get a fright when they are overtaken at high speed.

    “We see a rise in accidents with elderly people and we also see a rise in the use and the amount of time they are on a bicycle. That means that the number of accidents increase and we try to reduce that by using new technology,” says Kwakkernaat.

    Its developers are still working on bringing down the bicycle’s weight which stands at an impressive 25 kilos. Expected to hit the market in two years’ time, it should cost between 1,700 euros and 3,200 euros – around the same as a standard electric

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