Morning Links: Blessing of the Bicycles returns, support for bikes in CD13, and choosing the right donut for your ride

My favorite Bike Week event is back for another year. So mark your calendar for the 14th Annual Blessing of the Bicycles at Good Sam, just west of DTLA.

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In today’s political news, CiclaValley calls Measure S fear and fake news.

And nice to see five candidates for LA’s 13th council district come out in favor of walking, bicycling and bike lanes, including incumbent Mitch O’Farrell.

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Local

Caught on video: A Burbank bike rider was injured in a hit-and-run when he was right hooked as he rode off the sidewalk into an intersection.

626 Golden Streets offers a list of feeder routes to Sunday’s 18-mile open streets event in the San Gabriel Valley.

Santa Monica’s first open streets event was such a hit, it could be back in the fall. And every fall after that.

 

State

A trio of Orange County men will be riding up Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro on mountain bikes to raise money for a home for orphans and abandoned children at the base of the mountain.

San Diego’s KPBS considers how private corporations can encourage alternative transportation to help the city meet its mobility goals.

Caltrans proposes installing bike lanes and diagonal parking along Twentynine Palms Highway in downtown Joshua Tree.

A Stanford researcher is recruiting volunteers to determine if improvements in bike design have reduced risks of long hours in the saddle.

Three Foster city kids were hit by cars in three separate collisions on the same morning as they rode to a middle school in desperate need of a Safe Routes to School program; that’s half the bicycling collisions in the city for all of last year.

A Sacramento comedian has turned the severe concussion he got when he went through the windshield of a car into a one-man show; he’s back on his bike even though he still has aftereffects from the injury.

Sacramento’s American River bike trail is mostly open after workers cleared mud and debris from the recent flooding.

 

National

U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer has introduced legislation to help cities establish Vision Zero policies and treat traffic deaths as a public health crisis. Given the current political climate, you’re more likely to win the lottery this weekend than see this bill move out of committee, let alone become law.

Portland agreed to pay a bike rider over half a million dollars after he was injured by a hit-and-run driver while riding in a poorly marked, substandard bike lane; however, that’s just a fraction of his medical expenses.

Spokane County has finally settled with the family of a 15-year old bike rider after years of denying a deputy’s speeding patrol car had made contact with his bike; terms of the settlement were not announced. Never mind that even if the car hadn’t hit him, a close call could have been enough to make him fall.

Even Wichita KS is becoming more bike friendly as the city builds out its ten year bike plan.

A New York letter writer says the way to improve relations between the NYPD and bike riders is to give free rides on the city’s blue Citi Bikes to the men and women in blue.

NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson is one of us, as he spent Thursday riding ovals at North Carolina’s Wilkesboro Speedway with fellow drivers Jamie McMurray and Matt Kenseth.

A 12-year old South Carolina boy will be riding from Santa Monica back to Charleston SC to raise money for clean water. At that age, I was happy just to ride to the playground and back.

The solution to boosting bike ridership in Miami? Turn it into another Copenhagen.

 

International

A writer for the Guardian describes the lifelong pain of killing a pedestrian in a collision.

Caught on video too: Bikepacking the Inca Trail through the Andes.

A Winnipeg, Canada study determines that the keys to keeping bike riders safe are safety devices like lights and helmets, along with infrastructure that separates riders from motor vehicles.

Edmonton police are looking for a bike-riding serial purse snatcher.

Heartbreaking story from Australia, where a wife has to fight for a disability pension for her husband, who suffered major brain damage in a crash with a bush turkey.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could have an infinite number of gears. If you want a new bike, just leave your garage unlocked.

And forget energy gels, how to choose the right donut for the ride.

2 comments

  1. Ralph says:

    We got 2 new bikes through our homeowners insurance when they were ripped off the locked top rack of our car. You still get the deductible to pay. But in our case we only had to split the deductible per bike…..

    • bikinginla says:

      Fortunately, the deductible on our renter’s policy is exactly the same amount as the guarantee that came with my Kryptonite U-lock.

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