Morning Links: Bikeshare and e-scooters, 8th Annual Glendale Holiday Ride, and crossing flags don’t work

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Today’s common theme is bikeshare and scooters, both docked and free range. 

Google Maps has added Lime bikes and e-scooters to their transit options for 13 cities around the world, including Los Angeles. 

Ford has evidently decided ebikes are the future of bikeshare, adding 600 new ebikes to their Bay Area GoBike docked bikeshare system to more than triple the amount previously on the streets.

Fast Company examines Lyft’s efforts to transform itself from ride sharing to a multi-level transportation company, including bikeshare and scooters.

And a former Ofo exec is heading up his own European e-scooter startup

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Walk Bike Glendale is hosting their 8th Annual Holiday Ride this Sunday. 

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Local

They get it. The LA Times says it’s counterproductive and dangerous to raise speed limits due to the deadly 85th Percentile Law, and contrary to the state’s goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

Good piece from Curbed’s Alissa Walker, who writes that Los Angeles can’t rely on cars as the only option to evacuate residents in the event of a disaster, and that biking and walking need to be part of the mix. And may, in fact, be preferable to using motor vehicles. 

Writing for Streetsblog, Scot Epstein examines West Hollywood’s Sunset Experience pilot project to improve walkability along the west end of the Sunset Strip. And politely takes the city to task for failing to significantly improve safety on deadly Fountain Ave. 

State

Encinitas will speed the installation of bike lanes and other safety features along Highway 101 in Leucadia following the crash that severely injured bike and pedestrian advocate Roberta Walker last weekendToo bad someone usually has to get hurt — or killed — before much needed safety changes are made. Except in Los Angeles, where the aftermath of a serious crash seldom goes beyond sweeping up the broken glass

Speaking of Walker, bike riders are invited to glam it up and Ride for Roberta in Leucadia on Saturday; friends are posting updates on her condition online.

Pleasanton plans to temporarily install a protective railing along a sidewalk that’s nothing more than a painted stripe on the street, to improve safety for kids walking and biking to school; long-term plans include widening the road to install bike lanes and a concrete sidewalk. 

National

A British ultra-distance runner plans to run a marathon in all 50 states, and ride a bike to each state capital in between

People for Bikes is hiring for three positions in DC and Boulder CO. If I could still work regular hours, I’d take the marketing director position and let everyone else fight for the other two

Bicycling explains why you should approach your diet more gingerlyGinger has been more effective than muscle relaxants when my lower back goes out. Which thankfully doesn’t happen as much as it used to.

This is how to be proactive. Bike Santa Fe’s Brian Kreimendahl forwards news that the New Mexican city is kicking the useless Share the Road signs to the curb, and adopting the more accurate and informative Bikes May Use Full Lane instead. The city council approved the resolution he wrote on the advocacy group’s behalf. 

Minneapolis plans to complete a missing link in a 50-mile bike trail encircling the city that has been in the works since the ‘80s. No, the 1880s. 

A Texas teenager is learning to ride a bike to combat the effects of mitochondrial disease

Virginia Tech rates the latest batch of bike helmets for their ability to reduce linear acceleration and rotational velocity; once again, the $200 Bontrager Ballista MIPS came out on top. 

The wife of a Baton Rouge, Louisiana councilmember who was killed in a collision while riding his bike in June has announced she’ll run for his seat in a special election next year.  

International

Bike Biz says safety goes beyond bike helmets, and recommends daytime running lights to alert distracted drivers to your presence so you won’t need one. 

A group of spandex-clad British Columbia bike dads donated over 100 refurbished bicycles to a nonprofit group for distribution around the world. 

No bias here. A Winnipeg jerk councilor says anyone who rides a bike in the winter is an extreme cyclist, and the city shouldn’t waste any money clearing snow from bike lanes for their benefit.

Dash cam video from Ontario, Canada shows just how fast a locked bike can get stolenLike in seconds — and single digits, at that.  

Yet another British study has confirmed that bicyclists suck in less toxic air than people in motor vehicles. Or on foot, for that matter. 

A bighearted nine-year old English boy plans to ride 100 km — 61 miles — nonstop to raise money for a cancer charity after watching several family members battle the disease. 

A European bike industry site says the truth is, quadrupling the EU’s bicycle mode share could reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the entire continent to the current levels for the UK and Ireland alone

Carlton Reid writes that a carmaker has finally gotten it right on how to safely pass someone on a bikeThanks to David Drexler for the heads-up.

Life is cheap in Singapore, where a truck driver will spend less than three months behind bars for killing two bike riders and injuring another. But at least he won’t be driving for the next five years. 

Competitive Cycling

Pasadena Weekly looks forward to next year’s Pasadena finish for the Amgen Tour of California

The BBC looks at the greatness — and money — of Team Sky. And the new clouds on its horizon. 

An Irish columnist says Team Sky’s loss of sponsorship isn’t the beginning of the end for pro cycling, it’s just the end of the beginning. 

American pro Tejay van Garderen talks with VeloNews as he makes a team change at the midpoint of his career. 

Bicycling talks with Taylor Nowlin, who races her gravel bike to recover from ultra-distance running

Finally…

How to tell those damn pedestrian crossing flags don’t work. How to tell when a hit-and-run driver who got off with probation just doesn’t get it. Or maybe doesn’t care.  

And you only wish you could ride like this

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Thanks to Ilya G for his generous donation to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive to keep this site coming to your favorite screen every morning! 

6 comments

  1. Harv says:

    Regarding emergency evacuation of L.A. by bike, I guess I was a decade or so ahead of times when I wrote this piece for C.I.C.L.E. :
    http://www.cicle.org/evacu-bike/ I have a couple of bikes like this ready to go.

    • bikinginla says:

      I wish I could. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t ride, and neither does the corgi. I could carry one of them in a basket, but the other is a tad too big.

  2. anyone can be an llc says:

    So donating is not tax deduction because your not a nonprofit YET? But SPREADING love on YOUR pages is undiluted income in cost for itemisers…

    My advice offer 80% return ad business. Win win and no prison lol.

    Merry Christmass!

  3. IvanKa is it for Christmass President?

    SERIOUSLY if only he biked…. But for THOSE who have come to understand how INSANE ‘light’ cars and trucks are after a good driver touched a family MEMBER to death collisionally or just EFFORT to avoid such contactly the notion that anything kess then there WORK might be inherited is somewhat absurd.

    In Arizona Senator Flake risks now the deposed pilot returning. With both seats open the important thing should of been to get to more then emblamitcally driving abstainers in federal office. Survivors needed, welcome, hard to imagine if truly family anyone better able to understand ZERO IS A HIGHSTAKES GAME TO WRITE OFF.

  4. whose Skull? yours duh! we gotta care for all of ours (abstain from less mess skullpack to deather blessing says:

    Naked head lifelong protester HERE..

    I recommend the newest music video from Africa keyword wnbr on YouTube even though her lyrics are not at alk clear even if her vulva for a decade or more have been out annually for all to see even when her kid was not old enough to breathe air but rode naked inside her her first TIME.

    I ALSO object to the helmetlessness being claimed maximally dangerous as societally we cause accidental brain damage more by so encouraging driving then we protect others brains at all. A helmet at best will protect merely our self but at such unethical cost OMFG get off the road if your not willing or eager to donate your life or whatever it takes. For two hundred bucks you can send enough protien to starving regions to add several future voters to there tolls.

    Helmets are for sociopaths.

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