West Hollywood has been making big moves for better biking in recent years. In April 2025, the city council unanimously committed to building only protected bike infrastructure on future street projects — the first city in the Los Angeles area to do so — and followed it up by painting all existing bike lanes green on Fairfax Avenue, San Vicente Boulevard, and Santa Monica Boulevard for improved visibility. With the 2028 LA Olympics on the horizon, West Hollywood’s premier location in LA positions it as a key corridor for the broader active transportation push underway across Los Angeles ahead of the Games.
On the other hand, WeHo compared very favorably to LA’s subpar rating of 32 compared to the national average of 36, ranking us 1350th in the US, and barely in the top 200 California cities at 195.
And no, Los Angeles is not a city to watch. Even if we have climbed from the nadir of 2023, when we scored a whopping 19.
However, they still haven’t been publicly identified by any official source, so I won’t name them here. But reading what others had to say about them, it sounds like we lost some very exceptional people.
Then again, we’re all exceptional in some way, to someone.
There’s also no word yet on the name of the accused driver, who should have appeared in court by now, which raises the question of why they’re holding back his identification.
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Finally, someone in France must have a hell of a sense of humor.
There was no hot mic moment to detect the reaction of Trump, who is not known to bike and has joked about doing minimal exercise beyond regular golf outings.
Despite being called — or calling himself — the fittest, healthiest president in recent history, Trump has said he will never, ever ride a bicycle, and has mocked Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and John Kerry for their two wheeled exploits.
The victims were riding in the bike lane on SoCal’s killer highway, just north of Ventura, when they were run down from behind.
There’s also no word on why investigators concluded the unnamed 24-year old Oxnard man was under the influence. Or why he was arrested on suspicion of murder.
It seems odd that we haven’t learned anymore by now, particularly since he was scheduled for an initial court appearance yesterday.
Although they also blame people on ebikes and e-scooters for blowing through red lights, and illegally using sidewalks. And, of course, they warn pedestrians to stay alert, rather than telling scooter riders to stay the hell off the sidewalk.
KABC-7 reports the the most dangerous intersections this year have been:
Figueroa Street and 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles – 11 crashes so far in 2026
Highland Avenue and Pat Moore Way, near the Hollywood Bowl – 6 crashes so far in 2026
Century Boulevard and Main Street in South L.A. – 5 crashes so far in 2026
Sherman Way at the 170 Freeway entrance in the San Fernando Valley – 5 crashes so far in 2026
No word on where the most dangerous sidewalks are.
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In a hard-hitting report, a San Diego grand jury says the city is not meeting its own ambitious climate goals.
Shocking, I know.
According to Streetsblog,
The new report, Shifting Gears, arrives at a moment when San Diego is trying to reconcile two competing realities. On one hand, the city has adopted ambitious goals. The Climate Action Plan calls for 10% of all daily trips to be made by bicycle by 2035. Vision Zero commits San Diego to eliminating traffic deaths and severe injuries. The Bicycle Master Plan Update is meant to create a safer and more connected network. On the other hand, San Diego remains a city where the automobile remains king. While the report itself is not binding nor enforceable, it validates San Diegans’ concerns and recommends a path forward.
Safety and connectivity remain the two biggest barriers preventing more people from choosing to bike. A recent city survey of more than 2,000 riders found that “traffic safety concerns” and “gaps in the bike network” were the first and second most frequently cited barriers to bicycling.
The report cites a disconnect bike network, where bike lanes suddenly start and stop, leaving bicyclists to confront freeway on and off-ramps on their own.
Something I can attest to from my time there four decades ago. Apparently, some things never change.
They also cite a lack of maintenance, particularly on the city’s protected bike lanes.
In fact, the only advice he has for drivers is to look before you open the door to avoid dooring bike riders. But it’s still the bike rider’s fault, even when the driver is at fault.
Motorists can prevent this by looking over their shoulder as they open the car door. But Faber believes that cyclists also share the responsibility to avoid this type of accident.
“Of course, if there’s a collision, the driver is actually to blame,” he said. “But to prevent it from happening in the first place, the cyclist must remain alert at all times and allow for the possibility that other road users might make mistakes,” he said. In practical terms, this means reducing speed and increasing their distance from parked cars passing parked cars.
And of course, he tells bicyclists to wear hi-viz and a helmet. Drivers, just look over your shoulder when you open the door to make sure there’s not someone wearing a helmet and dressed like a reflective clown riding too close to your door.
Because you don’t want to hurt someone, even if it’s their fault.
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French TV talks with American activist Shannon Galpin, who played a key role in exfiltrating the Afghan women’s cycling team following the return of the Taliban.
Which, translated from politese, means she had to get the women, and some men, out herself after UCI stopped helping with the mission, which has been ongoing since 2021.
Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps going on.
A New Jersey woman is recovering from a concussion, cuts and bruises, and a man is facing criminal charges, after she told the man and his girlfriend to slow their ebikes down, and he responded by getting off his bike and punching her in the head. Even though the bikes look like electric motorbikes, it looks like his bike has pedals, so they may actually be ebikes. Or not.
Yeah, maybe it’s time. Bicyclists in Duluth, Minnesota are invited to “Bike for Science” to gather real-world riding data to update the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s bicycle facilities design guide, which is based on data collected in the 1980s. Which, for anyone unclear on the concept, is, like, a really long time ago, okay?
Four young men who have overcome problems like substance abuse, legal troubles and emotional struggles are planning to ride 500 miles across Georgia to honor the founder of their youth home, who road 1,200 miles from Vidalia, Georgia to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1961 to help raise awareness and support for the newly established youth home.
London Penny Farthing riders set four Guinness World Records, including for the largest and smallest rideable big wheelers. Although I initially left out the “h” in “Farthing,” which would have made for a much more interesting set of records.
Seriously, don’t flee from the cops when they try to pull your bike over for multiple vehicle code violations — and don’t try to punch them out when they finally stop you. Whacking a cop with a bike pump is not one of the recommended uses for it, even if you are 86-years old.
Vicious cycles or transport revolution? The ebike battle raging in Queensland
The paper argues,
Aggrieved pedestrians and push-bike riders are pitted against those who see e-mobility as a ‘once in a generation’ chance to change the way we travel around cities
Somehow, we have to choose one side or the other, as if it’s not possible to have a “once in a generation” opportunity to change urban transportation, while acknowledging that the lack of effective regulation has allowed things to get out of hand.
Or the recent case here in Orange County, where a 14-year old boy killed an 81-year old Vietnam vet while doing wheelies on an illegal e-motorbike, leading to charges against the boy’s mother, who had ignored previous warnings from police.
On the other hand, at least he knows enough to stick around after a crash.
The result has been laws like New Jersey’s “crazy” crackdown on ebikes by requiring a license and registration for all ebikes, with no distinction between Class 1 ped-assist ebikes and illegal electric motorbikes.
Lumping all ebikes together in the public mind inevitably leads to a crackdown on every type of ebike, when the problem is only caused by a subset of riders on ebikes that have been illegally modified to exceed permitted speeds, or on electric motorbikes and dirt bikes that aren’t legally allowed on the roads as it it, at least without a driver’s license and/or motorcycle license.
The obvious solution is to crack down on the electric mo-peds, motorbikes and dirt bikes — and riders — who are actually causing the problems, without killing the “once in a generation” opportunity we have to make a real change.
The responsibility lies with the various legislatures to create a clear distinction between the two, lightly regulating the one while restricting the other.
If they can do that, we have an opportunity to make a significant dent in driving rates, with consequential benefits to traffic, road wear and tear, pollution and public health.
If not, we’ll butcher the golden goose and fry its eggs for breakfast.
I got the following press release yesterday about Saturday’s first-ever Bike the Coast Ventura. And since I’m getting lazy in my old age, I’m simply reposting it for you here.
Bike the Coast Ventura Welcomes Nearly 600 Riders at Inaugural Event
Riders of all ages and experience levels rode through the scenic coastal city, ending at the finish festival featuring local vendors and musicians
VENTURA, Calif. – The inaugural Bike the Coast Ventura hosted nearly 600 riders on June 13, welcoming participants of all ages and experience levels to ride through the scenic City of Ventura. The event partnered with local businesses and organizations to ensure that the Ventura community charm was truly highlighted throughout the event. The field of riders included Ventura locals, loyal participants of Bike the Coast San Diego, the event’s sister ride that takes place in the fall, and cyclists who traveled from Northern California, Las Vegas, and Arizona.
This year’s sponsors and partners included Visit Ventura, Downtown Ventura Association, Ventura Coast Brewing Company and Ventura Coast Cycling. The event also partnered with local charity organizations, including The Los Angeles Chapter of National MS and the Downtown Ventura Foundation. The 2026 event contributed over $6000 for their charity partners.
“When we chose Ventura as the host city for Bike the Coast, it wasn’t only because of the incredible views and scenic routes; it was also because of the incredible community,” said Mike Bone, president and CEO of Spectrum Sports Management, producer of Bike the Coast Ventura. “The Ventura locals really showed up for us throughout the planning stages and all the way up to race day. We look forward to future years of hosting this event and showcasing this amazing community.”
Participants took part in one of the three course options: the Metric Century 65-mile ride, the 40-mile ride or the rider’s favorite 20-mile family ride. Participants of the Metric Century 65-Mile ride were taken on a tour of the coastline with some hills in neighboring cities. The 40-mile and 20-mile riders were also treated with constant ocean views along their rules of the road routes. All participants wrapped up at the finish line in Promenade Park, which featured the Finish Festival that has coined the slogan, “Come for the Ride – Stay for the Party”. The free Finish Festival hosted the Ventura-based band The GAMBLE, and featured various local vendors offering food, drink and cycling-focused products and services.
San Francisco’s Bicycle Advisory Committee held its last meeting this past week, shutting down after 35 years because the city decided it was redundant because the MTA now has a Sustainable Streets Division, “with teams focused on active transportation, employs full-time bike planners and engineers, and integrates biking into multimodal planning.” Which all sounds good, but doesn’t take the place of informed advice from a citizens committee representing the voice of the public.
National
A website called Straight Arrow News looks at the America Bikes Act, saying it’s gaining traction but critics are trying to pump the brakes — but only the only critic they cite is a Missouri bicycle retailer who says ebike voucher programs have created complications for retailers, domestic bike manufacturing isn’t economically viable, and replicating European bicycle networks nationwide would be difficult. Oh, well if it’s going to be hard, let’s just give up now.
Um, okay. After man in Shelter Island NY was nearly run off the the road by a driver while riding his bike, he was relieved to discover than not only was there already a three-foot passing law, but there were already signs in place informing drivers of the fact. Which apparently did nothing to prevent that driver from buzzing him at close range.
Toronto held not one, but two separate editions of the World Naked Bike Ride, encouraging “freedom and body resistance for queer, trans, and feminist folks in the city.” Apparently, the usual idea of calling attention to bicycle safety and fossil fuels isn’t a factor there.
Oops. Former Aussie pro cyclist Rohan Dennis was stopped for driving, with his kids in the car, despite a five-year driving ban imposed as part of his extremely lenient sentencing for the death of his wife, former Olympian Melissa Hoskins.
A Paris Olympian is back on the track again, after trapped spinal fluid nearly ended her cycling days a year ago, preventing her from even completing simple tasks like tying her shoes.
Two people are dead, and another injured, just because some guy felt the need to get behind the wheel after drinking.
Allegedly.
According to reports from KTLA-5 and Ventura’s News Channel 12-3-11, three people were riding their bicycles north in the bike lane on PCH in Ventura County when a pickup driver plowed into them from behind at 50 to 55 mph.
One of the victims died at the scene, while another died after being taken to Ventura County Medical Center; the third victim was transported to the hospital with minor to moderate injuries.
The CHP places the crash around 7:08 pm Thursday, on PCH near Solimar Beach Road, just outside the City of Ventura.
A paywalled story from the Ventura County Star says a 33-year old woman from Bend, Oregon died at the scene, while a 39-year old Ventura man died at the hospital. The injured victim was identified only as a woman.
It’s not clear if they were riding together, or just had the misfortune of all being in the driver’s way. Several witnesses stopped to assist the victims before paramedics arrived.
It’s not known why the driver, identified only as a 24-year old Oxnard man, veered his pickup into the bike lane. He continued north until crashing into a guardrail, coming to rest on the right shoulder.
CHP investigators arrested the driver at the scene on suspicion of felony DUI causing injury, murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. He’s being held at the Ventura County jail in lieu of $1 million bail, and scheduled for a June 15th hearing in Ventura County Superior Court.
The murder charge suggests this may not be his first DUI offense.
Anyone with information is urged to call the CHP’s Ventura Area Office at 805/662-2640, and reference CAD Log 260611VT0384.
These are the 33rd and 34th bicycling fatalities that I’m aware of in Southern California this year, and the sixth and seventh we know about in Ventura County already this year.
Update: Ventura County’s Rolling Cerros Run Club identified the victims on Instagram Kellie Standish and her boyfriend, Colby Tucker.
Other Instagram accounts remember the couple, while another video, which I can’t embed, shows the many signatures on their ghost bike, as well as their friends coming together; it sounds like their deaths are a real loss to the community.
However, they still have not been officially identified by police, the medical examiner’s office or the media five days later. And there has been no public identification of the driver.
Instagram post
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My deepest sympathy and prayers for Kellie Standish and Colby Tucker, and all their loved ones.
Before we get started, after a couple of decades, I’ve finally gotten around to designing some t-shirts for this site.
The site is still rough, while I figure out how to do stuff on there. And I only have a few designs up at the moment.
But if you want to check it out, I’d appreciate any feedback on the shirts. And if you see anything you like, I’m offering a 20% discount until it officially launches at the end of this month.
So let me know what you think. Or better yet, send me a selfie wearing one.
The project, which also includes “15 new or relocated bus stops, 10 upgraded crosswalks with flashing beacons and five fully protected intersections,” is expected to be competed in two years.
The city is also raising the speed limits on 24 arterial streets to dangerously high levels, thanks to the state’s deadly 85th Percentile Law.
A representative of the City of Long Beach reached out on Wednesday to say the LB Post had misinterpreted the story, and the city wasn’t raising speed limits on the 24 arterial streets, but merely keeping them the same.
While the teen miscreants are still unidentified — which is surprising, given the clear look we get at one of their tender young faces — the media is responding in predictable fashion, blaming the problem on ebikes.
Tragic news from my bike-friendly Colorado hometown, where a man riding an ebike was killed by a driver in a T-bone collision, just days after his father died of Stage IV kidney disease. Note to 9News — when someone is killed by a driver, it’s a collision, not an ebike crash. And it really doesn’t matter what kind of bike he was on.
“Nearly” every one of the candidates running to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler in Manhattan’s 12th Congressional District supports a two-way bike lane bisecting the island on 72nd Street. I say find the one woman who doesn’t, and let her try to bike across the city without it.
A 51-year old government librarian has spent every day for the last week and a half riding his bicycle to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC to take a selfie showing Trump still hasn’t taken his name off it, despite today’s deadline to remove it.
Not only did those three men from Argentina make it to Kansas City on time to see their country’s team play in the World Cup after an 11,000-mile bike ride, they even got free tickets to the team’s first game.
He gets it. A British Columbia man says all bikes are good bikes, and if “you are out pedaling and smiling, then it doesn’t matter what you ride.” Which is kinda like all dogs are good dogs, but with wheels.
Seriously? If you have a Canadian-made Carbo folding ebike, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission is urging you to stop riding it and dispose of it immediately because…they were shipped without rear reflectors, and some models don’t have chain guards. Apparently, it’s impossible to add those things yourself.
Zwift, Canyon Bicycles and Pedal Mafia launched a new North American U19 development team, with a goal of putting an American atop the podium at the Tour de France or Tour de France Femmes within a decade.
Finally…
After the Tour, there’s really nothing left but riding across the Mediterranean. If you’re a thrice convicted felon riding a bicycle while carrying illegal drugs and stolen credit cards, put a damn rear light on it, already — and don’t threaten a cop with your slingshot.
Let’s start with a bit of heartbreaking news, after someone stole the ghost bike recently installed for a pregnant mother in Playa del Rey.
According to Streets Are For Everyone Executive Director Damian Kevitt, the bike placed in memory of 35-year old Regan Cole-Graham, a mother of two who was seven months pregnant with her daughter Ophelia, was taken shortly after the ghost bike for Blake Ackerman in West Hollywood was stolen, then recovered a few days later.
Which raises the question of whether someone is purposely removing ghost bikes, or if this is just a strange coincidence.
Only the ghost bike installed for her unborn daughter remains where they were placed.
Cole-Graham and her daughter were killed by an elderly driver on Pershing Drive, where a road diet installed in 2017 was removed months later after backlash from angry motorists, mostly pass-through commuters from Manhattan Beach.
And yes, there’s not a pit in hell deep enough for any lowlife scumbucket who would intentionally steal a ghost bike, as if that’s somehow different than desecrating any other memorial.
A woman inside was just washing her clothes when the SUV came flying in through the door of the business around 6 pm, fatally pinning her against one of the machines.
A witness reported the driver appeared to be an elderly woman, who tried explaining her actions by telling police her foot got caught on the pedal. If true, it adds even more fuel to the burning argument over how old is too old to drive a car.
Either way, it’s more proof that motor vehicles pose a deadly risk to everyone, on or off the roadway.
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California State Senator Catherine Blakespear will host a 90-minute webinar this evening to discuss solutions to ebike safety, in conjunction with CalBike, PeopleForBikes, Streets For All and Streets Are For Everyone.
Blakespear is the sponsor of SB 1167, a much-needed bill that would clarify the definition of ebikes, and crack down on illegal electric motorbikes being misrepresented as legal ebikes.
Someone let me know how it goes, because I’ll be on a much-needed mental health break today, going to my happy place where cars don’t exist, and the deer and the antelope play.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
You’ve got to be kidding. Orange County Sheriff’s deputies were called when two teenagers decided to terrorize shoppers in a Foothill Ranch Walmart by riding their ebikes — actually electric motorbikes — up and down the aisles. One more reason why California needs to clarify the definition of ebikes to distinguish them from e-motos and dirt bikes.
A group of Singapore bicyclists were termed “too arrogant to use the lane provided for them,” despite politely riding single file and hugging the fog line — never mind that the bike lane, just the shoulder of the damn roadway — was likely littered with debris, or that there were a series of warning signs next to the bike lane just down the road. Because arrogance is the only possible explanation when people on bicycles do things that drivers don’t understand.
This is how you get change. Hundreds of Chicago bicyclists took part in a “life-affirming” bike ride and die-in in memory of a city Complete Streets planner who was killed in a dooring while riding in a painted bike lane. I’ve never seen that many LA bike riders turn out for any protest or memorial except Critical Mass.
He gets it. An editor for Cycling Weekly says he is very aware of his vulnerability when he rides a bicycle, like virtually every other bike rider, and doesn’t need to be pulled over by the cops for a reminder, when it’s the people in the big, dangerous machines who should be told how vulnerable we are.
A British father and son completed a 400-day, 18,000-mile bike trip around the world, setting Guinness World Records in the process for the fastest bicycle circumnavigation of the world by a father and son, the longest bicycle journey by a father and son, and the most countries visited in a continuous bicycle journey by a father and son.
