BikinginLA

After a brief respite, we’ve got another long list of bike events, and lots of links for your weekend reading pleasure.

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As always, Bike Talk airs every Saturday at 10 am; listen to it live or download the podcast from KPFK.

Saturday, June 11th, the Eastside Bike Club is joining with Project Pink and the Barber House in Lincoln Heights to host the EBC’s Community Cancer Awareness Bike Ride, starting at 9 am at the Antigua Bread El Sereno, 5597 Huntington Drive North in El Sereno. Event will include food trucks and DJ, as well an opportunity to donate your hair to Locks of Love.

Flying Pigeon hosts their monthly Spoke(n) Art Ride on Saturday, June 11 and the Get Sum Dim Sum Ride on Sunday, June 19th. All rides meet at Flying Pigeon Bike Shop, 3714 North Figueroa Street in Highland Park.

The L.A. Sheriff’s Department Cycling Team is hosting the R2R LASD Cyclefest this Saturday, June 11, with rides of 17, 34 and 62 miles. The ride supports Road 2 Recovery to benefit the rehabilitation of wounded veterans, and starts at 8 am at Malibu/Lost Hills Station, 27050 Agoura Road in Agoura.

On Sunday, June 12th, Flying Pigeon is hosting an evening with Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi, authors of “Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay.” It takes place beginning at 7 pm at Flying Pigeon, 3714 North Figueroa Street in Highland Park.

Also on Sunday the 12th, the Shady Bunch is presenting An Afternoon Delight, a fundraiser for CicLAvia at the Weiland Brewery Restaurant, 400 East 1st Street in Little Tokyo. The event will continue on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month.

If you can make it up to Sacramento on Sunday, June 12th, Ride4Matt is sponsoring a charity ride to benefit Matthew Wietrick, who was seriously injured while riding last February. Choose from routes of 10, 35 and 70 miles, with a $7 BBQ lunch after the ride; donations gratefully accepted.

Tuesday, June 14th, the L.A. City Council will consider the appointment of Jaime De La Vega to head LADOT, as well as the Wilshire Blvd Bus Only Lanes, which would also allow bicycles while banning cars during rush hour. The hearing begins at 10 am in the City Council chambers at L.A. City Hall, 200 North Spring Street Downtown.

Flying Pigeon Bike Shop will host a fundraising bike ride and party to benefit Streetsblog LA on Friday, June 17th, beginning and ending at Flying Pigeon, 3714 North Figueroa Street in Highland Park; ride meets at 6 pm, with party to follow at 8 pm. Any more of their events this week, and we may have to get Flying Pigeon to sponsor this page.

C.I.C.L.E is sponsoring a free seven-mile Northeast L.A. Nature Ride exploring the natural beauty of Northeast L.A. Meet at the entrance to the Arroyo Seco Bike Path at Arroyo Seco Stables, 1001 Arroyo Verde Road at 1 pm on Saturday, June 18th.

Friday, June 24th, the L.A. Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture is partnering with CicLAvia for a 1-day conference on the Architecture of Transportation. The event takes place at the West Hall of the L.A. Convention Center from 8:30 am to 5:15 pm.

Italian-style biking comes to L.A. with the 2011 Gran Fondo Calnago Los Angeles, offering rides of 39 and 72 miles, with up to 7,100 feet of climbing; registration includes jersey, aid stations and post-ride Italian lunch. Proceeds will go to benefit Team Type 1, a pro team made up to call attention to the fight against Type 1 Diabetes. The rides start at 7 am on Sunday, June 26h at the 400 block of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

On July 15th, life as we know it will come to an end when Carmaggedon occurs with the closure of the 405 Freeway through West L.A. True believers in freeway widening and car culture will immediately be raptured out of the construction zone, leaving those left behind to fight for survival on the streets of the city; for those lucky few who make it through the weekend, life will return to some semblance of normal when the freeway reopens on Monday the 18th. Or you could just, you know, ride your bike.

The July 10th CicLAvia has been cancelled, but the October 9th event is a definite go, with an expanded route taking participants another 2.5 miles into Boyle Heights.

Tuesday, August 30th, Santa Monica’s Library Alehouse will host a benefit night for Streetsblog LA; 5% of all food and drink purchases will benefit Streetsblog; 2911 Main Street.

And mark your calendar for the 2011 L.A. edition of the Tour de Fat on October 8th; you’d think someone in the scheduling department would have noticed that the 9th is Yom Kippur this year. And L.A. has more than a few Jewish cyclists.

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Police identify the cyclist killed in a North Hollywood shooting as 19-year old Sylmar resident Shoichi Joe Minesaki. Stephen Box suggests Jaime De la Vega’s appointment to head LADOT is more of the same. The L.A. Times looks at new hi-tech clothes that go from bike to office, and says protecting cyclists should be a priority, bless their ink stained little hearts. Better Bike Beverly Hills reports on that city’s recent Ad-Hoc Bike Committee meeting; the key phrase seems to be “the city has not responded.” Safe Routes to School urges SCAG to prioritize safety for all road users. Just a little too late in writing about the father of the quick release. Bicycle Fixation questions the assumptions that keep bike projects from moving forward. The South Bay’s new bike master plan goes public on June 20th, The Antelope Valley High Desert Cyclists associates with the LACBC.

A Corona del Mar girl slips while biking to school and falls off a bridge, clinging to ivy to avoid a 30-foot fall before she’s pulled to safety. A memorial ride will be held on Saturday, July 9th for Nick Venuto, the cyclist killed in North San Diego when a car went off a busy highway and flipped onto an off-road bike path. The AIDS/LifeCycle ride reaches L.A. on Saturday, one week and 545 miles after leaving San Francisco. The CHP is looking for the hit-and-run driver who killed a Santa Cruz bike messenger. Can bikes take the lane in the City by the Bay? Sacramento’s bike cops could be on the chopping block. Cyclelicious explains how to make a box turn. An arch conservative calls for shutting down streets so Americans can practice their none motorized transportation skills; Cyclelicious says that sounds a lot like a ciclovia. The state budget crisis threatens popular mountain bike trails.

A bicycle designer is looking for funding through Kickstarter for a new industrial strength multi-use bike trailer. The helmet of the future could call paramedics for you. Elly Blue tells Tea Partiers that the socialized subsidy of motor vehicles must end. Nine rules for riding in a paceline, which may not be as scary as you think. A Tucson cyclist is banned for life for doping. The mayor of bike-friendly Portland hits a cyclist, but denies the blame. Colorado’s new USA Pro Cycling Challenge plans the two highest climbs in pro racing history — on the same stage, no less. Traversing a very bike unfriendly stretch of Kansas. Chicago’s new mayor challenges Portland and Long Beach for the county’s most bike friendly city; it’s off to a good start with its first protected bike lane and bike box. In case you haven’t seen it yet, a New York cyclist gets a ticket for riding outside the bike lane, and responds by crashing into every object he can find that’s blocking it in a wildly popular viral video; then again, there’s more to the story. More New Yorkers are killed in traffic than by guns each year; advocates call for zero traffic deaths by 2030. As if the NYPD’s recent crackdown on cyclists wasn’t creepy enough, now police are stopping women for riding in skirts, which is troubling in so many ways; clearly, this is a department with serious problems. The NY Times profiles an armless cyclist who could probably drop you in a second. Plans to welcome cyclists to downtown Cumberland MD hit a snag when a homeless woman refuses to leave. A group of Cherokee cyclists are riding the infamous Trail of Tears from the Deep South to the former Indian Territories in Oklahoma; thanks to Zeke for the link.

An online course in how to perform first aid for cyclists. The non-profit Bike Revolution bicycle registration program is now known as Bike Shepherd. Yet another careless Brit driver walks away with a slap on the wrist. London police threaten to ticket a mother for carrying her kids on a legal bike. The custom bike business is booming, but you can always build your own. Town Mouse says come bike the UK, where you too can dice with death. French fans tell Contador to stay away from Le Tour, while five Mexican footballers play the Contador defense. Sixty-two percent of Aussies would like to ride a bike, but are afraid of the country’s roads. Evidently, China takes hit-and-run seriously, as authorities execute a driver who hit and injured a cyclist, got out of his car to stab her to death, then fled the scene; thanks to Rex Reese for the heads-up.

Finally, a group of bike thieves chop down a tree to steal a bike for a few seconds of joy riding, although it probably would have been easier to use that axe on the lock. And it’s important to keep your bike prepared at all times in case of Zombie attack, even if you’re a Dalmation.

But seriously, lose the training wheels.