BikinginLA

Let me start with a personal note.

My nephew will be in town this weekend to visit film schools — I know, I know, but he’s actually pretty good — and would like to visit a production set while he’s here to see how it’s really done.

If anyone can get him and his parents backstage at a TV or film shoot between this Saturday and next Wednesday morning, I’d consider it a personal favor.

You can find my email address on the About page.

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The Atlantic Cities looks at last weekend’s Wolfpack Hustle Marathon Crash race, while Ride San Francisco offers a good play by play. Great photos and video from Predator Cycling. Or maybe you’d prefer a helmet cam perspective. Oh, and it was evidently followed by some sort of foot race, too.

Meanwhile, the Claremont Cyclist looks at a more official race that also took place over the weekend, the Men’s and Women’s San Dimas Stage Race. The 28th annual Redlands Bicycle Classic kicks off tomorrow, including the Women’s Prestige Cycling Series; not everyone is happy about it.

And pro cyclist Tom Boonen says modern sprinters are getting out of control.

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The first ever National Women’s Cycling Forum discusses how to get more women on bikes, as riders head to Capitol Hill for the annual National Bike Summit. Professional cyclists and CEOs ride from to the event from Boston to raise funds for the Bikes Belong Foundation.

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We now have a date for this year’s Blessing of the Bicycles, hosted by Good Samaritan Hospital on Tuesday, May 15th. The non-denominational event features blessings from representatives of virtually every faith found in L.A., as well as food and bike swag.

And now that I think about it, I don’t remember getting a flat since I got my bike blessed last year.

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LADOT commits to nearly 16 miles of new bike lanes. Streetsblog looks at the women of East L.A.’s Ovarian-Psychos Bicycle Brigade. If you’re looking for a good cause, the Bicycle Kitchen is raising funds to buy a new permanent home. Letter writers to the Times support the green Spring Street bike lane. Next month’s CicLAvia will coincide with Chinatown’s inaugural Springfest; you’ve got just two weeks left to support CicLAvia on Kickstarter. The biking black hole of Beverly Hills considers the city’s Western Gateway — excluding cyclists, of course; evidently, they don’t want any input from us, either. And Beverly Hills misses a chance to improve a dangerous street. Culver City already has wayfinding signage; L.A. is working on it. Walk Eagle Rock offers thoughts on outdated bikeway designs. KCET Departures picks the LACBC’s JJ Hoffman as one of their 31 Days of Extraordinary Women; couldn’t agree more. One of my favorite reporters picks up the story of the Woodland Hills bike shop that will work with the car dealer across the street to take your car in trade this week. School teachers stop a bike thief in Valinda; and no, I never heard of it either. The New York Times experiences 36 hours in bike-friendly Long Beach. The popular San Gabriel River bike path is undergoing resurfacing this week; if the weather cooperates, the work should be done next Monday.

The cdm Cyclist joins with Enrique Penalosa to rethink the automobile. The OC Weekly takes up the story of hand-sanitizer drinking former Long Beach fire captain and hit-and-run driver John David Hines. The Cal State Fullerton bike team hopes to be competitive this year. A San Diego cyclist is seriously injured after reportedly running a red light; and yes, that looks like blood on a sharrow. A San Francisco CEO bikes 525 miles to L.A., and offers a highly compressed bike video to prove it. A 67-year old San Francisco cyclist is found dead after going missing in Death Valley.

Bicycling offers advice on how to knock out knee pain. An Aspen thief returns the bike he stole with a note of apology, saying he was drunk. New York’s Central Park is going on a road diet. New York Senator Chuck Schumer is caught riding in the Prospect Park West bike lane his wife has been leading the fight against; can she make a sitting Senator sleep on the couch? A Boston writer suggests that all cyclists are jerks, or maybe just 99%. Drive drunk, kill a cyclist, get 6 months probation; evidently, life is cheap in PA. A Fairfax VA rider offers a first-person example of why the DC area needs a cyclist anti-harassment ordinance; then again, so does every other city. A Tennessee study says wider bike and walking paths can lead to skinnier kids. A former Atlanta cop gets a lousy $5,000 fine for beating the crap out of a cyclist in an off-duty road rage incident. An Alabama driver faces a misdemeanor homicide charge in the death of a cyclist touring the country for Habitat for Humanity last year. Still no justice for the cyclist killed by Miami pop singer and accused hit-and-run driver Carlos Bertonatti, as his trial is delayed for the ninth time.

A Canadian cyclist finds a baby left in a pile of leaves; that’s not something anyone would have noticed from a car. A writer with a severe case of windshield perspective says it’s up to pedestrians and cyclists to make themselves more visible, not drivers to notice them; funny how the solution to any problem always seems to require someone else to do something. Thunder Bay residents just can’t seem to get the hang of a recent road diet. Manitoba considers a mandatory helmet law, even as a pair of British physicians argue that bicycle helmets may not do any good. A Vancouver cyclist who wasn’t wearing one dies after colliding with a jogger. Great Britain considers privatizing the roads, at the possible expense of cyclists. A very good question, as a leading UK blog asks why can’t Londoners be given the option of not driving. Ten more arrests in Spain’s ongoing Vuelta scandal. The Cannibal rode his entire career with a potentially fatal heart condition. An opposition attack on the $40 million Aussie bike path program stalls when a member is shown opening one of the new paths. Oops.

Finally, in case you missed it, 25 pickup lines for cyclists. And the son of the world’s 7th richest man kills a cyclist while behind the wheel of his $450,000 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren outside Rio; father and son defend his actions on Twitter. Anyone want to give odds on whether he gets away with it? But at least he paid his victim’s funeral expenses, though the value of his car keep rising.