Donating to BikinginLA ensures your name will move to the top of Santa’s Good List. Or maybe Hannukah Harry’s.
In case you missed it, we started a new feature yesterday in which everyday riders describe their rides, starting with Adra Graves’ commute along the beach in Venice and Santa Monica.
If you want to tell us about your ride, good, bad or otherwise, just send it to the address on the About page.
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‘Tis the season for bighearted people.
Hats off to Long Beach’s Velo Allegro Cycling Club for donating 197 new bicycles, one for every kid in the third grade at the city’s Roosevelt Elementary School. Thanks to Allyson Vought for the heads-up.
The LAPD Foothill Division helped donate over 100 bikes and 1,500 toys to Pacoima families.
The Southern California Velo Cycling Club is collecting toys in conjunction with Incycle Bicycle Stores, and will host a Toy Ride on the 19th to deliver them to the San Dimas Sheriff’s station.
Midnight Ridazz is hosting the annual All City Toy Ride this Friday, with feeder rides starting throughout the city (scroll down).
Menlo Park police and city officials will join with cyclists for a bike ride with Santa Claus to deliver gifts to children at the Boys and Girls Club this Saturday.
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Trust me, it’s worth three minutes and 44 seconds of your day to watch The Bike Instructor’s Guide to Cycling in Amsterdam. Especially since it explains why you should always ride with a potato in your pants.
Thanks to LA Streetsblog for the link.
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Local
LADOT Bike Blog asks riders and pedestrians to to safely and politely share the LA River Bike Path at the Glendale Narrows.
An Aussie website looks at LA artist Carolina Fontoura Alzaga, who turns junk bike parts into high-end chandeliers. As much as I admire the art, my preference remains turning bike parts into bicycles.
Santa Monica Spoke is hosting an evening with the Adventure Cycling Association this Saturday.
A Manhattan Beach attorney gives kind of a weak response to a question about whether bicyclists should be licensed and insured, though he more or less gets it right about where we can ride.
State
Oceanside votes for temporary safety improvements where a 12-year old bike rider was killed on his way to school — but still has the boy’s father ejected from council chambers.
Modesto is building an additional two miles of curb-protected bike lanes. Which is about two miles more than LA has.
San Francisco’s proposed Idaho stop law moves towards a threatened mayoral veto. But despite what a local TV station says, it wouldn’t be the first city to have such a rule, since treating stop signs as yields has been legal in Idaho since 1982.
A Vacaville teen is convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for stabbing another boy who laughed when he fell off his bicycle; he was acquitted on a more serious charge of attempted murder.
National
Adventure Journal looks at why it’s standard to mount a bike from the left.
HuffPo talks with the director of Bikes vs Cars about how cities worldwide are rethinking bike safety.
Visually impaired New Yorkers naturally fear reckless bike riders, just like they are undoubtedly afraid of reckless drivers and careless pedestrians. Which has absolutely nothing to do with allowing cyclists to roll stops when it’s safe to do so, despite the breathless fear mongering of the local press.
A Florida killer hit-and-run driver gets a sweetheart deal from the DA; instead of facing 40 years, he gets off with a sentence of just two. On the other hand, Florida courts weren’t so generous with a 21-year old woman, who will spend the next 30 years of her life behind bars for killing a cyclist while fleeing from police in a stolen car.
International
A Brazilian cyclist plans to attempt a new world record for drafting a car on a public highway at the equivalent of 124 mph. Which is only about 90 mph better than my best.
The BBC says those bike parts you bought may be counterfeit.
A UK woman hugs and forgives the driver who cost her one of her legs in a bicycling collision.
A Brit writer explores the linguistic Babel that divides the world of bicycling.
A bike cam catches a near collision between runners and a mountain biker on an Australian trail. A good reminder to always be prepared and on the lookout for, and considerate of, others.
Domino’s has switched to e-bikes in an Australian city to increase delivery efficiency with a lower environmental footprint.
About damn time. An Aussie coroner says trucks should not be allowed on the roads without appropriate technology to eliminate their blind spots. Now we just have to get authorities to come to the same conclusion here and everywhere else.
A successful Chinese entrepreneur walks away from the global business he built to found a new smart bike company; the $390 bike includes GPS tracking, puncture-resistant tires and a self-powered, battery-less electric system.
These days, it seems like wealthy Chinese are buying everything. Including, possibly, the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España.
Finally…
There’s nothing like a multimodal police chase. Or riding your bike with 129 pounds of millstones balanced on your helmetless head.
And if you’re going to flee the scene after hitting a cyclist, make sure you take your license plate with you.
Loved the Amsterdam clip. Having ridden in Holland and just a little in Amsterdam you do have to pay attention. We limped into town with a bulging rear tire heading to our hotel which we weren’t quite sure where it was. Early rush hour….. After finding the hotel and the problem with the bike we decided to walk around instead of ride for the next 2 days. Not knowing the rules of engagement, where we would be going and driving a truck (tandem) wasn’t the greatest prospect.
So we chose the better part of valour and packed up the bike for the trip home. Center town is very walkable, stay off the bike lanes….