Sad news on Wednesday, as former Westside city Councilmember Bill Rosendahl lost his long battle with cancer.
Streetblog’s Damien Newton considers how his friend changed the conversation regarding bikes and transportation in the City of Angeles, while current Councilmember Mike Bonin remembers his mentor.
I won’t bore you again with my own thoughts; I offered them last month upon learning that Rosendahl was nearing the end.
But I will say that LA is a better city today than it was just a few short years ago, and he had a lot to do with that.
And we are a much poorer city today without him.
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Somehow I missed Calbike’s endorsements of candidates for the state legislature in the upcoming June primary, including several in the LA, OC and San Diego areas.
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Maybe they get it, after all.
Specialized has killed their Playboy-branded ebike a week after a Playboy-themed promotion at the Berlin bike show blew up in their faces, saying “it does not align with our brand values.”
Specialized had already apologised for the PR stunt, with chief marketing officer Slate Olson saying the brand “stands strong with female riders and we do not support the objectification of women in any way, in any region.”
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A New Zealand PSA shows how to stop a texting driver, and maybe get a little closer at the same time. Although it would be a kind of awkward from the seat of your bike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM75ulDRkhI
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Not only has gambler and Instagram idiot star Dan Bilzerian begun his ride to Las Vegas to win a $1.2 million bet, at last report, he was just 25 miles from the finish line.
Then again, give me two chefs, a masseuse, doctor, bike mechanic and a police escort, and I’ll do it for half of that.
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Local
The LADOT Bike Program officially unveils its shiny new website.
More on the planned opening of the new Modern Times microbrewery in DTLA’s South Park neighborhood; the founder of the San Diego craft brew maker says he was drawn, in part, by Downtown’s expanding bike lane network.
Construction is nearing completion on a several major projects in downtown Santa Monica, including a number of bicycling improvements.
Whittier police warn bike thieves to beware of their sting. It would be nice to see LAPD fight bike theft with a bait bike or two of their own.
State
Remarkably, some Encinitas residents fear turning a dirt trail that runs along a railroad track through Cardiff into a paved bike path, which will eventually run 44 miles from Oceanside to downtown San Diego, will somehow ruin the character of the city.
CiclaValley says Legoland could use a little Copenhagenization.
I want to be like him when I grow up. Congratulations to 91-year old Santa Maria resident Bob Mettauer, who reached his goal of riding 90,000 miles before his 92nd birthday.
A San Jose writer offers advice on how to ride a bike with your dog.
Caught on video: The Bay Area’s public TV station looks at Oakland’s Scraper Bike Team.
Nice piece by a Bay Area bike writer, who says sometimes bikes slow down cars — and sometimes cars slow down cars — and that’s okay.
San Francisco’s Bicycle Advisory Committee works for better bicycling by the bay. LA has one, as well; although it usually gets ignored by city officials, and most councilmembers seldom, if ever, meet with their representatives on the committee. And the city won’t even give them an actual website.
National
Gizmodo says building highways through cities was a huge, but fixable, mistake.
Portland restripes a bike lane, just one day after the Department of DIY struck by placing orange cones to mark the fading lines.
A Portland woman gets her bike back five years after it was stolen, thanks to registering it with Bike Index. You have registered yours, right? They offer free lifetime registration right at the top of this page, so don’t wait until it’s too late.
Now that’s more like it. A proposal in the Illinois legislature would require drivers on a highway to yield the right-of-way to any person riding a bicycle.
Protected bike lanes could be coming to the main drag of the Motor City.
A Vermont website explains what bike turn signals mean, while suggesting it might be better just to point out where you’re going.
A Pennsylvania court says a cyclist can’t sue for his injuries because he can’t prove the state DOT knew the pothole he hit was there.
WaPo says real estate developers are offering more “trail-oriented” communities to meet the demand for bikeable and walkable places to live and work.
International
A Canadian writer says cycling’s real image problem is that it’s just too much fun.
A Windsor, Ontario letter writer says cyclists have to take responsibility for making drivers feel haunted by the memory of killing them.
A writer for London’s Telegraph says if safety was really pro cycling’s foremost priority, they’d stop cycling.
Caught on video: A British driver compiles “shocking” dashcam video of scofflaw cyclists, saying this is how accidents happen. Except none of the riders he shows seem to cause any collisions, and few, if any, close calls.
UK police are looking for a hit-and-run bike rider who broke a three-year old boy’s leg while riding on the sidewalk. Seriously, in any collision with a pedestrian — or another rider — stick around until you know they’re okay. Especially a little kid.
A new carfree Amsterdam tunnel uses design and lighting to create separate spaces for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Twenty-five Pakistani women ride to reclaim their space on the roads in the face of harassment, cheered on by around 60 supporters.
A new Aussie bike helmet with built-in cams records a 320 degree view of everything around you while offering a live rear view.
Finally…
Maybe the real problem is crappy headlights instead of ninja cyclists. Will a new bike shop disturb a part-man, part-goat, part-sheep creature who lives under a railroad trestle?
And threatening a clerk with your U-lock to steal pornography probably isn’t the best use for it.
I’m just saying.
