BikinginLA

Nothing like encouraging responsibility on the roads.

An English driver was so concerned about the safety of others, she started a petition calling for all bicyclists to be required to wear a helmet and fluorescent clothing, mentioning in passing that she’d been involved in a collision with a cyclist who died.

Of course, she failed to mention that she was drunk at the time. Or that she fled the scene, leaving her critically injured victim lying alone in the street.

But sure, let’s blame the victims.

Maybe a better petition would require drivers to put fluorescent lights on their cars to warn us if they’ve been drinking, since we can’t seem to keep drunks off the roads.

Or get them to take responsibility for their own actions.

Link courtesy of Matthew Hardy.

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Brit bike scribe and historian Carlton Reid takes an in-depth look at the problem of counterfeit bikes and parts, with chapters including:

• Knock-offs are as old as bicycling itself
• Third-rate Chinese factories churn out second-rate fake frames
• Your Pinarello could be a Chinarella
• Do fake parts really crumple when you use them?
• Various international organizations dedicated to ferreting out the fakes
• What bike can makers do to foil the fakes

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Caught on video: Italian cyclist Fabio Felline pulls an endo just seconds after the start of Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race, suffering a broken nose and fractured skull; Enrico Gasparotto took the victory in the Dutch race.

Motor doping may be more common than we might think, as the European press use a heat detector to discover what appears to be seven hidden motors in two different races.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 100-year old man crossed the finish line in this year’s Tour de Yorkshire on an assisted bicycle, 63 years after he founded a British bike club.

And Wolfpack Hustles’ annual Short Line Crit is less than three weeks away.

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Local

A Tuesday meeting in Pacoima will discuss a bike and pedestrian friendly makeover of Van Nuys Blvd in a bid to improve safety on one of the city’s more dangerous streets.

One of the best things about bicycling is the people you meet. CiclaValley encounters a Korean couple taking a break in LA on their 10-year journey around the world.

A writer for the Gazettes takes a free adult cycling class as part of the efforts of Danny Gamboa and Empact Communities to make Long Beach safer for cyclists.

Lawndale will host its first, albeit very brief, open streets event from 8 am to 10 am this Saturday, followed by a kids ride from 10 am to 12:30 pm.

 

State

A San Diego man receives a life sentence for fatally shooting a bike-riding 46-year old father of six for no apparent reason last year.

Now that the Chargers plan to abandoned their stadium in Mission Valley one way or another, a San Diego city council candidate calls for building a bike path along the river.

San Bernardino police are looking for a driver who allegedly intentionally ran down a cyclist, circling around him before reversing and pinning him to a wall.

A Fresno letter writer says parents should be charged with child abuse for allowing their teenage children to ride their bikes on a busy street. I think he means child endangerment, which is still an absurdly myopic windshield perspective.

Bicycling is booming by the Bay, with an 8.5% increase in San Francisco bike trips in the last year, and an increase of 184% since 2006.

A Monterey CHP officer calls on drivers to share the road with cyclists during this past weekend’s Sea Otter Classic. But mistakenly says bike riders can be cited for impeding traffic for riding too slowly or failing to move over so cars can pass; the latter only applies on two lane roadways when five or more vehicles are following behind and unable to pass. Unfortunately, the CHP frequently misinterprets this law, as well as the requirement that cyclists ride as far right as practicable. Which puts cyclists at risk of underserved tickets, and retaliation from angry drivers who’ve been misinformed about the law.

A Sacramento artist finds new life for old bike chains, turning them into dog sculptures. Meanwhile, both major candidates for mayor of Sacramento pledge to make the city a vibrant place people can safely navigate without a car.

 

National

NACTO’s new Transit Street Design Guide offers a blueprint for how to incorporate transit and protected bikeways on city streets. Let’s hope LA officials read it.

Wired says putting down temporary bike lanes is the best first step to eventually getting permanent protected lanes in place.

Utah could see a future with free transit, along with a bike superhighway on the I-15 corridor.

The Purple One is one of us, as Prince rides his bike just one day after his plane made an emergency landing in Illinois so he could be hospitalized with flu-like symptoms.

Boston boosts funding for their Vision Zero program, budgeting more than $12 million over the next three years.

Federal authorities question whether Baton Rouge LA officials misspent $2.2 million, including $400,000 used to build a bike path along the Mississippi River.

 

International

Caught on video 2: A road raging British driver repeatedly brake checks and swerves at a cyclist, apparently incensed that the bike rider had filtered past a line of cars at a red light.

Seriously? The Guardian says don’t wear your bike shorts in public, especially not in front of children. So presumably, you’ll need to throw on a pair of pants or a skirt before you dismount.

The grammatically challenged Telegraph asks what cycling tribe are you? Because evidently, it’s not possible to just ride a bike without being some sort of stereotype. Or to get that whole singular/plural thing right.

Apparently, life is cheap in Britain, where an 80-year old British man gets a suspended prison sentence and lifetime driving ban for killing a cyclist. Not that it will likely keep him off the road, since he was already driving without a license — and his glasses — after failing previous eye tests.

In the US, drivers are allowed to turn right on most red lights; in Denmark, bike riders just got approval to do the same at 33 intersections.

The United Arab Emirates considers locking dangerous drivers up for 24 hours; that’s in addition to a fine, 12 points on their license, and having their cars impounded for 30 days. Nice to see someone take traffic crime seriously, anyway.

A New Zealand railroad tunnel is repurposed as the Southern Hemisphere’s longest bicycle tunnel after lying dormant for over 60 years.

 

Finally…

Now that’s what I call a scary mug shot. Apparently, James Joyce’s Ulysses was about bicycling.

And it turns out there’s science behind spitting instead of swallowing.

Sports drinks, of course.

Why, what did you think I meant?