BikinginLA

We’re now up to 11 new or renewing members of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition who’ve signed up as part of the May BikinginLA LACBC Membership Drive. But we still have a long way to go to reach our goal of 100 new members before the end of this month.

So take a moment to sign up now to add your voice to Southern California’s leading bicycle advocacy organization, dedicated to making LA County a safer and more inviting place to ride a bike, whoever you are and however you ride.

And thanks to a special arrangement with the LACBC, you’ll get free bike swag when you sign up at any level. Which is just the beginning of the many benefits to you and your community.

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Somehow this didn’t make the news at the time.

Police are looking for the men who killed 24-year old Fabian Garcia at 62nd and Grand in Los Angeles last January following a dispute over the bicycle he was riding.

He fought with two men who claimed the bike was stolen; as he rode away after the fight, the men came back and shot him, leaving the bike with his body.

There’s a $50,000 reward in the case. Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Newton Division Detectives at 323/846-6556.

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Marcel Kittel wears the pink leader’s jersey in the Giro d’Italia after dominating the opening weekend.

Yet another pro cyclist is injured by motorcycle on the course, this time at the Four Days of Dunkirk race in France.

Peter Sagan is back to defend his title in the Amgen Tour of California starting on Sunday.

And Wolfpack Hustle offers results from Saturday’s Short Line Crit in Long Beach.

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Local

The Daily News lists the six most deadly intersections for pedestrians in the San Fernando Valley; chances are, they’re not going to be all that great for bike riders, either.

The UCLA Bicycle Academy says physicians and healthcare systems should embrace bicycling for its health and environmental benefits.

Richard Risemberg says cool, rainy weather like we had over the weekend is perfect riding weather.

KPCC talks with Edward Humes, author of Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation, who says crashes — not accidents, please — don’t have to kill 100 people a day in the US. And notes that in any collision involving a bicyclist or pedestrian, we’re the ones who inevitably get the blame.

KPCC also talks with a former Long Beach resident who prefers riding his bike with just one leg rather than driving; he says the key is to avoid hills and just keep moving.

 

State

Palm Desert uses funds from the Go Human campaign for a pop-up demonstration of what San Pablo Ave could look like as a Complete Street, including bike lanes and more walkable sidewalks.

Work is set to begin on a project to widen the 5 Freeway in North San Diego County, including bike and pedestrian bridges and trails.

A San Bernardino man will ride across the US to give hugs and high fives in cities affected by gun violence.

Santa Barbara planners vote to move a planned bikeway from a busy commercial street to a side street, shifting riders away from the business they might otherwise frequent.

A Clovis man apparently made his getaway on a stolen mountain bike after murdering his estranged wife and her mother.

The bikeway to Treasure Island on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge is now scheduled to be finished by September, two years late and $1.4 million over budget.

 

National

NPR looks at how cities are using data from runners and cyclists, including Strava, to help build safer streets. The question is whether they’re measuring where average people on bikes really ride.

Utah mountain bikers take a breathless ride at the edge of a cliff.

An Illinois woman is in serious condition after she was hit by a bicyclist who was riding on the sidewalk.

A former Michigan lawmaker is riding 2,900 miles across the US just two years after a near-fatal bicycling collision.

A New Hampshire man publishes his first book of poetry, six years after surviving a serious bicycling collision.

Boston is investing $9.3 million to improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians on four deadly corridors as part of their Vision Zero program.

Call it confirmation bias. Two Boston Globe reporters piss off other drivers by setting out to see if people in the city will tolerate a 20 mph speed limit, by driving 20 mph in a 30 mph zone. Which doesn’t mean everyone would be as angry if that was the speed limit.

Great idea. Over 1,000 New Yorkers take a bike tour of Brooklyn Public Library branches; one rider made it to 51 library branches.

A handful of Cherokee Indians will ride from Georgia to Oklahoma next month to remember the Trail of Tears, when the Cherokee were brutally forced from their lands in the 1830s.

A New Orleans author looks at the bicycle as a tool for women’s empowerment.

 

International

Bike advocates say London’s outgoing mayor was good for bikes, but new mayor Sadik Khan will be even better.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, as a man in the UK pulls a woman to safety after her car catches on fire.

A Zimbabwe man is riding, swimming and running in a non-stop, 4,300 mile triathlon around the entire coast of Great Britain.

Paris shuts down the famed Champs-Élysées for the first of a series of open streets events.

Chinese-made ebikes appear to be taking North Korea by storm.

A Cambodian man got out of prison, got drunk with a friend, then beat him to death with a brick because he tried to steal the man’s bicycle once. Then again, that’s no worse than shooting your own brother in a dispute over a hamburger.

 

Finally…

No, seriously. Don’t slap Uber passengers, bro. If you’re going to steal over $250,000 from ID theft victims, at least spend more than $800 of it on a bike.

And kangaroos only cause the most crashes in one Aussie state if you ignore all the crashes caused by humans.