BikinginLA

Welcome back. Please accept my belated wishes for a healthy, happy and prosperous new year. And one filled with friends, family and bikes.

Lets hope this coming year is a safe and joyful one for all of us.

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This is who we share the roads with.

First a Petaluma pickup driver hauling a horse trailer makes what appears to be a punishment pass directed at a couple of bicyclists hugging the white line. Or possibly just a dangerous attempt to cut back in time following an ill-advised pass.

Then stops to have a profanity-laced chat with the riders, telling them to get off the road and onto a non-existent bike path.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH4S2pKX9jw&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL290Pi9FkU&feature=youtu.be

Thanks to murphstahoe for the links.

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And here you thought only bike riders run red lights, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z52L6jGdSkY&feature=youtu.be

Thanks to Patrick Pascal for the heads-up.

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Sad news, as 1950 Tour de France champ Ferdy Kuebler passed away at a Zurich hospital Thursday; Kuebler won the Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege classics on successive days in 1951 and 1952, as well as a 356-mile, single-day Bordeaux-to-Paris race in ’53.

More sad news, as rising Canadian pro cyclist Ellen Watters was killed in a collision on a training ride; New Brunswick riders are making a new push for a three-foot passing law in the wake of her death, and appear to be gaining support.

Brit Tour de France champ Bradley Wiggins calls it a career at age 36, amid allegations of drug use masked by special medical exemptions.

American pro Andrew Talansky’s Grand Tour plans may have suffered a setback when he broke his thumb after hitting black ice on a Christmas Eve training ride.

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Local

The LAPD made an arrest in the Hyde Park hit-and-run that left a motorized bike rider seriously injured.

Joe Linton says a recent hit-and-run that left a pedestrian injured shows the need to make NELA’s Fletcher Drive safe.

Debbie Reynolds was one of us, and rode her bike to her first screen test on the Warner Brothers lot from her home in Burbank when she was just 16.

CiclaValley recaps his best articles of the past year.

Pasadena’s Complete Streets Coalition will hold their January meeting next Monday.

Cycling in the South Bay’s Seth Davidson justifiably calls out cyclists on an annual New Years Day ride, where hundreds of bicyclists reportedly blew through red lights on their high-speed tour down the coast, resulting in a crash that injured a pedestrian and a bike rider. And says some riders actually blocked paramedics from getting to them in their attempt to catch up to the peloton. Correction: I’ve heard from someone who was on that ride, who reports that as much of a mess as it was, the rider who collided with the pedestrian was on a different, earlier ride, and said the wreck happened when a pedestrian stepped off the curb while the sun was in his eyes.

 

State

Be careful when you order bikes and parts online. California’s Specialized is suing a number of internet-based bike dealers for selling counterfeit frames and accessories.

California motorists are now prohibited from even holding a mobile phone for any reason while they drive. Of course, it’s already illegal to text or use a handheld phone in the state, and we’ve seen how that worked out.

We may have to deal with bullheaded LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about crashing into Bay Area bulls.

San Francisco’s Vision Zero Coalition calls on the city to study its own traffic safety data.

Sad news from Stockton, where a bike rider was killed New Years Eve after allegedly riding through a red light.

 

National

States may have the traffic data the public needs to demand safer streets, but apparently, they’re under no obligation to share it, thanks to a little-known clause in federal law.

Two years ago there were no protected intersections in the US; now there are 12.

Now you can lock your bike up to a birth control device the next time you ride to Oregon’s Planned Parenthood headquarters.

A San Antonio driver hits a bike rider, takes her to a nearby bar, puts her damaged bike on her car, then drives away without identifying himself.

Great story. A homeless Escondido man rides a beach cruiser 1,640 miles to Wichita KS to build planes, because he says God told him to.

Life is cheap in Iowa, where a driver without insurance gets a whole two days for paralyzing a cyclist. Two. Effing. Days.

A Georgia cop helps a DUI driver turn his life around by buying him a bike to ride to work and AA meetings.

New York City now has a nine-mile long protected bike lane crossing the city.

The New York Times reports on a prominent evangelical preacher who lost his faith following a 40 mph solo fall on his bike.

A Miami rider offers a full year of stupid driver tricks caught on bike cam video.

A Florida man has a new bike thanks to a kindhearted EMS supervisor, who bought him one after his was totaled in a crash.

 

International

A new Canadian study says you may end up in the ICU, but at least you don’t have to stop cycling. Meanwhile, A new Chinese study shows riding a bicycle can reduce depression in patients undergoing hemodialysis.

Cycling Weekly offers essential commuting clothes for riding to work, not much of which actually is.

I want to be like him when I grow up. Eighty-seven year old English rider sets three world age group records.

1970’s glam rockers Slade will be cancelling their shows for the next few months after lead guitarist and founding member Dave Hill broke his elbow in a collision with a bike rider.

Dublin votes to cut speed limits to the equivalent of 18 mph throughout the city to improve safety. So when will California realize lives are more important than speed, and allow cities to set safer limits?

An Irish study says boys are ten times more likely to ride their bikes to school than girls.

An Indian tycoon plans to revitalize Great Britain’s declining bike-making industry.

A bicyclist rides 4,600 miles through nine Indian states on a solar-powered ebike.

A New Zealand man gets on his bike for the first time in five years. And gets knocked off by a road-raging driver who drove onto the sidewalk to deliberately ram into him.

A Tokyo pedestrian was killed by a lightless, distracted bike rider on a narrow, sloping passageway where bicyclists aren’t even supposed to ride.

Singapore is installing bikeways in neighborhoods around the island and encouraging the use of personal mobility devices in an attempt to go car-lite.

 

Finally…

This is why you hire an American PR firm to handle your US launch. Busted for driving under the influence of caffeine.

And Ricky Gervais is one of us. Even if he can’t figure out how to use a Presta valve.

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Thanks to George Wolfberg, Karen Karabell, Eric Lewis, Glen Schmuetz and Stephen Katz, and to everyone who gave to last month’s BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive. The kindness and generosity of shown by the readers of this site has moved me more than I could possibly express.

I’d like to thank you all individually, but PayPal now keeps the email addresses of donors hidden. Which is probably a good thing, even if it means I have to thank you here, instead.