BikinginLA

This Wednesday, long-time Santa Monica bike advocate and UCLA/Cambridge lecturer Dr. Michael Cahn will conduct a free lecture on the 1890’s bicycle art of Jean de Paleologu.

Here’s how he describes the talk, titled Ladies Cycling in the Night Sky.

On Wednesday February 8th I will show some pictures and say a few word about Ladies Cycling in the Night Sky, as popularized by Jean de Paleologu (PAL) around 1890. He started a trend in France that associated the bicycle with female figures flying in the wind. A striking visual discourse which is still alive on the occasional wine label.

Yet the image of those night cyclists is very distant from the concern with bloomers and rational dress that dominates the English speaking cycling scene for women during the same period.

And how does it all connect with an old Greek statute found on the island of Samothrace ?

All welcome to join us for this lecture on the history cycling, imaginary and otherwise.

UCLA, Public Policy, Room 1222 11:00 – 12:15

………

Local

Today’s the last day to take the Metro Bike Share survey, and maybe win a free prize pack.

The Daily News says Southern California is in the grips of a diabetes crisis. The same Vision Zero street improvements that can help eliminate traffic deaths can help prevent even more deaths from diabetes, heart disease and stroke by encouraging more people to get out and walk or ride their bikes.

A Pasadena father takes his two young kids bike riding at Cogswell Dam in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Malibu now has $38.5 million to pay for 12 safety improvement projects on PCH, some of which have already been completed, including bike route improvements. However, no one seems to be talking about the most important safety improvement — transforming PCH from a speed-focused highway ferrying people through the city without stopping, into the city’s Main Street.

 

State

The president of Irvine-based Felt says the company is a perfect match with new parent Rossignol.

The Coachella Valley Association of Governments will consider spending $10 million on bike and pedestrian projects following one of the deadliest years for pedestrians. Then again, it wasn’t great for bicyclists, either.

Caught on video: San Francisco bicyclists continue to fall on the city’s 17th Street streetcar tracks, despite repeated promises from the city to do something about it.

 

National

Cities around the country are turning to bicycle paramedic teams to improve response times and save lives, according to the Washington Post; LA bike paramedics were among the first emergency crews to reach Carrie Fisher on the ground after she suffered a heart attack while landing at LAX.

Registration is open for the 32nd annual Ride the Rockies, a seven day, 447 mile bike tour through Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.

Heartbreaking letter in a Topeka newspaper from a father calling for stiffer penalties for killer drivers, recounting the bicycling death of his own son 28 years earlier.

Needless to say, Minneapolis bicyclists aren’t exactly thrilled with a proposed bill that would require bicyclists to complete an educational program, pass a test and pay a fee just to use the city’s bike lanes. As we’ve noted before, the effect of the law would just be that bike lanes would go unused while riders risk their safety riding in the traffic lanes next to them.

Bicycling Magazine looks at how Boston and Atlanta compare when it comes to bikes, concluding Atlanta edges Boston out in overtime. Which is just the opposite of how the football game came out.

There’s something seriously wrong when an 80-year old Florida grandmother has to sacrifice her own life to save her friend from a hit-and-run driver.

Key West FL considers a road diet on a busy four-lane main drag, converting it to two lanes with bike lanes.

 

International

Toronto’s bike-hating columnist is back at it again, citing 211 bicyclists using a bike lane on a cold January morning as proof that no one uses it during the winter. Except for the 211 people who used it, of course. Then gets in a snit when bike riders refuse to interrupt their commutes to pull over to talk to him. Maybe he’d have better luck getting drivers on their way to work to pull over and chat. Or not.

London is averaging one collision a day between bike riders and pedestrians, an increase of 47% over the last seven years. Which really isn’t much in a crowded city of 8.6 million people, although a better number would be zero. Unfortunately, you can’t control what pedestrians do, but you can control where and how you ride, and always slow down and ride carefully around people on foot.

A Scottish woman is back on her bike just twelve weeks after a double lung transplant.

There’s more than one kind of distracted driving. A British driver gets a whole 20 weeks — yes, weeks — for killing a grandfather out for a bike ride when she turned around for a “split-second” to yell at her kids for throwing popcorn.

British bicycling groups welcome police going undercover on bikes to catch drivers passing dangerously close.

Stockholm sees a 45% reduction in children’s asthma attacks after instituting congestion pricing.

In a brilliant move, Spain will impose special temporary speed limits on popular riding routes at peak cycling times to protect bike riders. That would be like dropping speed limits on PCH to 30 mph on Saturday mornings. Which isn’t a bad idea.

An Aussie writer takes a self-guided tour through Slovenia, and finds more adventure than she expected.

New Delhi bike riders have to contend with a lack of cycle tracks, traffic congestion and bad road design, despite the highest number of bike trips in India.

A retired Indian general is riding his bicycle 7,500 miles across India to honor all the soldiers who have lost their lives since the country gained independence in 1947.

An Indian tsunami survivor hasn’t seen her parents in four years. And doesn’t expect to see them for at least another three, as she focuses on competing in track cycling at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

A former Australian elite track cyclist has her career cut short by a horrific series of experimental surgeries.

 

Finally…

No, seriously. If you’re carrying burglary tools on your bike and ghost riding another bicycle at two in the morning, put some damn lights on it. It doesn’t take a prince to push his fiancé’s vintage bicycle, just a soon-to-be royalty-in-law.

And this is why you don’t lock your bike to a tree.