BikinginLA

Just a couple quick notes before we get started.

Ralph Durham forwards a photo from his new home in Munich, Germany. Note the long line of people on bikes waiting in the bike lane for the traffic light.

And Mike Wilkinson is now an award-winning author for the guest post he recently submitted about OC’s bike-riding Todd the Volunteer.

A while ago my wife and I helped our neighbor buy a three-wheel bike. She hadn’t ridden for decades, but now she loves it!

On a whim I sent her a link to your February 24 blog that included my submission about Todd the Volunteer. She told me she was moved to tears. In fact, she was so impressed that tonight she presented me with a plaque and a pop-up bicycle card.

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The Amgen Tour of California announces the teams that will compete in this May’s edition, including defending women’s champ Megan Guarnier and 2015 men’s winner Peter Sagan.

The Guardian says British Cycling’s reputation is in tatters after a damning report was leaked, accusing it of a culture of fear and dysfunctional leadership.

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Local

LAPD officers issue 45 tickets in just 90 minutes during a Lake Balboa crosswalk sting; police will look at ways to reduce speeds on the Valley’s four most dangerous corridors for bicyclists and pedestrians. Too bad we haven’t been able to get them to do a similar sting for safe passing violations. And not for lack of trying.

Pasadena police are looking for a man on a bike who repeatedly stabbed a homeless man after arguing with the victim’s girlfriend; the attacker is described as a Latino man between 30 and 35 years old, 6 feet tall and 170 to 180 pounds, with very short dark hair.

The San Marino Tribune looks at last Sunday’s 626 Golden Streets ciclovía, which drew thousands of people to the three-mile segment within the city. And probably a lot more than that.

Santa Clarita is still looking for input on a proposed bikeshare program.

The Santa Monica Daily Press quotes one of the artists who helped design the gates for the Ballona Creek bike path as saying there are plans to eventually extend the bike path from Griffith Park to the ocean. Wrong bike path; that’s the plan for the LA River bike path, which will eventually extend 51 miles from the San Fernando Valley to the coast, not Ballona Creek, which doesn’t reach that far inland.

Santa Monica police are conducting another of their periotic bike and pedestrian safety crackdowns today and Monday. Standard protocol applies; ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits.

Long Beach’s Beach Streets will hold a community meeting this Wednesday to prepare for the city’s next open streets event.

 

State

UC Santa Barbara students will get their bike path back in a few weeks once the school finishes repairing the sewer line underneath.

Bay Area bike riders are complaining that the Bay Bridge bike path, which was supposed to be open 24 hours a day, every day, is still only open during the day on weekends.

 

National

American bikeshare riders took 28 million trips in 2016, up from just 320,000 in 2010.

Some people just don’t get it. A pair of San Antonio TX politicians want to slice $200 million in projects they describe as pure pork from a bond package, including several road diets intended to add bike lanes and pedestrian safety improvements.

Chicago stats show women are more likely to be killed in bicycle crashes than men. In addition, most fatal bike wrecks in the city occur during morning rush hour, mostly in collisions with large commercial trucks, while only one rider was killed in a marked bike lane.

Nice piece from a Minnesota physician, who says drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians all have to know the rules of the road. And suggests stressed out motorists should slow down and try walking or biking instead.

A Columbus OH newspaper calls on drivers and bike riders to both obey the law and share the road safely.

The lawyer for an accused New York hit-and-run driver says a plea offer of 15 years reflects political pressure on the DA’s office. Not the fact that he’s accused of fleeing the scene after running a red light, veering into a bike lane and killing a man on his bike. Which makes 15 years sound about right.

It takes a lot to forgive the person who killed someone you love. But that’s what a New York man did when the drunk driver who took his wife’s life as she rode her bike was sentenced to up to four years in jail.

A New York woman was critically injured when she stepped out from between two parked cars and into the path of a bike rider. As we touched on yesterday, bikes don’t pose anywhere near the risk to others that cars do. But a bicycle can still do a lot of damage if you’re not careful around them. Or on them.

They get it. An Alabama city has eliminated its requirement that adults wear bike helmets when they ride in order to prepare for a planned bikeshare system. Whatever your opinions on helmets — I never ride without one, myself — mandating their use has been shown to depress riding rates, and has been blamed for the failure of bikeshare programs in Seattle, Brisbane and Melbourne.

 

International

A Vancouver company will fit you with a bike and take you on cycling trip the next time you visit the city.

Calgary bicyclists explain why they ride all winter, even at 20 degrees below zero.

For once, a driver’s claim that the sun was in her eyes failed to sway a jury, as a Canadian driver was convicted of dangerous driving in the death of a bicyclist.

A British campaign is looking to replicate nationwide the success of the West Midlands police in educating drivers on how to pass bicyclists safely; using a mat to demonstrate safe passing distances, they managed to cut close passing offenses 50% in just the first three months.

The city of Punjab makes 90% of the bicycles in India, but doesn’t offer bicyclists a single safe place to ride.

Not only is Bollywood star Salman Kahn one of us, he’s also a bikemaker, as he takes the lane on a Mumbai street riding one of his own company’s six-spoked ebikes.

Evidently, New Zealand is no better at keeping dangerous drivers off the roads than we are. A driver with five major traffic convictions in the last ten years was convicted of critically injuring a bike rider — and still got off with community service and a lousy 10-month suspended license.

Aussie cyclists plan to ride bareheaded to protest the country’s mandatory helmet laws.

A tech writer says China’s bikeshare boom is creating an unsustainable demand for bicycles.

Singapore is poised to be the next battleground for Chinese bikeshare startups.

 

Finally…

Until they make a bike with a built-in keg, this will have to do. No, seriously, keep your head up when you’re riding.

And when a bike rider tells you to back up, listen.