Just a couple quick upcoming events.
Celebrate the Race Across America tomorrow in Oceanside with the RAAMapalooza festival to see off the team racers. Although they can probably expect a nasty letter from the lawyers for a certain copyright-conscious music festival.
Bike SGV will team with Metro’s BEST program to host a free slow roll to the drive-in for movie night on the 23rd.
Also on the 23rd, Glendora will hold ribbon cutting ceremony for the San Gabriel Valley’s newest greenway trail. See flyer on the left.
And the following day, CicLAvia returns to the northern San Fernando Valley, with a route connecting Pacoima, Arleta and Panorama City.
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LA Street Services may be having a midlife crisis.
The city bureau is trying out a cute little Italian number to keep the city’s protected bike lanes clean.
https://twitter.com/Spottnik/status/1007311358608564224
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Local
Former E! News personality Marc Malkin reveals he’s HIV positive after completing last week’s AIDS/LifeCycle Ride; the Malibu Times features photos from the ride as it passed through on PCH.
The Easy Reader News remembers long-time South Bay bike advocate Julian Katz, who passed away last week at age 88 after a long, full life.
State
A San Jose columnist agrees that too many drivers pass bike riders on blind, curvy roads when they can’t see what’s coming; a bike rider says signs saying “Do Not Pass Bicycles on Blind Corners” seems as obvious as “Do Not Hit Yourself in the Head with a Hammer.”
A Palo Alto columnist says she’s not opposed to roundabouts, as long as they’re somewhere else. Funny how so many people with no knowledge of traffic planning become experts when it’s on their street; the facts are that roundabouts actually reduce injury crashes by 75%.
Pink Bike visits Marin, where mountain biking was born and mountain bikes are banned from most trails.
National
You can make your next Rapha purchase at the Apple Store.
Moving piece from Bicycling, as a writer remembers her father, and how bicycling brought him back to himself as he slipped away due to Alzheimers.
Pedestrian and bicycle deaths have doubled in Washington state in just the last five years. A Seattle radio host responds by doing the math herself, concluding that you’re much safer driving a car than walking or riding a bike, and that encouraging more people to ride is just driving up death rates. She seems to be forgetting that its those people in cars who make it dangerous for everyone.
Wired says Seattle is ground zero in the bikeshare wars, as several dockless bikeshare firms have moved into the void created when the city’s traditional docked bikeshare went belly up.
A Philly magazine takes a test ride on the city’s new parking-protected bike lanes, and offers advice to drivers on how to not park in them.
Streetsblog says no, a bike lane didn’t do in a New York deli, despite what the owner says.
No bias here. A Charlotte NC TV station somehow conflates LimeBikes and e-scooters with wheelie popping kids weaving through traffic.
International
Bike ridership in Edmonton has doubled since the city opened a nearly five-mile grid of protected bike lanes in the urban core.
The Globe and Mail offers five changes Toronto can make to improve street safety for bicyclists and pedestrians. I particularly like the last one — change the decision makers.
An op-ed in the same paper says bicycling is not a contact sport and Toronto has to do better for bicyclists’ safety, while the paper concludes that the city’s Vision Zero is a failure.
A writer for the Guardian says Canadian cities are designed for cars, not people — and people are paying the price.
An Ontario writer says sharrows are a failed experiment and have to go.
The question is, will you answer when your new GPS-equipped handlebars calls to say your London bike is being stolen?
No bias here, either. An English letter-writer says 70% of bicyclists are just uncontrolled yobs who ride through red lights and on the sidewalk.
A UK paper discovers a “hilarious” mishap captured by Google Maps. Although I doubt many people find a little kid falling off a bike funny, let alone hilarious.
Bicycling contributes over $7 billion to the British economy each year, making it more important to the economy than the British steel industry. So you can expect Trump to impose tariffs on bikes and bike parts any day now.
A young Irish girl made the equivalent of $13 washing bicycles. And got a nearly $200 littering ticket for the hand drawn sign she made to promote it.
An Irish writer says no, really, bike riders would prefer to not share road space with trucks, buses and cars.
Survivors of the Kindertransport and their descendants will ride 600 miles across Europe to trace the route taken by 10,000 Jewish children to escape Nazi Germany 80 years ago at the dawn of WWII.
A member of Kenya’s parliament takes to her bike to encourage more people to ride in an effort to reduce Nairobi’s world-class traffic congestion.
A Botswana bikepacking club is teaching 30 young school kids life skills and how to mountain bike.
In LA, we deal with rude drivers; Aussie cyclists just deal with ‘roos.
Competitive Cycling
SoCal’s Coryn Rivera edged the great Marianne Vos by the width of a tire to take the second stage of the UK’s Women’s Tour; Rivera holds the leader’s jersey heading into today’s third stage. No need to worry about spoilers, since video of the race — or even the finish — doesn’t appear to exist.
Outside looks at the rapid rise of Ayesha McGowan, the first African American Cat 2 cyclist, who intends to become the first black woman on the pro tour.
You’re invited to put your money where Phil Gaimon’s mouth is, and donate to support his grudge match race against fellow former pro Fabian Cancellara on July 1st.
Finally…
How to do a few speed drills on your Penny Farthing. That feeling when you film your son riding his bike, and later find a ghost watching out the window.
And to everyone who dreamed of seeing Peter Sagan naked in the shower, today is your lucky day.
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Eid Mubarak to all observing Eid al-Fitr today!
