Morning Links: Triathlete runs months after chainsaw attack, app-based bike lockers, and entitled drivers

Need a little inspiration?

Then stop whatever you’re doing, and read this story about South African triathlete Mhlengi Gwala, who was back running just four months after attackers nearly cut off one of his legs with a chainsaw.

And who somehow found the courage to forgive them.

Photo by Gratisography from Pexels.com

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Yesterday we discussed the problem of bike thefts at Metro station bike corrals, and how Jonathan Weiss was pushing for short-term rental bike lockers to help solve the problem.

Like this rapidly growing Irish company that can provide an app-based bike locker system that fits twelve lockers in the space required for a single parking spot.

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Talk about not getting it. This is what a candidate for mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia had to say about the city’s bike lane network.

Never mind that many older people are able to ride bikes, and often use them for mobility after losing the ability to drive safely.

And countless moms, single and otherwise, take advantage to the health benefits of bicycling to ride with their kids.

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These are the people who share the roads with. After all, why let a little thing like traffic cones get in your way?

Credit CiclaValley with this one.

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Local

LADOT will begin work on repairing the LA River Bike Path between Fletcher Drive and Barclay Street later this month; one side of the bike path will remain open while the work is underway.

 

State

Good piece from the Orange County Register’s David Whiting, who carefully considers both sides of the debate over whether to allow ebikes on mountain bike trails.

A San Diego lawyer crunches the numbers, and concludes three of the city’s four most dangerous intersections are in the Point Loma neighborhood.

San Diego considers dissolving the city’s Bicycle Advisory Board, along with the Parking Advisory Board, and replacing them with a new city mobility board to take a holistic approach to transportation.

Representatives from the Netherlands discuss policies for sustainable transportation at San Francisco’s Global Climate Action Summit. Needless to say, bicycles are a key part of the discussion.

In a case that doesn’t make sense, a San Francisco bicyclist was arrested for attempting to drag a passenger out of a car and steal her purse after he was doored. It seems far more likely that he was angry about being doored and tried to pull the woman out to confront her, and either inadvertently grabbed her purse, or tried to see her ID. Either way, he was in the wrong the moment he took the law into his own hands.

 

National

Treehugger’s Lloyd Alter reminds us that bikes are climate action.

Bikes also a tool for good, as a pair of riders are crossing the US to raise $1 million in cryptocurrency funds to support a Houston women’s shelter.

The Interbike trade show kicks off in Reno with a consumer festival this Saturday.

Pink Bike offers a complete guide to riding in Tucson.

Speaking of Tucson, ’84 Olympic medalist Nelson Vails will be honored at this year’s Tour of Tucson; the 58-year old silver medal winner overcame a bout with high blood pressure and congestive heart failure earlier this year.

A Tampa woman books her family on a week-long Montana bike tour with nonprofit Adventure Cycling Association. But forgets to read the fine print about a singletrack trail through bear country.

Fargo, North Dakota proposes quadrupling fines for some bike traffic violations — from $5 to a whopping twenty bucks.

A six-foot tall white bike sculpture has been installed in Michigan to honor the five bike-riding victims of the Kalamazoo massacre, who were allegedly murdered by an allegedly stoned driver;

A new parking protected bike lane in Boston is confusing drivers and bike riders due to a lack of signage saying who should go where.

The mother of an Australian tourist killed while riding a bike in New York called the city’s district attorney a coward for failing to file charges in the case; she was run down by a garbage truck after swerving to avoid a driver who cut into the bike lane she was riding in.

New Jersey police crack down on swerving, in which teenage bicyclists swerve in front of traffic while performing stunts.

The Virginia woman who infuriated some and became a hero to others by flipping off Donald Trump as his motorcade past her bicycle announced she’s running for her county board of supervisors.

 

International

A new documentary follows a 29-year old Canadian woman with MS as she rides 434 miles through California to get to a 143-mile ride to benefit an MS charity; she credits bicycling with helping her control her symptoms. Forget pro cyclists. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the people like this, and the South African triathlete above, that overcome genuine adversity who are the real bike heroes.

An Edmonton letter writer says a dawdling bike rider in a dedicated bike lane slows his drive because it means one less lane for traffic. And somehow, his solution to that is charge bike riders an annual licensing fee.

Icelanders come to the aid of a woman who was injured after the slipstream from a passing truck blew her off her bicycle. Which is why large vehicles need to give a greater passing distance when traveling at speed. As anyone who has ever been caught in a slipstream can attest.

Sad news from London, where a woman died two weeks after a collision with a man on a ped-assist ebike; the rider was booked on a charge of “injuring persons by furious driving” after turning himself in the next day. The news stories note this is the first time someone in the UK has been killed by an ebike; however, ebike speeds in the UK are capped at 15.5 mph, which is far slower than many roadies travel. And hardly “furious.”

Once again, bike riders are heroes, as three British men chased a man who terrorized bank customers with a machete and a can of gas.

Brit bicyclists and commuters are being terrorized by a band of dockless bikeshare-riding bandits.

Joe Seaward, drummer for the English rock band Glass Animals, says he’s lucky to be alive as he recovers from a serious head injury after he was hit a truck while bicycling in Dublin earlier this year. And that trucks are hard. Scroll down for the story. No, further.

Apparently, Belfast isn’t willing to commit to its annual ciclovía, closing the streets for just two and a half hours on a Sunday morning

Dutch bike blogger David Hembrow writes that a recent European study shows ebikes do nothing to improve health. However, that contradicts the findings of a number of other studies, which have concluded that riding a ped-assist ebike offers significant health benefits.

A new study looks at who bikes in Israel on Yom Kippur, when the streets are otherwise empty. And finds only 7% of adult Jews bike on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, compared to 40% on a normal weekday — but nearly half of the country’s children do. Maybe they have less to atone for.

 

Competitive Cycling

ESPN talks with Houston native Lawson Craddock about how he turned a last place finish in the Tour de France into a win.

VeloNews says it was fun while it lasted, and BMC cyclists can leave with their heads held high after the team folds at the end of this season.

Nice piece from Peloton Magazine about two-time Tour de France champ Ottavio Bottecchia, who died after falling on a training ride — whether from illness or an attack — in 1927.

 

Finally…

Apparently, even bomb-sniffing dogs can have a windshield bias. When you just accidentally end up riding around the world.

And security cam video catches a Mustang hitting a bicyclist.

No, literally.

Thanks to Tim Rutt for the link.

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Join the Militant Angeleno and BikinginLA for the first-ever Militant Angeleno’s Epic CicLAvia Tour at the Celebrate LA! LA Phil 100 CicLAvia on September 30th!

Just RSVP to MilitantAngeleno@gmail.com. We want to guarantee a relatively small group to make sure we can keep the group together, and everyone can hear.

 

One comment

  1. Ralph says:

    The San Diego Change to consolidate to Mobility Board does make some sense. They will have to hope that it isn’t just a reason to reduce the input from cyclists. Cyclists, pedestrians and people who have reduced mobility have some overlapping issues. It would definitely be good to have a group that had input from all three sectors in one commission.

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