Before we start, I hope you’ll join me in thanking the law firm of Thomas Forsyth for renewing their sponsorship of this site for another year.
Without their continued support, and that of Cohen Law Partners, and especially title sponsor Pocrass & De Los Reyes, this site would not be possible.
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Happy World Bicycle Day.
Zwift wants you to do your riding inside today, as the virtual cycling company is hosting charity rides every hour.
So go ahead. Feel free to join in for a good cause.
But then get your butt outside and get on a bike that actually goes somewhere.
Meanwhile, I’ll be joining you in spirit as I continue to rehab my knee, getting in a few imaginary miles inside with a non-Zwift spin on trainer.
And wishing I was riding outside instead.
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Knock a Giro cyclist off his bike by getting a little too close to the action, and prepare to get slapped.
Twice.
Aficionado tira al suelo a Miguel Ángel López y este le pega. #Giro https://t.co/phr8Y61Y3W
— Diego Vos (@diegovos_) June 1, 2019
Meanwhile, the rider’s boss was all in, saying it would have been the end of cycling as a sport if López was disciplined.
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A British bread company is bringing back a fully restored version of a classic ad that was recently voted the country’s all-time favorite, and which launched the career of director Ridley Scott.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4-EjJt52ZQ
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Local
The LAPD has located the hit-and-run driver who killed a bike rider in Boyle Heights on Friday; the driver failed to stop after running over 24-year old Maywood resident Jaime Ramirez.
KCET offers a guide to the most unusual streets in Los Angeles.
Cypress Park residents are tired of the sound of speeding cars, screeching brakes and crunching metal, saying it’s just a matter of time before someone gets killed. Unfortunately, it’s not an accident that their city council representative is commonly known as Road Kill Gil for his willful inaction on traffic safety issues.
The Alhambra Source considers the city’s problems with bike safety from the perspective of the people on two wheels.
A ghost bike was installed in Valencia last week to honor 22-year old Kori Powers, who was run down from behind while riding on Rye Canyon Road.
Santa Monica approves an $833 million Climate Action & Adaptation Plan, including plans to replace half of all motor vehicle trips with walking, or riding bikes, scooters and skateboards.
Hermosa Beach has renamed the sharrows on Hermosa Ave for Julian Katz, the former public works commissioner and longtime advocate for bikeways who passed away last year. Out of respect to Katz, I’ll keep any wisecracks about the non-benefits of sharrows to myself, for once.
Long Beach is addressing complaints about the safety of the new Broadway protected bike lanes — by changing street sweeping times. Sure, let’s go with that.
A Long Beach man was fatally shot when a group of men got out of a car and chased him down the street as he tried to get away on his bike.
State
A Fox News columnist accuses California’s “looney left politicians” of ignoring the state’s problems, and focusing on things like “Los Angeles…spending millions of dollars building bike lanes modeled after those in Copenhagen.” We wish.
The former safety officer for the Kern Wheelmen says Bakersfield’s streets aren’t safe or enjoyable for bike riders, with or without a bike lane, and haven’t been since the ’80s.
Once again, a San Francisco bike rider has slammed into an elderly pedestrian in a crosswalk, while apparently attempting, and failing, to beat the light. Fortunately, the victim does not appear to have been seriously injured.
A San Francisco advocate decries Lyft’s attempt to maintain a bikeshare monopoly in the city.
An advocacy group is suing Danville over its approval of a 69-home community near Mt. Diablo State Park, alleging the environmental impact statement doesn’t adequately address the risks posed to bike riders.
Sad news from Carmichael, where a bike rider was killed in a collision after allegedly riding into traffic without waiting to cross a major street.
Caltrans Director Laurie Berman is one of us. Or was, for a day, as she led a Bike Month-ending ride in Sacramento on a bikeshare ebike.
A local paper tells the story of Thomas Stevens, who decided on a whim to ride a bike across the Sierras on a Penny Farthing in 1884, becoming the first person to bike over Donner Summit on a bicycle, then continued on around the world.
National
Britney Spears is one of us, going for a bike ride around her neighborhood with her boyfriend, wherever that may be.
A Tucson AZ couple are riding with cameras on their bikes, in response to what they call the most frightening city they’ve ridden in.
A new Colorado program will offer insurance to bike riders for the low, low price of just $50 a month. Even though bike riders pose a fraction of the risk drivers do, whether to others or to the company that insures them.
NIMBY residents on a Chicago street say they’re more afraid of getting hit by bicycles than by the people in the big, dangerous machines Even though there’s no record of anyone getting killed by someone on a bicycle in the city, ever.
After not riding for 20 years, an Ohio man learns the hard way that riding a bike isn’t just like riding a bike.
The Department of DIY has opened a branch office in Maine, where a group of volunteers is saving $45,000 a mile by building their own network of mountain bike trails.
If you’re looking for a little summer reading, how about a thriller starring a Boston bike messenger and stand-up comic who ends up doing a little mystery sleuthing on the side.
A Staten Island writer says that Vision Zero is just a Catch 22, and will just result in more safety efforts whether deaths go up or down. We can only hope. And if it is a Catch 22, let’s hope it’s better the one currently airing on Netflix.
A headphones-wearing BMX rider knocked a Hasidic man’s hat off his head, in what New York police are investigating as a hate crime.
Baltimore bike riders turned out to honor a popular 84-year old man known as the mayor of a local bike trail, after he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer.
Now that’s scary. A South Carolina man was injured when the pavement he was riding on collapsed underneath him without warning, dropping him into a ten-foot sinkhole.
Sadly, it happens to cops, too. A Florida sheriff’s deputy was killed while training for a 9/11 memorial ride when a driver blew through a stop sign at 40 mph and slammed into his bike.
International
A Trinidad father is the latest challenger to build the world’s tallest bike, at a planned 25 feet six inches; the current title is still held by LA’s own Stoopidtall.
Maybe crashing into a pedestrian is more dangerous than we thought. Saskatoon police are looking for a bike rider after the gun in his backpack went off when he hit a pedestrian with his bike, shattering a storefront window.
Nearly half of all British residents say the country’s streets are too dangerous for bike riders.
They may be right. A Conservative member of Parliament suffered a broken hand when he was doored by a car passenger. Proof to doubting Americans that yes, conservatives can and do ride bicycles.
I want to be like her when I grow up. An 81-year old English grandmother has set out to bike the full length of the country, from John O’Groats to Land’s End.
Up to 90,000 people turned out for a Berlin demonstration and bike ride demanding more space for bikes on the city’s streets.
Mumbai is attempting to make itself the bicycle capital of India by 2030.
A Philippine bicyclist makes the case for a bike-friendly Manilla, saying more people on bikes would free up more space for cars. Although scofflaw bike riders don’t excuse drivers hogging bike lanes, regardless of what he says.
A Thai paper correctly acknowledges that bicycling can turn you into a sex god. Although that might not be the exact way the phrased it.
Competitive Cycling
If you still don’t know who won the Giro, you probably haven’t been paying attention for the last week, when Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz tightened his grip on the pink jersey.
Carapaz’s victory was a long way from his childhood riding a skeletal bike without tires that his father pulled out of a junkyard.
Former race leader Primož Roglič faded in the homestretch after crashing in stage 14, but was able to save his place on the podium with the final time trial.
Colin Strickland and Amity Rockwell won the men’s and women’s editions of this year’s Dirty Kanza endurance gravel race, with Strickland setting a record for the first sub-10 hour finish.
Once again, a young bicyclist has lost his life competing in a race, as 18-year old Danish junior cyclist Andreas Byskov Sarbov was killed in a collision while competing in a time trial.
Bicycling says it’s been 30 year since since Greg LeMond won the Tour de France in what the magazine calls the greatest comeback in modern sports history.
Washington’s Robbie Webster and Missouri’s Sarah Haskins won the men’s and women’s elite divisions of the Herbalife 24 Triathlon from Venice to DTLA. A homeless advocate planned to ride the biking leg of the race, despite losing one of his own to flesh eating viruses.
Finally…
You can carry anything by bike — even a full-size massage table. That feeling when your fall ends up immortalized on a Google street view.
And forget scooters. It’s time for dockless pogo sticks.
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Thanks to Matthew Robertson for his ongoing support of this site.
And on a personal note, I hope you’ll join me in wishing the Corgi a happy birthday today, as she turns 13; we’ve now had her for almost nine of those years.
Even if she does have way too many toys.
