Today’s a holiday, in case you hadn’t noticed. Which is easy to do if you didn’t get it off.
But my wife did, surprisingly enough.
So we’re going with sort of a Morning Links lite today, with most of the weekend’s bike news, so I can get a little sleep before she wakes me up too damned early in the morning; we’ll catch up on the rest tomorrow.
Today’s photo is what’s left of a bike after thieves stripped it, leaving its mangled carcass behind.
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Today’s common theme is stolen bikes and the jerks who take them.
A Santa Cruz man got his bike back three years after it was stolen, after deputies recovered it when the wanted criminal they were chasing abandoned the bike he was riding, and they were able to track down the real owner.
Oregon sheriff’s deputies bust a major schmuck who scammed people out of bikes they were trying to sell online — including a 12-year old boy. See hell, special place in.
Gotham’s ebike crime wave continues, as a 20-year old delivery rider was stabbed in both legs and robbed of his bicycle, cellphone, jacket, around 70 bucks and a pizza.
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Online viewers are flipping over nine-year old San Marcos BMX rider Connor Stitt.
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Introducing my new favorite South African hip hop video.
Seriously, who can top rhymes like this?
When I hop on the metal and push on the pedal, there’s a certain peace that I get that’s really good for my mental.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on. And on.
A Willits CA woman intentionally ran over a man on a bike who she had been arguing with; she was arrested after fleeing the scene, along with her husband and son-in-law, who were booked as accessories after the fact for helping with her coverup.
The New York Post’s notoriously anti-bike columnist says car culture could be squashed and America covered with bike lanes if Michael Bloomberg gets elected president. But somehow seems to think that’s a bad thing.
Some jerk Down Under was apparently proud of himself for tossing a drink on a woman riding a bike from a passing car, posting the video online.
Sometimes, though, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A bike-riding man dressed like an old-time railroad engineer injured two women on San Francisco’s Embarcadero in a pair of unrelated, seemingly random attacks.
The bike-riding serial groper in Davis CA is still on the loose after attacking a third woman.
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Local
No bias here. A Pepperdine University professor, who should know better, repeats the unsupported myth that more people will die because emergency personnel can’t get through traffic, than will be saved by LA’s Vision Zero and Mobility Plan 2035. Never mind that no one has shown it has actually happened anywhere. Or that the mobility plan is about modernizing the city’s transportation plan, not reducing traffic deaths.
CicLAvia is returning to Glendale and Atwater Village this summer, with a short 3.5-mile route.
South Pasadena Councilmember and AQMD (Air Quality Management District) board member Michael Cacciotti gets it, fighting the battle for clean air by riding his bike and taking the bus everywhere.
A Brea motorcycle dealer is branching out into ped-assist ebikes and accessories.
State
Good for him. After a 14-year old Turlock special needs boy was beaten up and had his shoes and bike by group of boys, he responded by organizing a bike ride calling for an end to bullying.
Sacramento’s popular American River bike path finally reopens, three years after it was closed by a landslide.
Residents of Arcata are raising funds for a woman who suffered a serious spinal injury when she was struck by a driver while riding her bike; the crowdfunding page has raised nearly $29,000 of the $33,000 goal in four days.
National
A writer for HuffPo calls for better bike and pedestrian planning and infrastructure to make it safe for people of any age to walk and bike, to reduce the decline in children riding bikes.
A Honolulu writer calls for fixing a 750-foot gap in a pair of bike paths that makes it dangerous to ride a bike between two side-by-side neighborhoods.
A Portland family proves that yes, the entire family can ride their bikes to church every week. Maybe someday we’ll get to a point where that not surprising to anyone.
The Washington state senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a partial Idaho Stop Law, allowing bike riders to treat stops as yields, but not red lights as stop signs.
Thousands of Colorado residents ignored the snow on the ground, and took to their bikes for Winter Bike to Work Day.
J. Patrick Lynch calls our attention to a little automotive schadenfreude, as thousands of Colorado hockey fans demand refunds after major traffic jams forced them to miss large parts of an outdoor NHL match. Or are they really just mad LA’s Kings beat the hometown Avs?
An upstate New York town supervisor calls for a bike path leading to a new bridge after two deadly crashes. Yet somehow assumes most bicyclists don’t get that riding in traffic can be dangerous, despite being one himself.
New York is installing concrete barriers that beautify the city and protect bike riders at the same time.
After a New Jersey man suffered a major brain injury when he was hit by a drunk driver, and got tired of living on food stamps, he set out on a recumbent to ride across the country; he’s now on his sixth trip across the US in just over two years.
A Jacksonville, Florida sports writer takes part in the Champions Ride with a peloton made up of NASCAR drivers and crew members to promote traffic safety. And gets a hand to the finish line from ride founder Jimmie Johnson.
International
Shimano has come out with an updated electronic gear shift you can retrofit your bike with for a cool $2,300.
No bias here, either. A Toronto columnist says the city’s Vision Zero isn’t failing because drivers need more safety education, but rather, they break the law because they’re frustrated by gridlock caused by all those bike lanes and lower speed limits. Which doesn’t explain why drivers broke the law before all those things, though.
British foldie Gocycle is re-entering the American market, offering magnesium frame bikes starting at $2799, and carbon frames at nearly twice the price.
A writer for The Guardian takes a 600+ mile ride along bike trails through the Seine, Loire and Rhône valleys, experiencing a view of France inaccessible by cars.
An Indian man rode his bike nearly 375 miles to meet his favorite Bollywood star at an awards show, even though the actor may not even attend it; he also holds a certificate for riding his bike 24 miles in one hour — with no hands.
If you’re looking for Asian connections to get a leg up in your career, you could do worse than an early morning ride with Singapore’s Rapha Cycling Club.
Competitive Cycling
VeloNews looks at the long road back for Olympic silver medalist Rigoberto Urán following his crash in last year’s Vuelta, which left hm with a broken collarbone, broken ribs, shattered scapula and a punctured lung.
Eighteen-year-old Turkish cyclist Azize Bekar is making the jump to a Belgian road cycling team, while aiming her sights on representing her country in Olympic mountain biking.
Finally…
Bikes are a great way to get to your train — but stop riding once you get on. Drinking in public and biking under the influence, but at least he wasn’t driving this time.
And the next time you think it’s too windy to ride a bike in LA, watch this.
https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1228235925735403521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1228235925735403521&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2F271169-dennis-eat-your-heart-out-dutch-cyclists-battle-monstrous-headwind-oakley
