BikinginLA

Happy Fat Tuesday to everyone freezing their ass off down south today.

Not to rub it in, but our weather here in SoCal is sunny and warm, if a tad windy today.

So toss some beads and bunting on your bike, put some Mardi Gras music on your earbuds — okay earbud, since California law only allows one when you ride.

And shout out a few heartfelt “Iko Ikos” for our biking brethren left bereft by the pandemic and Mother Nature.

Photo by Michael Gravois from Pixabay.

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When is a bike lane not a bike lane?

When it’s completely overgrown and no one wants to do anything about it.

This is the bike lane on Mission in El Sereno. I’ve reported this extreme overgrowth year after year. My 311 response is “letter sent to property owner.” This is already a dangerous stretch of speedway. Is this how they handle blocked car lanes? @kdeleon #SafeStreetsNow pic.twitter.com/tyqgUvfgL4

— Sean Meredith (@seanmeredith) February 16, 2021

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Meet the candidates for the Hollywood Hills West neighborhood council tomorrow evening. And make sure we get a council that backs much needed bike and pedestrian improvements in the Hollywood area.

And yes, Mary Yarber is one of us.

Come at me, Bro! Ask us candidates ur toughest questions! Tell us what u need! #NicholsCanyon #RunyonCanyon #Wattles @LAPDHollywood @sunsetsquarehwd @nicholscanyonNA @HLWD_HILLS_WEST @BeverlyPress @bikinginla @nithyavraman @LoveRunyonCnyn @spauldingsquare @HollywoodUMC @saras116 pic.twitter.com/LB02HT0p4X

— M YARBER (@6Chair) February 15, 2021

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A bike rider stumbles on the weekly Venice Lights Parade, which is still going on despite the pandemic.

https://twitter.com/transitpassla/status/1361402045761167360

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Evidently, Kevin Hart is one of us, too.

‘It’s a lifestyle’ – Comedian Kevin Hart dons Rapha kit and strikes a pose with his Trek bike https://t.co/JkaOC2e0su pic.twitter.com/yUGOo7ESS3

— Cycling Weekly (@cyclingweekly) February 15, 2021

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A Massachusetts TV station calls for motorists to be careful driving in bike lanes, but proceeds to remind bike riders they have to obey traffic laws.

Talk about a close pass. A British bike rider captures a 360° view of a needless punishment pass. As if it’s ever necessary.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A British man was busted for carrying up to 50 packs of heroin after his attempt to escape by throwing his bike at the cops failed.

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Local

Yes, please. Streets For All is calling for the completion of the Ballona Creek bike path, which was originally supposed to end at Cochran Ave and Venice Blvd.

Sad news, as the 12-year old daughter of a lawyer handling the estate of Michael Jackson has died, after suffering what her mother described only as a “terrible accident” while riding her bicycle in Los Angeles; the story of her fight for survival had gone viral, touching hearts around the world.

UCLA’s transportation department marked Valentines Day with a neurologist, a digital humanities specialist and two graduate students explaining why they love riding their bikes.

Pasadena police will conduct another bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement campaign on Friday. The usual protocol applies. Ride to the letter of the law until you cross the city limits, so you’re not the one who gets ticketed.

World traveling Long Beach expats The Path Less Pedaled are selling some of their beautiful bicycle watercolors for less than $300 apiece. Any of which would look perfect gracing your walls. Or mine, for that matter.

 

State

Yes, please. A Streetsblog SF op-ed calls for getting rid of the flimsy plastic bendy posts that pass for bike lane protection, and replacing them with steel and plastic barriers to force drivers to obey the law.

Police concluded a San Francisco bike rider suffered a medical emergency after he was found unresponsive in the street near Golden Gate Park on Saturday, despite social media reports that he’d been struck by a hit-and-run driver. Although it’s also important to remember that drivers don’t have to actually hit someone to cause a life-threatening fall.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole the bicycle a mentally disabled Vacaville man used to get to work

 

National

Riding a bicycle improves your health in 12 ways. Kind of like Wonder Bread.

Seattle bike groups are hoping to get the county health department to reconsider the city’s mandatory bike helmet requirement, calling the law arbitrary and troubling, while arguing that it disproportionately affects people of color.

A Nevada nonprofit bought a billboard to remind drivers that state law requires them to change lanes to pass someone on a bicycle. Which beats the hell out of California’s seldom enforced three-foot passing law.

A New Jersey man is planning to bike across the US to raise funds for an animal rescue, after dropping 100 pounds when he started riding a bike last spring.

There’s not a pit deep enough for whoever beat a 12-year old New York boy on the subway and stole his bicycle.

A bighearted bikemaker from Pennsylvania surprised a pair of young sisters suffering from a rare neurodegenerative disease by giving them new motorized tricycles; Jason Kraft gave away ten similar bikes to children suffering from the disease last year, and hopes to donate 20 this year.

 

International

New reflective wheel stickers promise to improve safety by making you visible to drivers up to 500 feet away.

An 80-year old English paperboy decides not to pack it in after all, after a local bike shop gave him a free ebike to ease his 2.5-mile daily route.

A Dublin bike rider puts his money where his mouth is, donating five euros to an anti-bike lane campaign just so he can tell them off.

A kindhearted Irish bike mechanic gave a 81-year old man a refurbished bicycle, after the bike he used to get to the shops broke down.

Lessons from the Netherlands suggest we need better traffic lights, and fewer of them.

Thousands of bike and scooter riders turned out in Malaga, Spain to protest a new law that would ban them from sidewalks and pedestrian plazas.

A new bill in the Philippine legislature would establish a national network of safe bike lanes and pathways connecting to essential destinations like work, school, medical facilities and markets.

 

Competitive Cycling

Chris Froome said goodbye to Los Angeles by posting his final SoCal training ride on Strava; the seven-time Grand Tour winner is joining his new team, Israel Start-Up Nation, after rehabbing here from his gruesome crash two years ago.

Peloton talks with rising American cycling star Sepp Kuss.

 

At least no one has to worry about getting cancer from that new bicycle smell. Just what every bike rider needs for the occasional time trial around the block.

And your next bike may not even need you.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a damn mask, already.