Once quick note.
This Saturday, my 73-year old, former Iditarod mushing brother is leaving to ride up through the Tetons and Yellowstone to the Canadian border, then down the Continental Divide Trail to Mexico, and back up to Colorado.
And no, I’m not the least bit jealous. No, really.
Photo by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay.
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A pair of high-profile legal cases finally came to a conclusion this week, with less than satisfying results in one.
In Michigan, a 43-year old man got a well-deserved five years behind bars for beating a Black teenager with a bike lock.
Lou Mouat confessed to shouting racist slurs while telling the Black teens they weren’t allowed on the public beach in last year’s hate crime.
Meanwhile, the owner of a Virginia landscaping company got off with a caress on the wrist for conspiring to cover up the 2018 fatal hit-and-run committed by one of his employees in a company truck.
Instead of just picking up the damn phone to report what happened after his driver killed a 50-year old man riding home from a group ride, 64-year old Robert Lee Strickland Jr. fired the worker and ordered him to get away. Then he had the truck towed to a bodyshop for repairs, and told workers to say the fired staffer had just hit a deer.
Due to what the DA termed a total lack of remorse, Strickland was sentenced to a year behind bars for his role in the cover up — a stiff penalty under state sentencing guidelines, which call for no more than six months in jail.
But shamefully light given the heinousness of the crime.
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The LACBC invites you to join their free Bikes and Botany Ride this Sunday, now open to everyone, rather than just LA Rivers Challenge participants, and starting at a top secret location somewhere near Griffith Park.
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Glendale wants your input on a proposal to build a safe active transportation greenway on along the Verdugo Wash.
And no, that’s not a Glendale laundromat.
https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/1413206014946549763
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Gravel Bikes California takes a cruise through Gold Country, to visit Yankee Jims & the Auburn State Recreation Area.
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Pink Bike offers a beginner’s guide to setting up your mountain bike.
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Your periodic reminder that lowering speed limits remains illegal in California, thanks to the deadly 85th Percentile Law that allows drivers to keep pushing speed limits ever higher.
And for reference, 30 kmh works out to just 18 over mph.
Bilbao, Spain (pop. 300,000) is the first large city in the world to limit traffic on ALL of its streets to 30 km/hour.
Is YOUR city reconsidering its speed limits & street “design speeds” yet? It should be. HT @grescoe #SpeedKills #SpeedIsALWAYSaFactorhttps://t.co/8RMNfEaMgp
— Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) July 8, 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. Delaware state police went out of their way to blame the victims after a 70-year old man ran down two girls riding their bikes in a crosswalk, leaving one in critical condition; troopers said the teen girls were supposed to walk their bikes in the crosswalk — which would put them at greater risk while crossing — and said the driver was somehow “unable to avoid them” despite a flashing warning beacon.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Authorities in Buffalo, New York are looking for a bike-riding gunman — or gunwoman — who shot two men in an early morning bike-by.
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Local
The Southern California Association of Governments, aka SCAG, awarded over $275,000 in Go Human mini grants to 31 LA and Orange County area organizations to help improve traffic safety, including Active SGV, Bicycle Kitchen, Los Angeles Walks, LACBC, Santa Ana Active Streets, Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE), and Streets For All.
State
A 15-year old cancer survivor has completed a 363-mile fundraising ride through all nine of California’s National Parks in 13 days; he’s raised $690 of his modest $1,000 goal for bicycling charities Team California Juniors and VeloYouth.
Rialto is opening a 16-dock, 100-bike e-bikeshare system, using a $1 million state grant.
A mountain biker is in good condition following a difficult rescue off a ledge, after he rode off a cliff in Nevada County, northeast of Sacramento.
The Montana mountain town where a Northern California woman on a bikepacking trip was dragged out of her tent and killed by a grizzly bear is popular with bikepackers riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. Which may or may not be the same as the Continental Divide Trail my brother will be riding.
National
NBC News picks the six best bikes for kids.
Road Bike Action says you really need to carry a chain breaker with you when you ride.
There is something very wrong with America’s educational system when an Oregon university professor has to ride 1,600 miles to all of the state’s 17 community colleges just to raise funds to buy textbooks.
Breaking Bad fans can add this one to your bike bucket list — a guided bike tour through 12 Albuquerque shooting locations for the Emmy winning show.
I want to be like him when I grow up. An 89-year old Michigan man has ridden a total of 35,000 miles over the last ten years.
An Iowa woman has written a new book about her 26-year odyssey to travel every US state by bicycle, along with her husband.
The bike boom shows no sign of letting up in Memphis.
Fast action prevented a horrific crime, after a man snatched a 6-year-old Louisville, Kentucky girl off her bicycle and pulled her into his car; witnesses called 911 with a description of the vehicle, and police were able to arrest the 40-year old driver and rescue the girl within half an hour of the kidnapping.
Apple’s AirTag proves its worth, helping Boston cops recover a man’s stolen bicycle. Note to Gadget Lite: There’s no need to capitalize bicycle or bike in your story.
Momentum Magazine says New York may have hit peak bike boom with projects to add bike lanes to the iconic Brooklyn and Queensboro bridges. Although as we’ve learned from the Netherlands, no matter how bike friendly a city is, there is always room for improvement.
A Philadelphia man has been charged with knocking a Black Lives Matter protestor off his bicycle and beating him as he was on the ground; he was part of group of men armed with hatchets, baseball bats and golf clubs who confronted protestors in the city’s Fishtown neighborhood.
The wheels of justice grind slowly in North Carolina, but at least the results are worth it, as a 27-year old woman will spend up to six years and four months behind bars for the drunken hit-and-run that took the life of a bike-riding man four years ago.
International
Eight thousand women and girls around the world stand to get new bicycles, after June’s Women on Wheels fundraiser collected a whopping $1 million for World Bicycle Relief.
An 83-year old British man is remembered for his record-setting achievements; Chris Davies held the record for riding 916,791 miles on his bike, the greatest distance ever officially recorded at the time. Davies passed away this week at 83-years old.
Chiang Mai, Thailand has been crowned the world’s best city for a ‘’beautiful bike ride’’ in a recent report from a British bicycle insurance company.
Competitive Cycling
VeloNews profiles Austrian cyclist Michael Gogl, who swapped his cello for a bike, and now sits in fourth place in the Tour de France.
An inflamed knee has forced Peter Sagan out of the the Tour, eliminating a key competitor in Mark Cavendish’s quest to match Eddy Merckx’s record for most stage wins.
Cycling Weekly talks with British cycling fans lining the memorial to fallen British cyclist Tom Simpson on Wednesday’s climb up Mount Ventoux, where Simpson collapsed during the ’67 Tour.
The high altitude Crusher in the Tushar gravel bike race returns to Beaver, Utah tomorrow.
Finally…
Your next bike could use levers and pulleys instead of a chain, to move four times more efficiently. Your next bike could be a Lotus — yes, that Lotus.
And let’s hope this isn’t the most epic folding ebike video ever.
Even if it is.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
