Let’s start with a couple of events this week.
Streets For All is back tomorrow with another virtual happy hour, this time featuring California State Assembly Transportation Committee Chair Laura Friedman.
Meanwhile, Fox11’s Good Day LA looks forward to the return of CicLAvia in Wilmington this Sunday. The short 2.2-mile route could see a big turnout from a full year’s worth of pent-up demand.
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Britain’s Jeremy Vine takes the contrarian view to all those drivers who insist people on bikes should ride single file all the time.
People who cycle in the country should be encouraged to ride 2, 3 and 4 abreast like this. For the following reasons:
1. It calms the traffic behind them
2. It makes it less easy for bad drivers to attempt dangerous passes
3. It is more pleasant and sociable for them. pic.twitter.com/vqi4dsuUSs— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) August 8, 2021
Needless to say, not everyone took the lesson well. And some of the responses were brutal.
I am a cyclist. Simple rule – we are smaller than cars – so be polite, ride single file when holding up cars. Understand people are busy etc Do not go thru red lights/ pedestrian crossings. But also do ask drivers to be careful when passing? Please. https://t.co/bAP3mfVDYZ
— Will Carling (@willcarling) August 9, 2021
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GCN explains how to choose the right bike pump.
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Norm Bradwell forwards the best pro bike helmet commercial of all time.
Yes, you may have seen it before, but it’s more than worth seeing again. Or for the first time, if you haven’t.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. San Diego letter writers insist no one uses bike lanes because they don’t see them filled with bikes at the exact moment they happen to pass by, and that bike riders have to obey the law. Never mind that studies show safe infrastructure improves adherence to the law, and that bike riders break the law at about the same rate as people in the big, dangerous machines, but for much better reasons. Hint: Drivers cheat for convenience, bike riders to stay safe.
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
There’s a special place in hell for the bike-riding man who groped a woman in her 60’s as she walked on a Palo Alto sidewalk.
With any luck, the British Columbia perv who allegedly exposed himself to several woman while riding his mountain bike will be there waiting for him.
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Local
Glendale has hired the architecture firm behind New York’s highly successful High Line Park to reimagine the Verdugo Wash, reclaiming the concrete-lined channel while potentially adding bikeways and walkways.
State
For the second time in a week, a Santa Barbara driver has been busted for running down a teenage bike rider, as a driver is being held on $100,000 bond on DUI and hit-and-run charges after rear-ending a 14-year old boy on a bicycle; the victim was hospitalized with moderate injuries.
The pandemic bike boom continues to strain the bike industry, as the bicycle division of Scotts Valley’s Fox Factory is over a year from catching up to demand, despite — or maybe because — record sales for the past year and a half.
Now that’s more like it. Sacramento responds to one of the city’s dangerous streets by shutting it down entirely to make it more bicycle and pedestrian friendly.
National
Utah is now home to five new US Bicycle Routes, adding 550 miles to the 410 it already enjoyed; that’s part of a nationwide expansion with 18 new routes in five states, adding nearly 3,000 miles to the US Bicycle Route System.
Great idea. A Colorado town is trying to boost local bike shops while encouraging alternatives to driving by considering a $200 rebate for every ebike bought in town.
A Colorado man is charged with murdering his missing wife, who disappeared on a Mother’s Day bike ride last year. Sheriff’s deputies found Suzanne Morphew’s abandoned bicycle later that day, and discovered her undamaged helmet days later over eight miles away; however, her body has never been found.
Group rides are booming in popularity in Houston during the pandemic, like 800 people on bikes rapper Slim Thug lead to the home of a young man with Downs Syndrome, who wanted to meet him.
Is anyone really surprised that Illinois cops rushed to blame the victim when one of their own right hooked a 71-year old man riding his bike on the sidewalk?
Interesting idea from Michigan, where learning to ride a bicycle is used as a springboard to help kids get ready for kindergarten.
Adweek says you need the skills of an Olympian just to get around New York.
The New York Times questions whether the city’s pandemic-inspired carfree streets can survive the pushback to proposals to make them permanent.
No surprise here, either, as Florida and Louisiana lead the way with the most bicycling deaths per capita in the US.
The Miami Herald seems surprised that a man was run down by a hit-and-run driver while riding in a bike lane, as if the thin strip of paint was somehow supposed to repel cars.
International
The latest Copenhagenize Index ranks the world’s top 20 bike cities, with the usual suspects — Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Utrecht — taking the lead. Guess how many American cities made the list? That’s right, none.
A Dutch bicycle brand reminds Londoners that riding a bike is forever, not just for during the pandemic lockdown.
A kindhearted Indian cop dug into his own pocket to buy a new bicycle for a 14-year old boy after his was destroyed in a collision while riding home from his job.
Competitive Cycling
The racing world goes on in the wake of the Olympics, with stage one of the seven stage Tour of Poland.
Malaysians are geeking out over the $80,000 track bike their countryman Azizulhasni Awang rode to a silver medal in the men’s keirin in Tokyo.
Sad news from New Zealand, where 24-year-old cyclist Olivia Podmore died unexpectedly, five years after she represented the country at the Rio Olympics.
Cyclist remembers the Tour de France win 23 years ago that made the late Marco Pantani a legend.
Finally…
If a driver asks for your help with a flat tire, maybe just keep on riding. Now you can own the gas-powered moped Steve McQueen rode on the track at Le Mans for a mere 50 grand.
And forget elevation gain. Try riding a bicycle a thousand feet in the air.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
