BikinginLA

This is the cost of traffic violence.

A 26-year old digital media staffer for the Los Angeles Clippers was killed when he pulled his car onto the shoulder of a highway Monday night, and was rear ended by another driver who drifted off the roadway.

But let’s be honest.

Any transportation system that accepts even a single death as a cost of simply getting from here to there is an abject failure.

Let alone over 38,000 deaths each year.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

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Metro announced their calendar of classes and bike rides for October.

Only the Leimert Park Fix-A-Flat class and a pre-Halloween DTLA Taco Ride are in person, while the rest are online.

Classes

• Oct. 14 — Bike Maintenance: Fix-A-Flat (online)
• Oct. 18 — Bicycling 101: Rules of the Road for Night Riding (online)
• Oct. 22 — Bike Maintenance: Fix-A-Flat (In-person at Ride On! Bike Co-Op, Leimert Park)
• Oct. 25 — Bicycling 101: Rules of the Road (online)
• Oct. 28 — Bicycling 101: Rules of the Road for Group Riding (online)

Rides

• Oct. 30 — BEST Ride: DTLA Taco Roll

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The Beautiful Boulevard Coalition wants your help creating a safer, more livable and yes, more beautiful Colorado Blvd in Eagle Rock.

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This is what a street looks like when it’s designed to serve everyone, not just the people in cars.

https://twitter.com/Derailluer/status/1443696873659789328

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Yes please. And start in my neighborhood.

https://twitter.com/grescoe/status/1443638526482989062

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GCN considers whether Colnago’s new blockchain technology will spell the end of bike theft.

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

A 25-year old Brazilian woman was knocked off her bike when a driver pulled up next to her so his passenger could reach out to grope her ass; fortunately, she wasn’t injured. Police stopped the driver, who is expected to face charges along with his groping friend. Schmucks.

A Queensland, Australia driver is behind bars for deliberately swerving into two bike riders in separate incidents, with one rider suffering “significant injuries.” Although he appears to be an equal opportunity offender, smashing his car into two other vehicles, as well.

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Local

Evidently, Long Beach wants you to stay in your lane. The city is installing bike lane markers on a portion of the city’s boardwalk. Correction: Once again, I’ve mistaken news from Long Beach, New York for Long Beach, California. We should make one of these change their name. Thanks to Steve White for the catch. 

 

State

San Mateo proposes building bike lanes and a bike boulevard that will necessitate the removal of 214 parking spaces, but promises to make up for it with additional parking nearby. Maybe Los Angeles could learn from their example.

 

National

Streetsblog looks at a pair of toxic car ads “that use the shiny gloss of white feminism to sell cars as a form of women’s empowerment.”

A writer for Outside defies convention and rides his bike shirtless. And the world doesn’t come to an end.

An Entrepreneur op-ed offers business lessons gained from eleven years and 38,000 miles on a bicycle. Although that works out to a relatively paltry 66 miles a week.

A Las Vegas woman did everything right by coming to a full stop at a stop sign before riding into an intersection. And was killed by a speeding driver who blew the stop.

Police in Missoula, Montana used their patrol car to shield a couple of young bike-riding kids from a driver fleeing from police while high on meth; the driver bailed out about 15 feet short of the children and attempted to flee on foot.

Sad news from Iowa, where human remains were found in a farm field matching the description of a young boy who disappeared four months ago, after going out for a bike ride just days before his 11th birthday. Although there’s no word yet on what may have happened to him.

The University of Cincinnati is calling for the removal of a popup protected bike lane near campus. But they swear they really do support bike lanes, just somewhere else.

 

International

A British Columbia court rejected a lawsuit from a consortium of Vancouver restaurant owners demanding the removal of a bike lane through a city park, evidently preferring the money of people who arrive on four wheels to those who do on two.

A pair of candidates for mayor of Montreal debate bike safety after a bike rider was killed by a hit-and-run truck driver, near the site of another bicycling death four years earlier.

Drivers in the UK will soon be required to use the Dutch Reach to open their cars doors, although the overwhelming majority of drivers apparently have no idea the law is about to change.

There may be hope in the battle against bike thieves. A new ceramic, graphene reinforced bike lock from Britain’s Hiplock stood up to a sustained attack with an axle grinder for over 20 minutes, defeating four grinder disks in the process. But it will cost you $270 on Kickstarter, before it goes up to $345.

A confederation of European ebike makers are working together to keep their customers from hacking their bikes to get more speed.

An Indian woman and her lovers face murder charges for hacking her husband to death, and tossing his bicycle into a canal.

Seriously? A Singapore panel charged with reviewing the rules for on-road bicycling has recommended the equivalent of a four and a half foot passing law — but also recommends a limit of five bikes in any group ride, and required to ride single file.

The Australian cycling community is mourning coaching legend Heiko Salzwedel, who died in his native Germany following a brief illness.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch cycling star Mathieu van der Poel likes his chances in Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix, predicting attacks will begin early.

In a big step forward for women’s cycling, twenty-two teams and 132 riders will line up for the first ever women’s Paris-Roubaix, complete with over 18 miles of cobbles.

Former pro Gracie Elvin explains why the inaugural Paris-Roubaix Femmes carries such symbolic weight after 125 years as a men’s-only event.

Congratulations to the new women’s hour record holder, with a distance of 30.077 miles.

https://twitter.com/GcnRacing/status/1443629636051689472

Get your very own Key West branded spandex bike kit. No, distracted bike riding doesn’t work, either.

And while she’s happy there’s a new Metro Bike location in our Hollywood neighborhood, she does find the corgo carrier is just a tad cramped.

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Thanks again to Matthew R for his generous monthly donation to help keep this site coming your way every day; donations of any size and frequency are always welcome and appreciated.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.