Let’s start with a correction.
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking yesterday when I said CicLAvia comes back to Hollywood and Koreatown a week from Sunday.
It’s this Sunday, of course.
The Koreatown Meets Hollywood CicLAvia follows a portion of the route first explored in the epic DTLA to Hollywood CicLAvia celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the LA Symphony four years ago.
Maybe someone should buy me a calendar. Or better yet, teach me how to use one.
Thanks to Joe Linton for the correction.
Update: Sunday’s CicLAvia has been canceled due to the hurricane.
BREAKING: This Sunday's #CicLAvia has been CANCELED by @CicLAvia organizers due to #TropicalStormHilary.
This is the 1st time a CicLAvia event has been canceled due to weather (the April 2020 event was nixed due to the Pandemic) and first to be canceled less than 48 hrs prior. https://t.co/zi0zKBoEXz
— Militant Angeleno (@militantangleno) August 19, 2023
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It looks like we’re going to luck out, and get Sunday’s CicLAvia in before Los Angeles gets hit with the remnants of the Cat 4 Hurricane Hillary now moving through the Pacific.
According to the National Weather Service, the storm should roll in late Sunday, bringing possible rain and thunderstorms on Monday and Tuesday.
And with that, Hilary is now a hurricane. Note: the track forecast was not updated with this advisory. Curious on how to interpret this product? Check out this video from the National Hurricane Center: https://t.co/BXWc7dshIA pic.twitter.com/J9Pdya1NKX
— NWS San Diego (@NWSSanDiego) August 17, 2023
We don’t get a lot of hurricanes here in Los Angeles; news reports yesterday said this would be just the third one in LA history.
However, the tradition in Louisiana is to throw a raging hurricane party when a hurricane approaches, because as Jimmy Buffet put it, if you’re going to get blown away, you might as well get blown away.
And as it just so happens, we have a party already scheduled for Hollywood and Koreatown on Sunday before it gets here.
You know what to do.
Let’s all turn out, and make this one a CicLAvia for the ages.
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Finish the Ride is calling for your support for a pilot bike lane in South Pasadena, in the face of the seemingly inevitable NIMBY opposition.
Bike lane in South Pasadena needs support! A demonstration bike lane was installed on Grand Ave and is supposed to stay up for at least 6 months + evaluated. A local group is urging immediate removal.
Please email the City to support: ccpubliccomment@southpasadenaca.gov pic.twitter.com/R8vT2tqGx5— Finish The Ride (@FinishTheRide) August 17, 2023
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Speaking of Finish the Ride, the group is gearing up for their annual Halloween event in Santa Clarita in just over two months.
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Bike Walk Glendale is hosting a walk through the city tomorrow, followed by an advocacy workshop on Wednesday.
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Gravel Bike California celebrates the annual Tour de Big Bear, calling it “perfectly timed and extremely well-organized” and complementing “a fantastic course which is hard to imagine being so close to LA.”
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More proof that a bike is your best way to get around before, during or after a disaster.
There's a lot going on in this picture. I stopped to look for a while. Most of all for me, there's a major part of the solution in the middle of the problem pic.twitter.com/Vh5ie76zff
— Denver is too damn high (@DenverDamn) August 18, 2023
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The Bike League is less than $26,000 away from their relatively modest $50,000 fundraising goal, which will turn into a cool hundred grand if they make it.
The League can't access this challenge funding without your help, so please take this opportunity to have your gift matched dollar-for-dollar.
Take action & give today at https://t.co/KD1cbEsxw8.
— League of American Bicyclists (@BikeLeague) August 17, 2023
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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 writer for Britain’s conservative The Spectator warns about the dangers of cargo bikes, calling them hell for motorists “piloted either by smug yet very stressed parents or by delivery hipsters with ironic facial hair, retro clothing, flexible sexuality and a heavily-worn social conscience.” And yes, he claims to be a bike rider himself — a “member of the Lycra lancers” — which is always a red flag.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A North Carolina bike rider had to be airlifted to a hospital after colliding with another bike rider traveling in the same direction, knocking each other out.
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Local
A British expat living in LA’s Westchester neighborhood takes a century ride to get some fish and chips in Port Hueneme.
The Greening America’s Cities initiative of the Bezos Earth Fund will address heat-related social inequity in the LA area by providing $3.5 million to fund a greenbelt and a biking and walking path along the Pacoima Wash, replacing the existing concrete embankment with a less heat-absorbent surface.
State
A guest commentary from Cal Matters refutes the argument that adding speed cams to California cities will target people of color, but will protect them, instead.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department says thieves are targeting ebikes in North County cities, as riders run into Target or Walmart stores without locking their bikes. Which is yet another reminder to always lock your bike everywhere, unless you take it with you.
A 51-year old bike rider suffered serious, but non-life threatening, injuries when they were struck by a hit-and-run driver in La Mesa, who got out of his pickup following the crash, but drove away before police arrived.
Bad news from Fresno, where a 50-year old man was critically injured when he was struck by a driver while riding his bike in a crosswalk, reportedly against the light. As always, who was actually at fault depends on whether there were any independent witnesses who saw the crash, other than the driver who hit him.
Oakland underground cartoonist and muralist Fred Noland is one of us, as the Black artist prepares to release a 250-page biographical comic about the legendary Major Taylor.
More bad news, this time from Sacramento, where a man riding a bike was killed by a hit-and-run driver early Thursday morning.
National
Legendary union leader and American socialist Eugene Debs was one of us. Because of course he was.
Outside offers advice on how to avoid being taken in by greenwashing.
Sports Illustrated rates the best rear racks for every kind of bike.
Seattle readers report having a love/fear relationship with biking in the city. Which pretty much goes for bike riders anywhere in America.
Trek donated a quarter of a million dollars to restart expansion plans for a bike park in Idaho Springs, west of Denver.
An inspector with a Connecticut state attorney’s office — the equivalent of a district attorney — faces charges for hitting a 17-year old bike rider after failing to come to a full stop at a red light, and leaving the scene afterwards — twice.
Life is cheap in Staten Island, where a 35-year old woman walked without a day behind bars for killing a 52-year old man riding a bicycle, despite originally being charged with criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault.
Streetsblog complains there’s too much green on Brooklyn greenways, as the New York borough neglects overgrown weeds lining the bike paths.
New York is banning ebikes and scooters that haven’t been certified for safety starting next month, in the wake of a rash of deadly ebike battery fires.
A Florida state trooper explains who has the right-of-way when a driver is making a right turn across a bike lane and a bike rider is going straight. And surprisingly, gets it right.
International
Momentum considers the best cities around the world to fall in love with bicycling all over again. None of which is Los Angeles. Or anywhere else in Southern California, for that matter.
Road.cc offers “essential” money-saving tips to keep riding without breaking the bank.
Following the lead of competitive cycling, the world’s top chess federation has ruled that trans women can’t compete in women’s chess events, apparently concluding that their birth sex somehow gives them a unfair advantage in the Sicilian Defense.
I want to be like him when I grow up. An 80-year old Winnipeg, Manitoba man rode his bike over 1,800 miles to raise funds for Ukrainian refugees.
In a pleasant change, a spokesperson for a British bicycling group says Belfast, Northern Ireland, businesses are firmly behind calls for less car parking and more emphasis on active travel.
An Irish columnist says the country’s police and Road Safety Authority don’t have the resources to keep bicyclists safe.
Cyclist takes a rare route up France’s legendary Mont Ventoux.
In what could be an intriguing matchup, the electric scooter unit of British Formula One engineering and technology firm McLaren Applied is reportedly in advanced talks to buy bankrupt Dutch ebike maker VanMoof.
China Daily reports the bike business is booming in the Middle Kingdom.
Competitive Cycling
Velo says this could be the best start list ever for the Vuelta, with the reigning champs of all three grand tours set to clash at the Spanish grand tour.
The one-day Maryland Cycling Classic is now America’s top race, with a “star-studded preliminary roster” featuring leading American cyclists and Tour de France stage winners.
Finally…
That feeling when a paracycling champ without arms wins a pair of high-end watches. Or when you lose your KOM — or QOM — to a Dutch cycling champ.
And why that bike crash was definitely your fault.
No matter how it happened.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
