Just 258 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we all face on the mean streets of LA.
Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.
We’re now up to 1,117 signatures, so let’s keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until the mayor agrees to meet with us!
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My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence.
Suddenly becoming a full-time caregiver for my unexpectedly incapacitated wife and her broken shoulder, while simultaneously attempting to maintain this site and care for my own torn rotator cuff, is totally kicking my diabetic ass.
I honestly don’t know how I’m going to make it through the next few months before we both get back on our feet. But we’ll get there somehow.
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Take a break from Sunday’s Venice CicLAvia for a book signing with Peter Flax, author of
Or better yet, make that the first stop of the day for coffee and a social ride with the author, the former editor-in-chief of Bicycling Magazine, and one of the most talented, insightful and beautiful voices in the bicycling community.
And if you haven’t bought your copy yet, what the hell are you waiting for?
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Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, is marking Earth Day with a much-needed cleanup of the bike lane in Balboa Park.
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That feeling when Bill Nighy thanks you for stopping at a red light.
Bill Nighy thanks cyclist for stopping at a red traffic light. pic.twitter.com/HdSOMjpJob
— CycleGaz™ (@cyclegaz) April 15, 2024
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It’s now 119 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 34 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.
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Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
The LAPD is on the lookout for bike-riding teenaged flash mobs who swarm retail stores to steal merchandise, before disappearing on their bicycles.
A Singapore lawyer suggests a road-raging bicyclist may not have been responsible for her actions because she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, shortly after she stopped her bicycle in front of a driver’s car to confront him, opened the door to his car and clung to his hood.
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Local
The LA Times examines South LA’s new 250-bike ebike lending library.
CicLAvia recommends highlights from this Sunday’s open streets event on Venice Blvd.
Alyssa Walker’s new blog examines the abject failure of LA’s 28 by 28 plan to develop 28 major transit, pedestrian and bike projects in time for the 2028 Olympics.
Montebello’s City Council unanimously approved the Citywide Bicycle Master Plan, as well as the 2040 Citywide General Plan and the city’s Downtown Specific Plan. Although as we’ve learned the hard way, it’s one thing to pass a bike plan, and another to actually implement it.
Santa Clarita is preparing for its 20th annual Bike to Work Challenge as part of next month’s Bike Week, with a city pit stop on May 16. Although no one seems to give a damn about it down here in Los Angeles anymore.
The Santa Monica-based developers of a noseless and bumpless bike seat that’s “changing the lives of cyclists” walked away from Shark Tank with a $200,000 deal, in exchange for a quarter of the company.
Today is the deadline to apply for Long Beach’s new ebike lending library.
State
Pinkbike says you should give a shit about this weekend’s Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, and other bike festivals. Actually, they coyly said “give a sh!t,” but whatever.
Officials announced that a new 72-mile trail from Truckee and Nevada City in the Tahoe National Forest will be open to ebikes.
National
Discerning Cyclist recalls the day in 1899 when “Mile-a-Minute Murphy” outraced a train on his bicycle.
Bike shop owners recommend their picks for the best affordable bikes for casual riders, from a $249 beach cruiser to an ebike for two grand.
Fox News ungrammatically suggests “20 bikes for every type of bike rider,” from daily riders to competitive cyclists. Assuming you’re willing to get laughed off the starting line by showing up at your next race on a $379.00 Walmart bike.
Bicycling talks with Matthew Modine about what he learned about bicycling while making the new movie Hard Miles, about a cycling team at a medium-security correctional school. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t seem to be available anywhere else, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you.
Women shopping at a New Mexico bike shop were victimized by a 21-year old store employee who secretly recorded them in the changing room.
Three Oklahoma men finished a 600-mile bike tour to visit each of the 13 remaining Black towns founded by former slaves after the Civil War.
Life is cheap in Minnesota, where a 28-year old man with an extensive record of driving without a license got a lousy five months behind bars, after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide for killing a 73-year old Catholic priest who was riding a bicycle on the shoulder of a roadway.
That’s more like it. A Kentucky man faces a murder charge, along with wanton endangerment and DUI charges, for fleeing the scene after killing a 39-year old woman riding a bicycle, but apparently escape hit-and-run charges by calling the cops to turn himself in shortly later.
A New York man credits his Apple Watch with saving his life by automatically dialing 911 after his bike hit a rain-filled pothole.
International
Road.cc suggests low-cost alternatives to expensive bicycling gear.
Momentum offers ten “amazing” examples of bicycling solutions from cities around the world, from a glowing bike path to a bikeway soaring through the trees. None of which are in Los Angeles. Or North America, even.
The rich get richer, as Toronto is set to get a veritable shipload of new bike lanes in the coming months. I learned very early in my advertising career that “shipload” doesn’t work in a radio ad, because everyone will inevitably hear it as something similar, but more offensive.
Bike theft was down 15% in the UK last year, despite a doubling of ebike thefts.
Despite a lane reduction on one of Brussels, Belgium’s busiest streets, it continues to give little space to anyone outside of a car.
Sleek new Swiss-made bike elevators in Bonn, Germany are designed to securely store bicycles near train stations with a minimal footprint.
Competitive Cycling
British cyclist Stephen Williams became the first Flèche Wallonne winner from the UK on Wednesday, battling snow for a first-place finish atop the Mur de Huy.
Double Tour de France champ Jonas Vingegaard has been released from hospital, 12 days after he suffered a broken collarbone, multiple broken ribs, a pulmonary contusion and pneumothorax in a mass crash during the Tour de Suisse.
Former Tour de France champ Geraint Thomas says WorldTour cyclists are exasperated by UCI’s lack of safety improvements, saying nothing has changed since Swiss cyclist Gino Mäder was killed during last year’s Tour de Suisse.
Seventy-eight-year old cycling legend Eddy Merckx is recovering at home after emergency surgery to have a bowel obstruction removed.
Belt-drive maker Gates is offering 100,000 euros — the equivalent of nearly $107,000 — to the first person who wins a Wold Cup downhill race using a belt-drive bike.
Finally…
Why sleep on the ground on your next bike tour when you can tow your very own bike camper trailer? When you’re riding with an outstanding arrest warrant and illicit drugs, don’t ride salmon through a red light — and don’t try to outrun the Mounties, either.
And seriously, who doesn’t enjoy riding through puddles?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin
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