BikinginLA

Just 232 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 still stuck on 1,131 signatures, so don’t stop now! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until she meets with us! 

Photo by Darren Graves.

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Seriously?

LA County is apparently planning to zero out funding for Vision Zero. But you’ll have to hurry, because the County Board of Supervisors is meeting at 9:30 today to discuss the proposed budget.

You can find all the details in the link.

Tell LA County Board of Supervisors to protect Vision Zero's budget! @LACountyCEO's recommended budget doesn't include the $75 million needed to fund the Vision Zero plan. Tell the Board of Supervisors: no more traffic deaths!https://t.co/3hsqQR3fEh pic.twitter.com/ArN9L9Kg9w

— Streets For All (@streetsforall) May 15, 2024

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A handful of events will mark Bike to Work/Bike to Anywhere Day in parts of LA County today and tomorrow.

Or as it’s known in the City of LA this year, Wednesday. And Thursday.

Burbank is hosting a pre-Bike to Work Day event at Johnny Carson Park from 11 am to 2 pm today, with complimentary bike check-ups and refurbished bike sales from Burbank Bike Angels, as well as other reps from local bike shops and advocacy groups.

Playa Vista Compass is hosting an early Bike to Work Day pit stop from 8 to 10 am today.

In addition to tonight’s Ride of Silence at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, there will also be a Los Angeles Ride of Silence starting at Re:Ciclos in Koreatown.

West Hollywood is teaming with the West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition to host a Bike to Work pit stop at 8743 Santa Monica Boulevard from 7 to 9 am tomorrow.

Santa Monica Next looks at the events, giveaways and an array of refreshment pit stops for Santa Monica’s Bike to Anywhere Day, nee Bike to Work Day, on Thursday.

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Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Well, you will, right?

May 13-17 is Bike Week on @Metrolink with free rides on all lines with your bike in tow. Last year, we took advantage doing a fun point to point ride from Acton to San Fernando across Mendenhall Ridge:@bikinginla https://t.co/ixwrsQluS7

— Gravel Bike California (@GravelBikeCal) May 14, 2024

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The famed Mayor Clinic offers quick tips on how to avoid common injuries while riding your bike.

My best advice is to keep it upright, and just try to stay on it.

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A pair of video hosts for GCN recall the dumb, painful and craziest things they’ve done on a bike.

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It’s now 145 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 35 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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

No bias here. KTLA-5 examines the stop sign cams operated by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, the public entity overseeing over 75,000 acres of Southern California parklands. But they do if from the perspective of an aggrieved father whose son rolled a stop sign and considers it an unfair money grab, rather than a program designed to save lives by keeping drivers from breaking one of the most basic traffic laws.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Evidently, a headline writer for the Daily Mail has never seen a bicycle — or just can’t shake that windshield perspective — writing that the husband of a woman who was mowed down by ‘anti social’ teen called for harsher sentences for reckless riders, after a “spate of accidents behind the wheel.”

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Local 

This is who we share the road with. An alleged speeding drunk driver killed a home in Garden Grove. And the woman who was sleeping in it with her husband. Thanks to How the West Was Saved for the link.

The Santa Monica City Council considers a quintet of bike motions, including what would be LA County’s second bicyclist anti-harassment ordinance, after Los Angeles passed a similar measure in 2011, as well as examining what improvements are necessary to make Neilson Way a “safer and more attractive place to walk or ride a bicycle.”

 

State

Sad news from Stockton, where a man was killed when he was rear-ended at 75 mph while inexplicably riding his bicycle in the left lane of the I-5 Freeway.

Tragic news from Hayward, where a student from India’s Telugu region studying for his master’s at Cal State East Bay is in extremely critical condition and not expected to survive after he was struck by a driver while riding his ebike to see his family; family members are trying to raise funds to send his body back to India.

 

National

Bicycling offers advice on how to get your money’s worth when you sell your bike. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you.

The Cycling Independent examines why nearly every major bikemaker is struggling right now, and what it could mean going forward. Thanks to Malcomb Watson for the heads-up. 

Nice gesture from the widow of a fallen Seattle bicyclist, who donated $20,000 raised in a crowdfunding campaign after his death to local safe streets organizations.

A Wisconsin bike shop owner shares his “unpopular opinions” as the BikeFarmer on YouTube, including that the best bike for most people is the one you already have.

Good idea. A Michigan advocacy group is pushing to reclassify killing or injuring someone on a bicycle as a felony, instead of leaving it up to prosecutors to decide whether to file as a felony or misdemeanor.

 

International

Momentum considers five bicycle-friendly cities for a memorable spring bike getaway. Needless to say, none of them is Los Angeles.

Colombian pro cyclist Javier Jamaica was the victim of violent thieves who knocked him off his bike, then beat him and tied him up, before taking off with his cell phone, helmet, sunglasses and bike shoes; the Venezuelan suspects reportedly laughed at police when they arrested them.

Strava responded to calls to remove a popular section of London’s Regent’s Park where a speeding bike rider killed an elderly pedestrian, urging bicyclists to prioritize everyone’s safety, instead.

London’s floating bus stops may live on, after a member of the city assembly backed them for saving lives, despite complaints of reckless bike riders plowing through lines of bus passengers blocking the bike lanes.

 

Competitive Cycling

The Washington Post looks at Indiana University’s iconic Little 500, the “wacky, grueling bike race” that captivates Bloomington Indiana, and was made famous in Breaking Away.

Former Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas is getting frustrated over conditions in the Giro, insisting “We’re just clowns in a circus.”

Good question. Cycling Weekly wants to know why cyclists put up with dangerous driving in bike races, when we wouldn’t accept it in any other circumstance.

Defending US Men’s and Women’s National Road Cycling champs Chloé Dygert and Quinn Simmons won’t defend their titles at this weekend’s Nats in West Virginia, opting instead for automatic berths on the US team in the Paris Olympics.

Finnish F1 driver Valtteri Bottas is having better luck on bikes than cars this year, after recently finishing 11th in Norther California’s Grasshopper Adventure Series alongside his girlfriend, Aussie pro cyclist Tiffany Cromwell.

 

Finally…

Your old bike chains could have a new life as Pokémon sculptures. That feeling when even riding an ebike up the city’s steepest hill proves a challenge.

And who would win a race between a bicyclist and a longboarder down California’s Donner Pass?

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

Oh, and fuck Putin