Day 147 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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A mass rideout of teens and young adults on bicycles has once again led to violence in Southern California.
But this time, one of the riders was the victim.
According to Baldwin Park News, an adult man was shot following a brief confrontation in the middle of an intersection, during a ride involving hundreds of bicyclists.
The incident came around 2:45 Saturday afternoon, at Main Ave and Olive Street in Baldwin Park.
The man was riding his bike when he was confronted by an unknown person, who pulled out a gun and fired moments later, striking the victim in the lower body. He’s reportedly in stable condition with a single gunshot wound.
There’s no word on what may have led to the confrontation or why it escalated to violence, although it’s not unusual for motorists to become enraged by bike riders taking over the entire roadway or performing stunts as they ride.
There’s also no description of the suspect, or whether the shooter was in a motor vehicle.
This shooting comes after at least three other rideouts have led to violence on the streets of Los Angeles. However, in each of those cases, it was the people on bicycles who attacked drivers and cars after confrontations with motorists.
A 16-year old boy was also allegedly murdered by a motorist accused of intentionally crashing into him after an argument during a rideout near BMO stadium last November, following the victim into a parking lot to run him down.
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Glendale will host an open streets event on Saturday.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. The New York Times explores why the city’s drivers get off with a simple traffic ticket, while scofflaw bike riders end up in criminal court, even though people in cars are far more likely to kill someone.
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Local
No news is good news, right?
State
Nearly 200 Chula Vista kids got new bikes, courtesy of the city’s Rotary Club.
Hats off to a Palm Desert couple who parked their car and sprang into action when an ebike rider suffered a “significant” head wound after losing control and falling into the street, working to stop his bleeding before paramedics arrived.
It takes a real schmuck to flee the scene after running down a six-year old San Francisco girl riding a bicycle and her mother; fortunately, their injuries aren’t thought to be life-threatening.
A San Francisco website asks if Davis, home to the nation’s first bike lane, is still the state’s bicycling capital, even if local residents don’t ride as often as they used to.
National
The Trump administration wants to ban your bike from federal property under a new proposal from the Department of Homeland Security would “prohibit the unauthorized use, operation, parking, locking, or storage” of bicycles and scooters on federal property. Because evidently, we’re much more dangerous and disruptive than those people in the big, dangerous machines.
A motorsports website considers what urban bike riders can learn from NASCAR safety protocols, arguing that a bike helmet, preparation, and riding defensively are key to getting back home in one piece.
I want to be like him when I grow up. Two years after he set a record as the oldest person to ride a bike across the US, an 80-year old man with Parkinsons is doing it again, this time riding from south to north along the route of the Underground Railroad.
A Dallas, Texas man was lucky to survive after becoming just the lated victim of a police chase, when a man being pursued by the cops slammed into the back of his bicycle as he rode with a group along the side of a highway — then was carried more than a mile on the hood of the driver’s car until another crash threw him off.
Hats off to the Tallahassee teenager who built a mountain bike repair station on a popular trail as his Eagle Scout project.
International
Bike Radar considers what not to do that could ruin your next ride to work.
Maybe they’re out to get us. A Vancouver, British Columbia man was killed when a deer crashed into him as he rode his bike down a steep hill; meanwhile, a Swiss woman died after hitting a cat on her ebike.
Apparently, it takes more than an hour to get an unlocked bike stolen in a busy crime-ridden London neighborhood.
BBC reporter Anna Holligan says her whole world has gotten smaller and slower, after thieves in the Netherlands stole the cargo bike she used for news reports from the bike path.
A writer for Travel + Leisure says a bicycling safari is the best way to see wildlife in Africa’s Kalahari Desert.
An Aussie city installs a traffic light giving bicyclist a head start before drivers get a green. And of course the people on two wheels love it, and the ones on four, not so much.
Competitive Cycling
Kristen Faulkner out-sprinted Lauren Stephens and Katherine Sarkisov to repeat as the US elite road cycling national champ.
Quinn Simmons won the men’s elite road race with a solo breakaway, finishing nearly three-minutes ahead of second place Evan Boyle, with Gavin Hlady winning a mass sprint for third, another two-and-a-half minutes back; it was Quinn’s second national title after winning in 2023.
The U-23 road cycling titles were won by Ella Sabo on the women’s side, and the aforementioned Gavin Hlady for the men.
US cycling legend Bobby Julich said winning the national championship the ultimate honor of his cycling career.
Twenty-one-year old rising Mexican cycling star Isaac Del Toro finished a very unexpected full week in the Giro’s pink leader’s jersey.
Mathieu van der Poel’s preparations for the Tour de France got more complicated when he broke his wrist in a mountain bike race in the Czech Republic over the weekend.
Speaking of the Tour de France, cycling stars Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard have blasted plans to have the Tour end on Paris’ Montmartre climb, saying the hilly, curving course that worked for the recent Olympics would lead to chaos, putting riders and fans at risk.
Red Bull profiles 28-year old Colombian cyclist Dani Martínez, calling him the complete package after finishing 2nd in last year’s Giro in just his send year with the Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe team.
Road.cc tells “the amazing story of Wong Kam-po, the cycling king of Hong Kong,” who won the world championships, beat future winners of the Tour de France, and was called the world’s best non-pro bike racer.
Finally…
When you’re under the influence and driving with coke and weed in your car, maybe stick to the road and not the bike path. That feeling when a pair of bikeways make the list of 50 stupidly dangerous designs that defy logic.
And a man riding in Yellowstone was lucky he didn’t find out how it feels to get buffaloed. Or bisoned.
Or whatever.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
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