BikinginLA

The good news is, for the first time this week, we didn’t learn about anyone killed riding a bicycle yesterday.

Unfortunately, after this long, though there’s no way I can catch up on everything we missed this week. So let’s just see how much I can get in before the sun rises today.

As for the bad news, it starts below.

And buy a new T-shirt, already. You’ll thank me later.

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Go ahead and get mad. Lord knows, I am.

Because KABC-7 is reporting that one person was killed in a fiery single-car crash on Forest Lawn Drive, near Griffith Park and the eponymous cemetery early Thursday morning.

That’s the same cemetery that called on the mayor to halt a fully funded and shovel-ready safety project sponsored by CD4 Councilmember — and mayoral candidate — Nithya Raman, including a lane reduction and improved bike lanes, that had somehow made it through the city’s endless series of public meetings.

Needless to say, our mayor couldn’t bend over fast enough.

As Streets For All put it, Karen Bass set an awful precedent by personally intervening to keep the street dangerous and deadly.

Back to Mayor Bass. In her letter she directs the departments to revise their plan to preserve all current travel lanes while protecting the bike lane – defeating nearly all the safety improvements the project was meant to bring.

And the worst part? The Mayor is setting an awful precedent here. By siding with cemeteries’ unfounded concerns and giving in to state legislators interfering with the project, she’s setting LA up for this to happen again and again. In her letter, Mayor Bass directs the departments to conduct “essential, immediate outreach to gather feedback on the new plan and achieve a resolution for all partners.” More outreach! Apparently, three years wasn’t enough. But this isn’t general public outreach – reading between the lines, this is outreach to two parties only – Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai. The Mayor is directing city departments to waste taxpayer dollars coming up with a plan that doesn’t solve the safety concerns, and is giving the cemeteries equal footing to city departments, by insisting they sign off on the plan before it moves forward.

Whoever this person was, his or her blood is on the mayor’s hands. Not to mention the cemetery managers who fought so hard to keep the street just the way it is, in an apparent attempt to drum up more business.

In that, they succeeded.

November can’t come soon enough.

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You’ve got to be kidding.

A homeless man says he was the bike rider seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver in LA’s Pico-Union neighborhood in June, suffering a broken leg.

And he says the driver “was gunning” for him, and went out of their way to run him down.

Yet despite that, no one from the LAPD has canvassed local businesses for their security cam videos — even though the shop owner across the street says they’re welcome to it.

Evidently, intentionally running down a homeless man is just no big deal to them. Or maybe it’s just because he was on a bicycle.

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Streets Are For Everyone offers a legislative update on all the bills they are sponsoring and supporting this legislative session.

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A writer for a British Columbia website gets it right — the real danger is cars, not kids on scooters or ebikes.

All the outrage we feel about teens weaving on e-bikes and scooters would be better spent figuring out how to keep massive motorized vehicles away from all other road users.

My apologies and thanks to whoever sent this to my attention.

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Yesterday, I got a very nice email from the Marketing Director for B&D Law Group, APLC.

While they make the serious tactical error of not advertising over there on the right, they have created a list of California bicycling laws, including ebike regulations, updated for 2026. Along with a list of commonly asked questions, which they actually get right.

And yes, that is surprising, because I usually don’t link to pages from lawyers who don’t sponsor this site, because they usually get something wrong. Sometimes a lot of things.

So check it out if you want a refresher on what you can or can’t do on two wheels in this state.

And thanks to Alex for reading this site.

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A Redditor posted a photo of much-needed concrete barriers on Imperial Highway, which Reddit somehow considers adult content.

Maybe because half of the bikeway is in the gutter.

New Concrete Barrier on Imperial Highway
byu/sd140220 inBikeLA

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This is what we could be doing in Los Angeles, which has a hell of a lot better weather than London.

Spot the difference.We didn't 5x the Cycleways network in London overnight. It took vision, hard work, & the conviction to invest in green infrastructure – often in the face of vocal opposition.In 2016, we had 90km of Cycleways. Now we're at 450km. That's progress. And we're not stopping there.

— Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan (@london.gov.uk) 2026-08-12T06:00:20.582Z

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Thanks to Megan for forwarding a video of a Chicago cargo bike rider making sure a stranger didn’t miss his bus.

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Normally, I wouldn’t offer a company free advertising like this.

But I was surprised to get the following email from Oofas, the maker of cushioned recovery slides I wear because of the neuropathy pain my feet. And yes, I recommend them, as does my podiatrist.

But not only is this about bicycling, it’s also about a cause I can get behind wholeheartedly.

Meanwhile, a writer for Sports Business Journal shares his own experienced on the ride.

If they want to thank me, I’m a size 11.

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

Let’s hope this is a mistake. The superintendent of the Las Virgenes Unified School District announces a ban on ebikes on campus, except for high school students with a valid California driver’s license — but also says “Elementary and middle school students, as well as high school students without a driver’s license, may not possess or ride a bike on campus.” Hopefully, he meant an ebike; otherwise, no one can ride any bicycle to school. 

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

Bakersfield cops are looking for a 13-year old hit-and-run bike rider who crashed into a pedestrian outside the city’s Valley Plaza Mall. Someday I may tell you about the award-winning ad I wrote for that mall back in the day. But today is not that day, my friend. 

A Philadelphia woman calls on her fellow bicyclists to show some decorum after witnessing a case of bike path rage, when “a woman in a Lycra onesie sped by at top speed” yelling for a bike-riding little boy’s parents to get him the hell out of her way.

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Local 

Writing for Golden State Report, Mona Field, professor emeritus of political science of Glendale Community College, etc, shares my disappointment that the Los Angeles charter reforms on the November ballot don’t go further, by offering police reform, ethics reform, expanding the council or ranked-choice voting. My gut reaction was to vote down everything as a result, but she says maybe we should rethink that. I subscribe to Golden State, so my apologies if this is behind a paywall. 

He gets it. A Los Angeles writer says not so fast on claims that teens on ebikes are the new Hells Angels, arguing that “experts say better regulation is needed but that bad press about ‘motorized menaces’ puts the wider ebike revolution at risk.” Amen, brother.

Streetsblog checks out above grade G Line bridges, nee Orange Line, new shade structure at the NoHo Red Line station, and hard plastic curbs protecting center-running section of the Chandler Bikeway.

 

State

Irvine has a new bike and pedestrian bridge over the 5 Freeway, but the Orange County Register doesn’t think you should know about it unless you’re willing to pay them.

You only have to wait a few more days to place an order for Irvine-based Rivian’s new ebike. Although when you’ll actually get it could be another matter. 

San Diego’s crackdown on ebike riders under 12 kicked in yesterday, although cops are just giving out warnings, for now.

A 15-year old Menifee boy was killed in a hit-and-run while riding an offroad e-moto; the driver was seen leaving the scene with a bike still lodged under his car.

Police in Valdosta are pushing back against videos on social media saying a bike rider was killed in a hit-and-run, insisting the victim died of natural causes.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition says a 32-year old woman was killed when the e-scooter she was riding got caught in a rail track, and she was hit by a delivery truck driver illegally driving in the transit lane, who fled the scene, although he was caught a few blocks away.

Hats off to Kyle and Jessica Aster, who donated a quarter of a million dollars to build a five-mile singletrack trail near Lake Tahoe, completing an iconic 12-mile loop around the lake.

 

National

If you ride with a Ritchey Carbon Fiber Bicycle Fork, don’t; they’re being recalled due to a “risk of serious injury or death.”

A Colorado couple discovers that riding 50 centuries in 50 states on a tandem bike may soon fill a blank page in the Guinness World Records book.

Um, no. A San Antonio TV station says a man was stabbed several times “during (a) fight over a bicycle,” but the description sounds more like he was stabbed by someone trying to steal his bike.

An Illinois man was arrested two years after a 56-year old man was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his bicycle; the investigation showed the driver and his wife had gone to two bars, but they played the old “Oh, I thought we just hit a deer” card when finally caught.

A 73-year old Cornell University researcher and former sponsored cyclist has turned his garage into a word-of-mouth bike shop, and a bicycling community.

The New York city council has wisely backed off a plan to require ebike registration, after witnessing the messy rollout of New Jersey’s crackdown just across the river.

No surprise here, as DC finds building bike and bus lanes reduces crashes a lot.

Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins offers a “crash course in ebike helmets,” arguing that faster bikes means a bigger risk.

The kindhearted folks at a Tampa, Florida nonprofit will soon give away their 3,000th donated and refurbished bicycle, just three-and-a-half years after it was founded.

 

International

A new study from the University of Duh finds that bicycling infrastructure really can boost bike commuting.

Road.cc recommends six of the best British designed bicycles, starting at the equivalent of around 950 bucks. Although something actually made in the UK is another matter.

A British woman and her boyfriend completed a nearly 800-day trip from Europe through Africa — and he even had to push her about 80 miles when her bike broke down.

Irish police have conducted ten raids and arrested two teens, following a series of attacks, robberies and bike thefts by masked men on a popular bike path

That Chopper bike floating belly-up in the bathtub is a Raleigh, after Dutch parent company Accell declared bankruptcy, also sounding the death knell for the Lapierre, Batavus, Sparta, Koga, Haibike, Winora, Ghost, Babboe and XLC brands; however, there may be hope, as an Irish investment firm has expressed an interest in buying the entire lot.

New bike sales in France dropped 6% in 2025, while ebike sales fell 16%; however, sales remained 23% up from those heady pre-Covid days of 2019.

 

Competitive Cycling

LA endurance cyclist Isabel King completed the 207-mile Unbound Gravel race in 12 hours while pumping milk for her breastfeeding baby.

A writer for Men’s Journal rides a Tour de France bike through the Alps, and discovers that aero matters more than weight.

 

Finally…

That feeling when renting an e-bikeshare feels more like highway robbery. Writing the memo you wish the local DOT director would write.

And apropos of nothing, CNN ranks my bike friendly hometown #5 on their list of places to visit — and yes, it really did serve as the inspiration for Disneyland’s Main Street.

Although I don’t recall ever seeing a large pantless duck or talking mouse when I was growing up.

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And seriously, you need one of these. Like, now.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.