Archive for Morning Links

All hands call to save Fountain Ave bike lanes, ICE attacks ebike-riding CA native in Long Beach, and bike lanes are conservative

October 19, 2026 / / No comments

Man, that was a rough week.

I can’t remember the last time a migraine knocked me out like that, or affected me so badly for so long after the pain was finally gone. 

I’m told my migraines, and the associated dizziness, stem from a traumatic brain injury suffered in the infamous beachfront bee incident that put me in the ICU for a few days 20 years ago.

The impact knocked me cold for several minutes, erasing any memory of the crash and leading to one of those life-after-death visions you read about, which, real or hallucinated, both shattered and cemented my own personal faith. 

The ER doctors at Santa Monica’s St. John’s hospital told me my helmet probably saved my life. But in those pre-MIPS days, it did nothing to prevent the concussions I suffered.

The first migraine I ever had came four years after that, and they’ve continued to grow more frequent and worse in the years since. 

I’ve often been a critic, not of bike helmets, but of the overpromises made by so many people who equate bike helmets with seat belts or air bags, as if they would somehow magically protect you from a multi-ton motor vehicle traveling at highway speeds.

They won’t. 

Even the best bike helmets are intended to protect you from relatively low speed falls off your bike, not collisions. But as I’ve learned the hard way, that limited protection can still make a huge difference in your health decades after a crash. 

Now the Canadian-made Pikio Si Oblik has been rated the safest ever by the testing institute at Virginia Tech. It’s hard to recommend a helmet that costs nearly $400, especially when you can get a decent MIPS model for so much less.

But based on my own experience, it might be worth it. 

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As we said last week, tonight there’s an all hands on deck meeting of the West Hollywood City Council, as WeHo Councilmember Lauren Meister is once again attempting to kill the long-promised protected bike lanes on Fountain Ave.

Meister tells WeHo Online that the council didn’t receive any other options other than the bike lanes when they voted to approve the project — even though the street was subject to nearly a decade of discussion and public meetings — and she prefers a plan that would replace the bike lanes with parking spaces, calling it a “compromise.”

Although the C-words I would use are “capitulation,” and “convenience,” as in a surrender to the whims of motorists who are used to parking on the deadly street.

Never mind that protected bike lanes have been shown to improve safety up to 90% for all road users, while maintaining parking would only serve to keep the corridor deadly by forcing bike riders to use the single remaining lane or ride in the door zone.

Streets For All explains how you can help by attending tonight’s meeting, or sending an email to the councilmembers in advance of the meeting.

Parking proponents will undoubtedly be out in force at the meeting, and will need to be met with an equal and opposite demand to improve safety for everyone. The alternative will be to keep Fountain Ave unrideable and unsafe to walk along and cross, as well as to drive.

If that’s the plan, they might as well save the money to pay for ghost bikes and white tires for all the victims yet to come.

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More evidence that ICE is out of control, after a Long Beach man was intentionally run down by ICE agents as he was riding an ebike and struck with an unmarked vehicle, then tased twice and handcuffed face down in the gutter, suffering a broken arm in the attack.

Ricardo Gonzalez was attacked by agents on Saturday, apparently because of the color of his skin, since they had no other means of determining his immigration status as he was riding his bike. Never mind that Gonzalez was born in Hanford, California, making him a US citizen by birth, despite Trump’s efforts to change that.

The agents also rifled through his wallet, and confiscated his ID and Meta glasses.

A crowdfunding campaign for Gonzalez has raised over $13,000, more than doubling the initial $6,500 goal.

Note to ICE agents: Maybe try to determine someone’s citizenship and immigration status before you run them down with an SUV — or better yet, just don’t run them down in the first place.

Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.

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He gets it.

A Bakersfield writer says bike lanes are a conservative cause, so it’s time to stop targeting them and the leaders who advocate for them.

Here’s what these critics miss: A bike lane makes a road safer even when no one is riding in it. Wide lanes invite speeding and inattention. Narrowing them slows traffic, and the striped buffer puts extra feet between moving cars and people on the sidewalk. Federal data cited by city staff show bike lanes on arterial roads cut car-bicycle crashes roughly in half. If anything, the city should go further and add bollards or other barriers, so a drifting driver hits a barrier before a person. That would also make riders feel safe enough to use the lanes more.

Now consider the money. Many roads in northwest and southwest Bakersfield were built with two lanes each way but enough pavement for three or four, on the theory that traffic would someday need it. At the pace we grow, that day is decades away, if it comes at all, and these roads will need rebuilding long before then. Where were the fiscal watchdogs when we paved all that unnecessary asphalt? Repurposing a few feet of it for the safety of everyone is a bargain by comparison…

And when it comes to bike infrastructure itself, fiscal conservatives have been making the case for years. The Kern County Taxpayers Association, hardly a group of free spenders, has long pushed for a better network of bike and walking paths across the city, including more than 50 miles of trails along abandoned and underused rail lines. When the region’s leading fiscal watchdog says safe places to walk and bike are worth the investment, critics who call it waste should take note.

None of this is a liberal plot to take away anyone’s car. It’s about two things conservatives have always championed: freedom of choice and public safety. People should be free to choose how they get around, whether that’s driving, biking, walking or some mix, to save money on gas, to get some exercise, or to let their kids gain a little independence. But that choice only means something if every option is reasonably safe. Too often, it isn’t. A parent may hesitate to let a 12-year-old ride to school. A retiree may not be able to safely walk to the corner store. Someone who can’t afford a car, or can’t drive one, may be taking their life in their hands just crossing the street. Keeping people safe is among the most basic jobs of local government, and the right to get home alive shouldn’t depend on being encased in a car. Responsible spending, personal choice, public safety and strong families are supposed to be conservative values. Safe streets serve all four.

Maybe someone should show this to Sean Duffy, our current Secretary of Transportation, and tell him enough with the “DEI bike lane” crap.

And I say “current,” because no one seems to have job security in this administration, except for those who seem to least deserve it.

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A San Francisco writer discusses the difference riding a bicycle has made in his life over the past ten years, improving it in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

My colleague Lily Janiak, our San Francisco Chronicle theater critic who bikes to shows and everywhere else, coaxed me along like a mother duck, warning me about the risks of tires sticking in streetcar rails, getting “doored”, and even other cyclists. Struggling to remember it all, I felt certain I was going to die.

Instead, I was reborn. 

Or at least rebranded. Riding a bicycle has become as much a part of my Chronicle job as exploring new spaces, hanging out with cool old people and breaking big Pacifica Taco Bell news. I now take my bike and public transportation to assignments as a rule.

In the process, I’ve gotten healthier, spent less money and saved time cruising past traffic jams. But the results extend beyond all that (and the smugness that often comeswhen cyclists lecture about health, money and traffic). I’ve become a better journalist and a better community member. I may not live longer — did I mention that I bike in San Francisco? — but I’m definitely doing a better job working for you.

Unfortunately, the story is hidden behind the paper’s draconian paywall. But it’s worth finding your way around it if you can to give it a read.

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The Hollywood Reporter examines the bicycling documentary The Perfect Road, which premiered recently at the London Film Festival.

Years ago, Maximilian Schnell left his job and his life in Paris and began a nomadic lifestyle on his bicycle. The road has given him freedom and adventure. And he has set himself grueling physical and mental challenges.

Perfect Road, a documentary from Danish directors and cousins Adam and Christian Bonke, follows him on an extreme journey through some of Europe’s highest mountain passes, while also providing a meditation on modern life and character study. For one, even in an age of digital nomads, Schnell’s lifestyle pushes the envelope. And then, his relationship with his partner Nina makes him question his life priorities.

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We’ve seen this video before, depicting a Slovakian mountain biker outrunning a bear, possibly without even knowing he was doing it.

But an animal website uses this 2017 encounter as a launching pad to consider what you should do if you run into one while riding out in the woods. Hint: Unless you can ride faster than 35 mph, you may lose the race. 

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

A Florida convenience store owner is facing a second-degree murder charge after intentionally driving his car into a 14-year old boy riding an ebike, because he thought the boy had attempted to burglarize his store.

In one of the most shameful episodes I’ve seen, a Quebec City family called off a planned ghost bike ceremony for their 11-year old son after receiving “hateful” messages; a member of the group Souliers et vélos fantômes Québec — Ghost Shoes and Bicycles Quebec — called the comments “wildly inappropriate.” Seriously, there’s not a pit deep enough for anyone who’d send something like that to parents whose child had just been killed, under any circumstances. 

A woman is seen on video being chased by a man with a machete for undetermined reasons as she rides her bicycle alone through Kenya.

Twitter post

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Local 

The Los Angeles Times profiles UCLA law student Jonathan Hale, and his DIY campaign to paint the crosswalks the city won’t.

Pasadena is asking for your comments on proposed safety improvements to the St. John and Pasadena avenue corridor.

 

State

Irvine has decided to put the city’s CicloIrvine open streets program on hold while they work through their budget problems. Once again, you’ll have to navigate the OC Register’s draconian, self-defeating paywall. 

Sad news from Visalia, where a man riding a bicycle was killed by a heartless coward hit-and-run driver.

Sleepy Santa Cruz ranks as the sixth most dangerous California city for bicyclists, as Huntington Beach checks in at #1, to the surprise of no one who has been paying attention, while Bell ranks a surprising second; Palo Alto and Gardena were the two safest cities. In a case of good news/bad news, Los Angeles didn’t make either list. 

There’s a special place in hell for anyone who would crash into two six-year old kids as they’re riding their bikes in Half Moon Bay, and just drive off leaving them on the side of the road; 37-year old Robert Schumann faces multiple charges after cops used a drone to track him down as he bravely hid in the woods to avoid capture. Fortunately, the children are hospitalized in stable condition. Once again, however, you’ll have to work your war around yet another unproductive paywall.

 

National

Aussie pro cyclist Lachlan Morton succeeded in setting a new record for the old Pony Express route last week, beating the relay team that carried Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address to California by nearly 12 hours, while covering the 1,966-mile route in 6 days, 21 hours and 15 minutes. Although Morton did have the advantage of paved roads, pneumatic tires and something slightly more aero than a horse. 

A Salt Lake City letter writer says the city’s bicycle and pedestrian improvements may be confusing for drivers, but the benefits are worth it.

My bicycle-friendly Colorado hometown held a third annual bike parade to honor a ten-year old boy killed by a distracted driver in 2023.

Dallas, Texas is looking for feedback on an interactive map of proposed bike safety improvements, as advocates push to turn research into legislation protecting bicyclists.

New Hampshire state police are investigating after a local mayor and state representative got into a brief “verbal altercation” with someone riding an ebike; the man says he only got out of his car to retrieve his wife after she got out to have words with the bike rider.

New York Streetsblog says Central Park is long overdue for the kind of perimeter bike lanes found at the city’s other parks, and complains that the half-measures implemented after New York banned cars from the park have only made things worse.

 

International

A Nobel Prize winner examines the anti-aging industry, and concludes that the humble bicycle is one of the most effective anti-aging tools out there.

Bike Radar considers how many headlamp lumens you really need to see and be seen after dark. Personally, I’ll settle for roughly 3.9 octillion, which is only slightly brighter than the sun. 

Momentum looks at seven of the longest off-road bike trails in North America.

Ottawa, Ontario identified seven bike lanes that could be impacted by a new provincial law that limits removing traffic lanes to add bike lanes during road reconstructions.

A London writer who wisely chooses to remain anonymous justifies why they’ve ridden though roughly 40,000 red lights and have no plans to stop, although kindly choosing not to ride through red lights and crosswalks when pedestrians are present.

Another London writer says the city has spent the last 15 years building for bikes, before now deciding the bikes are the problem.

Drivers in Scotland have been told to stop driving on a bike path as a shortcut around construction delays.

For the second consecutive year, the UK is holding a series of bike rides across the country to highlight the need for safer routes for women riders.

A British city counselor attends a conference on designing streets through a child’s lens first, and explains that “towns that are safe for children are safe for everyone.”

British actor Taron Egerton paid a fine and received points on his driver’s license after bicycling content creator CyclingMikey filmed him using a mobile phone while driving.

Sri Lanka’s head cricket coach takes time out for a little mountain biking in Pakistan, praising Islamabad’s natural beauty.

Two German men are retracing the route of China’s Long March by bicycle; the military maneuver by the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army became a defining chapter in modern Chinese history, leading to the defeat of the forces of Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War.

 

Competitive Cycling

Former cycling scion Taylor Phinney finished eighth in the men’s individual pursuit at the 2026 UCI Track World Championships, while beating his personal best by a massive 11 seconds, nearly seven years after he retired from road racing. Although his wife Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney is still kicking ass on the women’s road circuit. 

 

Finally…

Now even the rocks are out to get us, as a 76-year old Florida woman was killed by a falling boulder while riding in Pennsylvania. Then again, London sewage seems to be out to get us, too.

And maybe it’s just me, but this seems like a bad thing.

Instagram post

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New Bass plan to keep Forest Lawn deadly, Indian girl who carried injured father 700 miles on her bike, and bike-friendly WeHo council candidate

October 12, 2026 / / 2 comments

A quick heads-up before we get started. 

A number of coastal areas remain flooded and/or damaged after the simultaneous effects of a kelvin wave and Hurricane Rachel over the weekend. 

So maybe stay inland for a few days. Or if you ride near the coast, at least check your route for flood conditions and damage before you go, and turn back at the first sign of standing water. You don’t know what may or may not be hidden by the water, and salt water can be very harmful to your bike.

And to you, if a stray wave catches you.

Today’s photo depicts the most recent deadly crash on Forest Lawn, reportedly due to speeding. 

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I’ll try to get into this more tomorrow, but Mayor Karen Bass released her new plan to add protected bike lanes to deadly Forest Lawn by — wait for it — widening the roadway rather than reducing lanes.

Even though her own staff says it won’t do much to reduce speeding and improve safety. But it will keep her backers at Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai cemeteries happy, as they strive to keep the street dangerous and drive up business.

Yay, us.

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Life can be hard. Especially when sudden fame brings promises that no one keeps.

NPR discovered that when they checked in with India’s Jyoti Kumari, who gained international acclaim at the height of the pandemic when she bought a hot pink bicycle for twenty bucks, and rode over 700 miles to carry her injured father back home.

Despite never having ridden a bike before, and only 15 years old, she made the trip in just seven days in the middle of the lockdown, often riding on an empty stomach.

But sadly, her father died of a heart attack just a few months later.

Here’s how she explained the rest of the story to NPR, and what happened after the acclaim died out.

That was in 2020. “Now — life is hard,” Kumari told NPR.

What happened to all the promises made — for financial support, especially to support cycling as a competitive sport?

Many promises were not kept, she says.

“The politicians who made promises, saying they would give money for my sports or education — nobody actually gave anything,” she says. “Whatever reward money we collected back then [from individuals who extended help and a government award that came with a cash prize], we put it all into our house, rebuilding it. We had a brick house before, but it only had bare walls. Now we have completed it, added a toilet, a bathroom, and a running water connection. By doing all that, the house has finally become livable,” she says…

At the moment, her mother works as a cook. Her meager income supports Kumari and her three siblings at home (an older sister has married and moved out).

“There are days when we go to sleep hungry,” she says. “Our brother-in-law used to help us earlier, but now he also has a child, a wife and his father to take care of. He works a small job in the city — how much can he really do? So now he isn’t able to help us much.”

It’s worth taking a few minutes to read or listen to the story.

If nothing else, it’s a remind that as hard as life may seem at times, we’ve got it pretty good over here.

And that heroes and remarkable achievements are too often quickly forgotten.

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Over the weekend, I ran into Stephen Post, a candidate for the West Hollywood City Council, at Plummer Park.

And no, I didn’t hurt him. And yes, I should be more careful.

We didn’t really have time to chat, since my wife was anxious to leave, and the corgi had squirrel treed a few feet away, and was being very aggressive in her attempts to either a) climb the tree to get it, or b) bark it into submission.

However, I did discover Post is a multi-modal bike commuter who lives just a couple blocks from where Blake Ackerman was killed, and he’s a big supporter of the planned safety improvements on Fountain Ave, including protected bike lanes.

I’ll leave it to you to find out more about his positions on other issues. But we agreed it’s long past time for a new generation of leadership. And he seems like someone ready to take that next step into local governance.

So if you live in WeHo, check him out. And if you don’t, check him out anyway.

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The father and son team of Scott and Ethan Pesch are nearly finished with their 10,000-mile ride to visit every Major League ballpark in the US, with a goal of raising $100,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Meanwhile, another father and son duo completed a 4,300-mile ride across the US, raising $240,000 to fight Type 1 diabetes.

And to think I had a hard time just talking our dad into riding around the block with us. Then again, the racing bike he kept hanging on the garage wall was over 40 years old by then, and it was hard to get parts for a 1920s vintage road bike even back then.

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Local 

No news is good news, right?

 

State

Cal Matters examines what California’s three new ebike laws actually do.

Calbike recaps the wins and losses in the just concluded legislative session, counting the halting of three bad ebike bills among the former.

 

National

No surprise here, at least not if you’ve been paying attention, as a new study from Johns Hopkins reconfirmed that narrowing traffic lanes does not result in more crashes, and makes streets safer for bike riders and pedestrians.

Someone who owns both explains why mountain bikes and road bikes don’t get along, at least when it comes to riding together.

Hats off to Irish ultra-endurance cyclist Joe Barr, who is now the official Guinness World Record holder for biking the entire 2,448-mile length of Route 66 in 10 days, 6 hours and 27 minutes.

A new Honolulu bike commuter looks to New York for hope and inspiration. As do we all, my friends. As do we all. 

He gets it. A letter writer with the Akron, Ohio Vision Zero program says ebikes aren’t the problem, cars are. Or maybe ebikes are a small problem compared to the big, dangerous machines and the people in them.

Seriously, it takes a major schmuck to steal an ebike from an 86-year old Ohio man.

Um, okay. A 66-year old Connecticut priest says he felt like Moses in the desert on just the first day of a 350-mile ride through the Alps to raise funds for a Catholic school. Even though Moses spent 40 years wandering through that desert, and never did get where he was going.

New York is embarking on a ten-year safety review of the city’s streets, with an emphasis on improving condition for bicyclists and pedestrians. The difference between New York and Los Angeles is that when they conduct a safety study, they actually do something about it. 

A couple of New Jersey cops helped resuscitate a 76-year old man after he suffered a heart attack, the second life they had saved in just three weeks.

 

International

Wired examines how a tiny Vancouver-based startup studied head-banging woodpeckers to discover a new approach to skull protection, leading to the world’s safest bike helmet.

A 27-year old London woman was sentenced to almost 11 years behind bars for killing a music student, also 27, as he was riding his bike; she was high on laughing gas and doing two-and-a-half times the speed limit when she slammed into him.

A Scottish counselor warns that wet leaves can be dangerous on bike paths. Which is a good reminder if you’re riding anywhere in SoCal for the next few days.

In response to a question from the Irish parliament, the country’s Minister for Justice says 1,368 bicyclists and 253 e-scooter riders were fined for running red lights since 2024 — and no, they didn’t note the number of drivers ticketed for the same offense, though a previous study showed drivers run more red lights than bike riders do. Maybe it’s just me, but that number actually seems pretty low for a country of five-and-a-half million people.

Thousand of people rode everything from modern recumbents to vintage penny-farthings as Sydney, Australia shut down the city’s iconic Harbour Bridge for the 40th annual bike ride to benefit a mental health foundation.

 

Competitive Cycling

World champ Brandon McNulty, European champ Remco Evenepoel, and other national champions led a five-minute protest before the start of Il Lombardia demanding safer conditions for pro cyclists after recent deaths and serious injuries; following the protest, 20-year old French wunderkind Paul Seixas broke away with 19km — roughly 12 miles — to go to become the youngest winner of a Monument race since 1944.

Twenty-three-year old Norwegian cyclist Per Strand Hagenes won the one-day Paris–Tours race after breaking away from the lead group with one kilometer — a little less than two-thirds of a mile — to go.

Sad news from North Carolina, where 19-year old collegiate cyclist and rising cyclocross star Tofik Beshir remained unconscious in the ICU after he was struck head-on by a driver during a training ride near Lees-McRae College on Thursday; a crowdfunding campaign to help pay his medical expenses has raised over half of the $200,000 goal.

Speaking of collegiate cycling, congratulations to Colorado Mesa University back in my home state on winning their seventh consecutive national mountain bike title.

 

Finally…

That feeling when a major bike event turns into a “bike-pushing festival” in “the international capital of embarrassing fails.”

Or when your job requires making Amazon deliveries by ebike during a heatwave.

@iamautoboy

you wrong JB #amazon #fyp

♬ original sound – AutoBoy

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Westwood bike lanes coming over a decade after Koretz killed them, and charges filed in 2025 Desert Hot Springs distracted driving death

October 9, 2026 / / No comments

The long planned and fought for Westwood Blvd protected bike lanes could finally be happening.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton writes that LADOT is moving forward with a proposal for 2.2 miles of bus lanes and protected bike lanes, from the E Line station at Westwood and Exposition to the UCLA campus, along with another 1.1 miles of  bus-only lanes.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslovsky has urged the city to speed up construction of the project following February’s 99 Ranch Market crash, when an elderly driver slammed into the building, killing three people and injuring at least six others, after hitting and injuring a bike rider.

Despite the work of advocates, any hopes of a bike lane south of Santa Monica Blvd were dashed in the early 2010s due to intense opposition from local businesses and the wealthy Westwood South of Santa Monica Blvd Homeowners’ Association, coupled with double-dealing by former CD5 Councilmember and all-around schmuck Paul Koretz.

However, as Linton explains,

In the past, elected officials, nimby homeowners, and city departments colluded to keep the boulevard car-centric and deadly. This began to change with the 2022 election of City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who pledged support for walkable, bikeable neighborhoods and “getting Angelenos out of their cars.”

Even under Yaroslavsky’s leadership, Westwood Boulevard improvements are taking a long time. Yaroslavsky and LADOT have been working on the fully-funded $10 million Westwood Boulevard Safety and Mobility Project since early 2024.

LADOT is asking for your input on the project. Fill it out, because there’s no reason to believe the opposition will be any less intense this time around.

The only difference is the councilmember won’t be in the pocket of wealthy local homeowners.

Image from LADOT via Streetsblog. 

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Charges were finally filed against the pickup driver who killed a 67-year old woman riding an ebike in Desert Hot Springs over a year ago.

Cellphone records show Oscar Pinuelas was using Instagram and Pandora on his phone right up to when he slammed into Laura Harker’s ebike from behind, even though she wearing a brightly colored bike helmet and clothing.

Pinuelas remained at scene, but apparently the CHP only recently examined the cellphone data and made an arrest.

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ActiveSGV invites you to the opening of the Emerald Necklace Mobility Hub a week from tomorrow.

Twitter post

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BikeLA invites you to their annual Bike Fest fundraiser next month.

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A Chicago group says they were “blown away” by the bike lanes in Minneapolis, asking if they’re the best bike lanes in America.

Although the key words there are “in America,” because we may have a ways to go to catch up with China.

Yes, China.

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

A reckless driver drove his car onto an Ohio bike path, despite two missing tires, then stole another car at a park after that one became disabled, and returned to the continue along the bike path. No word on whether anyone who was actually supposed to be on the bike path had to bail out of their way.

Police in Gloucestershire, England told ebike riders they need insurance and a license, and need to pay the road tax, apparently confusing the rules for ebikes with motorcycles. And even though the UK’s road tax was halted 89 years ago. 

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

A 43-year old Liverpool, England man “swerved dangerously into traffic” on his bike and rode towards a family walking with baby carriages in an attempt to evade the cops after they spotted him riding on the sidewalk while using his phone; he was fined the equivalent of slightly more than $380 after being convicted of dangerous cycling. Then again, if he’d been in a car, that whole family could be dead right now. 

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Local 

KNBC-4 reminds you about this Sunday’s CicLAvia — Heart of LA. Unless of course you’re going to Pasadena’s CatCon, instead. 

The LA City Council voted unanimously to set up a donation-funded fund to maintain the instantly iconic 6th Street, including removing trash and other waste from the pedestrian walk and bike lanes; the city recently hired a firm to restore the lighting on the bridge after thieves stole all the copper wire.

Long Beach police released photos of the alleged hit-and-run semi driver who killed 68-year-old Kevin Moran as he rode his bike on the sidewalk; police initially absolved the driver, saying he might not have known he hit Moran, before concluding it was in fact a hit-and-run.

 

State

A Hesperia man had his ebike stolen at gunpoint after a passing driver pulling a U-Haul got out of his car with gun in hand, announced he was taking the bike, and fired a shot past the victim when he initially refused to hand it over.

Oakland’s plans for calming a dangerous street only include proposals for painted bike lanes, and exclude the protected bike lanes advocates argue would be necessary to tame the street.

A suspect was arrested for a Santa Rosa hit-and-run, nearly two weeks after a bike rider was killed and left lying in the street until the body was found the next morning. As I’ve said before, cases like this should be charged as 2nd degree murder, because the driver made a conscious decision to flee the scene and leave the victim to die alone in the street.

 

National

The New York Times recommends the best e-cargo bikes. And for once, I can’t object to any of their picks. 

Aussie Lachlan Morton is attempting to break the record for the fastest ever Pony Express run, set in 1861 when a relay of riders carried Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address to California; Morton hopes to ride the historic 1,966-mile Pony Express route from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California faster than the record of seven days and 17 hours. Of course, he has the advantage of paved roads, and doesn’t have to worry about anyone shooting at him until he passes through Nevada. 

A new hardcover graphic novel celebrates the life of early Black cycling champ Major Taylor, known as the world’s fastest man for his exploits on the track at the dawn of the Jim Crow era; the book is available on Amazon for 30 bucks, and probably well worth it.

New green bike lanes are hitting the pavement in the Biggest Little City on Earth.

The Texas driver who killed rising professional boxer Hannah “Hanarchy” Rapp in July was formally charged with murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for backing his car into Rapp at a high rate of speed as she was riding with her boyfriend, after he gestured angrily following a too close, too fast pass; he faces life in prison when if he’s convicted.

Oops. New York is suing a Manhattan law firm and its principals, accusing them of running a personal injury fraud scheme that allegedly sought tens of millions of dollars from the city over bike crashes that never happened.

Gothamist says the hottest way for celebs to show they’re real New Yorkers is to record themselves riding a Citi Bike bikeshare.

Lawyers for the New Jersey driver who killed the hockey-playing Gaudreau brothers two years ago blamed the victims for the crash, saying they were riding their bikes in the roadway, making it impossible to avoid the crash. Even though that’s exactly where they were supposed to be, and the driver was allegedly drunk, speeding and passing a slower car on the grass shoulder of the roadway. But yeah, it’s their fault. Schmucks. 

 

International

A new Canadian-made bike helmet has rocketed to the top of Virginia Tech’s safety ratings, scoring a 4.61, over two points better than the second place helmet. Thanks to Megan for the link.

Nice. A London bike shop focuses on giving jobs to ex-offenders to give old bikes new life, as well as offering training workshops in prisons to teach bike mechanics to inmates before they’re released.

Cadillac F1 driver Valtteri Bottas completed his ride from last weekend’s race in Malaysia to this week’s Singapore Grand Prix, dodging pythons and cobras, and jumping over an iguana on the 250-mile ride.

 

Competitive Cycling

Last year’s Tour de France Femmes champ Pauline Ferrand-Prévot says Dutch cyclist Dylan van Baarle’s helmet “definitely saved his life” when he was struck by a driver while on a training ride Wednesday, just weeks before their wedding.

Egan Bernal denied persistent rumors that he intends to retire, as the 2019 Tour de France and 2021 Giro winner says he will definitely be at the starting line next year.

 

Finally…

Apparently, cheating in a marathon by hitching a ride on a bicycle is too much for Brooks running shoes. Pro cyclists don’t have the strength to race a “proper bicyclist” on a normal bike.

And what’s wrong with this picture?

Reddit post

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: ,

10 laps of 10 miles up and down Mandeville Canyon for mental health, and ghost bike proof that the bike lanes are the real problem

October 8, 2026 / / No comments

Ten laps of ten miles each on 10/10. Or put another way, 10/10 on 10/10.

That’s what a group of bike riders will be doing Saturday morning, riding up and down Mandeville Canyon to raise funds for the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, which runs the suicide prevention hotline here in Southern California.

This is the seventh consecutive year the 10/10 Mandeville Challenge has been held, now sponsored by the Domestique Cycling Club. The first time it was just a single man riding up and down the iconic cycling climb; last year 91 bicyclists raised over $13,000 for mental health and suicide prevention.

This year they’re already over $22,000.

There’s still time to sign up ride or make a donation, so I’m including the full press release for the event below. And even if you’re saving your legs for Sunday’s CicLAvia, you can still show up and cheer the riders on.

LA Cyclists Will Climb Mandeville Canyon Up To Ten Times On World Mental Health Day To Fund The 988 Crisis Line
The 10/10 Mandeville Challenge returns Saturday, October 10, raising money for Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, home to the nation’s first suicide prevention center

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 7, 2026. On Saturday, October 10, World Mental Health Day, cyclists from across Los Angeles will gather before dawn at the base of Mandeville Canyon for the 10/10 Mandeville Challenge, a community ride benefiting Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, home to the nation’s first and most comprehensive Suicide Prevention Center and the organization that answers 988 calls, chats and texts for Southern California.

Each lap is a full climb of Mandeville Canyon, 1,000 feet over 10 miles round trip. Ten laps is 100 miles and 10,000 feet. Cyclists choose their own lap goal, supporters pledge per lap or donate outright, and all donations and pledges go to Didi Hirsch. Last year 91 cyclists completed 391 laps and raised more than $13,000. This year flat donations have already passed $22,000 before a single lap has been ridden, with per-lap pledges still to come.

The challenge was founded in 2020 by Dr. Trevor Schraufnagel, who saw the isolation of that fall deepen depression and suicide risk, and who rode Mandeville alone on October 10 that year. The name carries the meaning: a 10 out of 10 is the hardest effort a cyclist can give, and the challenge asks everyone on the mountain to find theirs at least once, whether that takes one lap or ten.

“In the fall of 2020 I watched isolation deepen depression and suicide risk for a lot of people, and the hardest part of my job was the number of them who believed help wouldn’t help. It will. That’s what this ride is for,” said Schraufnagel, licensed clinical psychologist and founder of Balance CBT, Associate Director of the UCLA Anxiety Disorders Clinic, and founder of the 10/10 Mandeville Challenge. “Somewhere on that climb every cyclist hits a 10 out of 10, and that effort is relative only to you. We ride on World Mental Health Day because that’s the point.”

“We are so grateful to Dr. Trevor Schraufnagel, event organizers, and everyone taking part in the 10/10 Mandeville Challenge for turning a personal challenge into a powerful act of community support,” said Lyn Morris, LMFT, Chief Executive Officer of Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. “Suicide prevention is something we all have a role in, and every conversation, every act of connection, and every dollar raised can help make sure someone in crisis knows they are not alone and that help is available. On World Mental Health Day, this ride is a meaningful reminder of the difference we can all make and the power of community.”

The 10/10 Mandeville Challenge is presented by Domestique Cycling Club, with support from Specialized Santa Monica, Goodboybob Coffee, Maurten, SVRY, Tirata and Athletic Brewing. Cyclists can register and supporters can pledge at go.rallyup.com/1010mandeville.

Event details

What: 10/10 Mandeville Challenge 2026, a community cycling climb benefiting Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services

When: Saturday, October 10, 2026, 6:30am to 7pm

Where: Mandeville Canyon Road, Brentwood. Participants gather at the Event Base Station at Paul Revere Charter Middle School, 1450 Allenford Avenue, Los Angeles.

Who: Open to all cyclists. Supporters can pledge per lap or donate at go.rallyup.com/1010mandeville

As for today’s illustration, I’m too tired tonight to try to figure out any other way to illustrate mental health, so a happy smiling sun it is. 

………

It’s not the cars, it’s the bike lanes that are the problem.

Even when someone on a bicycle gets killed in the shadow of In-N-Out in Venice Blvd, in what passes for a protected bike lane in Los Angeles, and right under a Karen Bass campaign poster.

If that doesn’t sum up the state of the city these days, I don’t know what does.

At least now we know when and where Oscar Lazaro was killed, reportedly in a dooring.

I’ll write something up later to remember him.

Thanks to Angelo for the heads up.

………

Local 

Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1740, creating a statewide fast track for bike, pedestrian and transit projects that improve access to the coast.

 

State

Not a bad idea. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a regional Ebike Injury Warning System to identify where ebike injuries happen, who is being hurt, and what types of devices are involved. Which should help them figure out that legal ped-assist ebikes ain’t the problem.

 

National

A Bend, Oregon columnist writes that he finally got an ebike after 21 years of bike commuting, and wondered why he waited so long. Although I’m more impressed that he still rides a skateboard at skate parks in his 50s.

A Utah couple in their 60s rode their bikes 3,634 miles across the Northern US.

Hundreds of people decorated their bicycles to take part in an unofficial bike ride marking the start of a Cincinnati art festival.

The parents of a fallen teenage bike rider filed suit against the 80-year old driver who killed her as she rode her ebike in a crosswalk with warning lights flashing; the noted local folk artist is already facing a misdemeanor charge of negligent operation of a motor vehicle resulting in the death. Which will likely be pled down to a traffic ticket before they’re done, and he should be back to driving in no time. 

A Boston writer considers what the city could learn from Danish cyclists, and concludes it’s a matter of obeying the law and being more courteous. I would have said it’s fighting for safer streets to stop drivers from killing kids — aka stop de kindermoord — but he’s entitled to my opinion. 

Crashes — and deaths — are piling up in New York’s Central Park, despite a lack of motor vehicles and the people in them on the park’s carfree loop, which looks as busy as a typical CicLAvia in the photo accompanying the story.

This is the cost of traffic violence. Nearly ten months to the day after a 78-year old New York philanthropist was killed riding his bicycle, police arrested the driver — but only charged them with failure to yield.

 

International

Cyclist says “by women, for women” bikewear brands have multiplied in the last decade, resulting from “frustration with the lack of well-designed, thoroughly tested women’s cycling clothing and a desire to build products around women’s own ideas of what cycling kit could and should be.”

An Ontario, Canada letter writer says adults on bicycles need to set a better example for kids by riding safely and following the law. She’s got a point. I stopped blowing through stop signs when a little kid pointed at as I went through one, and told his dad he wanted to be just like me when he grew up. 

New traffic regulations go into effect in Nova Scotia later this month, including regulations designed to prevent doorings and right hook collisions, as well as cracking down on ebikes.

 

Competitive Cycling

An angry Tom Pidcock says he wanted to stop racing after a cop traveling the wrong way on a police motorbike hit two of his teammates during an Italian race, injuring one rider and fucking up the other’s bike.

Good news from Philadelphia, where 20-year old American cyclist Ezra Caudell was released from the hospital, 31 days after he was critically injured when he lost his balance and hit a lamppost during Philadelphia Cycling Classic

 

Finally…

Your next ebike could carry six additional people, or every dog in the neighborhood. Why settle for off-the-shelf titanium or carbon fiber, when you can build your own wooden bike, right down to the wooden chain.

And that feeling when ChatGPT can’t conceive of tradespeople transporting their gear by bicycle any more than real people can.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Man dies in jail awaiting murder trial for intentionally running down girlfriend’s daughter on bicycle, and it’s Prime time again (yawn)

October 7, 2026 / / One comment

Anyone want to guess how much I want to write about bikes right now, after writing about at least the seventh person killed riding one in Southern California in the past two weeks?

Anyone?

I didn’t think so. 

……….

In a bizarre story from Mississippi, a man awaiting trial on murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run charges for intentionally running down two bike riders dropped dead in his jail cell.

Fifty-seven-year old Shannon Thomas reportedly died of a heart attack last month, after he allegedly chased down and killed a 21-year old woman and attempted to kill the 36-year old man she was riding with in March.

To make things even stranger, Thomas was dating the mother of the woman he killed, and ran the couple down after an argument with the other man.

Which you’d have to think would adversely affect his relationship with the victim’s mom.

………

Yawn.

It’s Prime Day again, the two-day national holiday devoted to buying things you don’t need, just because the marked up price has been marked down to make it seem like an irresistible bargain.

Which isn’t to say you can’t actually get some good deals, but caveat emptor. 

That said, Singletracks offers their picks for the best buys for bike riders. And Velo recommends eleven bicycling deals it says are actually worth buying.

………

Gravel Bike California invites you to join them for this Sunday’s Heart of Downtown CicLAvia.

Twitter post

………

SNL star Marcello Hernández rode a bicycle to Amy Pohler’s podcast, and brags about getting there nine minutes sooner.

Thanks to Megan for the link. 

………

Sometimes, it’s the person on two wheels behaving badly. 

Police in Stoke-on-Trent, England are looking for a hit-and-run bike rider who failed to stick around after crashing into another bicyclist, leaving the victim with serious injuries.

………

Local 

CD13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez has taken to his bike to participate in A Week Without Driving. Hopefully, he’ll get a better feel for what we all have to deal with riding in Hollywood.

The first new Los Angeles speed cams are set to begin operation on October 26th, with fines rising to $500 for drivers doing 100 mph or higher. Although if you’re doing over 100 mph on a city street, they should just impound your car and throw away the key. 

 

State

The Coachella Valley’s newly completed CV Link pathway will be closed for two years under Ramon Road in Palm Springs for the construction of a new bridge.

A San Francisco Streetsblog op-ed asks how many deaths will it take before safety improvements are made to Arguello Blvd in the city’s Richmond District, after an 80-year old man attempting to cross the street last week became the latest victim. That’s easy. Too many. 

A Sacramento man studying engineering at a Macon, Georgia university is building a destructive test rig to test the failing point for handlebars and pedals made by Sacramento components maker PNW.

 

National

Ebike maker Gazelle is recalling roughly 1,032 of its Urban Arrow cargo bikes because the front bolt in the seat post clamp can break and make the seat come loose. Which is an oddly specific number to follow the word “roughly.”

In more proof that nowhere is safe for bike riders, a boy in rural Wyoming was medevaced to a Colorado hospital after he was struck by a driver on a farm road out in the middle nowhere near Burns, Wyoming, population 393.

At least some people in Idaho are turning to bicycles as gas prices continue to rise.

He gets it. A Milwaukee County supervisor has put a stop to a planned 15 mph speed limit for bike trails, arguing it doesn’t make sense to impact legal trail users when the real problem is “unauthorized high-speed e-motos that should not be operating on these trails in the first place.” Maybe he could have a talk with some of our SoCal city leaders. Thanks to Megan for the heads-up. 

 

International

A London bike rider was seriously injured when he was struck by the driver of a police cruiser on Monday. No, the other London, in Ontario, Canada.

In the most heartwarming story you’ll read today, a 96-year old great-grandfather was reunited with the bicycle he rode for decades, after his 67-year old daughter had it restored and delivered to the Cambridge, England care home where he now lives by members of his cycling club; he met his wife of 73-years when they both were riding back in 1947.

London office developers are strongly backing proposals to weaken the city’s bicycle parking requirements, after a new analysis showed that the vast majority of indoor bike spaces sit empty every day. Which I can understand, because I always insisted on taking mine into my office, rather than risking getting it stolen from an unsecured parking garage. 

Damn. A 48-year old European commercial bond trader at JPMorgan’s London office declared “I’m not a cyclist” before taking part in a 500-mile fundraising ride, then proceeded to drop dead on the first day.

Eight years and 1 million crossings after Dutch engineers replaced the asphalt surface of a bike path with hollow panels made from recycled plastic, the trail has resulted in 50–70% lower carbon emissions, while rain storage reached 48% of capacity.

 

Finally…

You can find a lot of things while riding your bike; hopefully a badly decomposed body in a livestock feed trough won’t be one of them. Why install solar panels when you can ride one?

And if you claim a personal best after getting caught cheating in a marathon by hitching a ride on a bicycle, just say you’re really, really sorry.

But in Chinese.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sunday’s CicLAvia tops best things to do list, LA’s safest drivers are no drivers, and Montrose opens La Crescenta Ave project tomorrow

October 6, 2026 / / No comments

Once again, I failed to win the Nobel Prize for physics, despite my discovery that a body not in motion will usually grow a big butt. 

Mine included. 

So keep moving out there. 

Meanwhile, if you’re still reading this, it means Iran hasn’t taken Donald Trump up on his invitation to nuke Los Angeles and/or San Diego. 

Although what’s even scarier is the laughter from the audience. 

Twitter post

……….

Santa Monica public radio station KCRW lists Sunday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia at the top of their things to do list for this week.

CicLAvia—Heart of LA (Downtown) | Sunday | FREE
The dream of safe streets becomes reality for one day. Bike, skate, or walk through 6.5 miles of car-free streets connecting Downtown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, the Arts District, Boyle Heights, and Echo Park.

………

The Los Angeles Times reports that the safest drivers on LA streets appears to be no driver, as Waymo stats show crashes involving the driverless cars are climbing. But most result in just minor damage and injuries, and many occur while the vehicles are stopped.

………

Montrose invites you to the official opening of the re-imagined La Crescenta Ave tomorrow.

 

………

Noted bicyclist Conan O’Brien talks bikes with Owen Wilson, including about how deadly SoCal’s killer highway is. Thanks to Megan for the heads-up.

………

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

No bias here. Chicago Magazine offers a two-minute guide to the city’s largely Latino-driven bikelash, saying recent research in the city shows that protected bike lanes don’t adversely affect business, but the science is still out on whether bicyclists are irritating. But you’ll have to get past their paywall to read it. 

Sometimes, it’s the person on two wheels behaving badly. 

Oops. A Chinese influencer celebrated her personal best in last month’s Berlin Marathon, but failed to mention she caught a lift on the back of a bicycle for more than three miles.

………

Local 

Pasadena police urge drivers to slow down in school zones, and offer safety tips for students walking, biking or rolling for tomorrow’s National Walk, Bike and Roll to School Day. Meanwhile, LA tells drivers to just carry on.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton visits Santa Monica’s newly concrete-curb-protected Broadway Bikeway, which is now the county’s longest continuous concrete proved bikeway.

 

State

Sad news from Hollister, where a 63-year old man was killed by a driver while riding a bicycle.

More sad news from Modesto, where a 33-year old man faces charges for the — allegedly — drunken hit-and-run crash that killed a man riding a bicycle; the accused driver has a history of DUIs, which means he could face a murder charge under California law.

World Relief Sacramento examines the city’s Bicycle Kitchen, which works with the organization to send bicycles to people in need in Africa.

 

National

More proof that hit-and-run drivers really are cowards, as police in Fitchburg, Wisconsin arrested a man accused of fleeing the scene after seriously injuring a 24-year old bike rider as the driver hid in a closet to avoid arrest.

Kindhearted cops in Providence, Rhode Island gave a new bicycle to a boy after his was stolen.

New protected bike lanes are coming to Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood, replacing a painted buffered bike lane. And none too soon, judging by the photo of a woman riding her bike in the buffer.

Tragic news from New York, where a 71-year old man was killed when he crashed his bike into a roaming golden retriever in an off-leash section of Central Park; the good news is the dog wasn’t hurt, and the owner stuck around.

 

International

A Calgary city counselor is calling for a halt on all bike lane work, as the Alberta legislature works on increasing provincial oversight of bicycling infrastructure.

An Ontario man is riding a Brompton to his treatments to beat cancer. Thanks again to Megan for the link. 

Torquay, England is replacing the notorious bike path stair dubbed the “Stairway to Hell,” after a bicyclist was injured falling down them.

The Beeb questions whether London’s ebike situation has gone too far, while failing to note how cars have taken over the city.

China’s Xinhua news agency says bicycling is booming in the massive country that’s bikemaker to the world.

A pair of German ebike riders retraced the more than 4,300-mile route of Mao Tse Tung’s historic Long March during the communist revolt in 1930’s China.

Cadillac F1 driver Valtteri Bottas is skipping the flight to this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix by riding his bicycle 217 miles from the Malaysian site of last weekend’s race, accompanied by his partner, professional cyclist Tiffany Cromwell.

 

Competitive Cycling

Italy’s Giulio Ciccone is questioning the results of a photo finish that gave victory in the European cycling championships to Remco Evenepoel, despite what appears to be a dead heat; Evenepoel was awarded the win by a margin of just 0.0028 seconds.

The Upworthy site spends some time with cycling great Gino Bartali, who was not only a two-time winner of the Tour de France, but helped save hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews by hiding forged papers from the Germans and Italian fascists in the frame of his bicycle during WWII.

Cyclist examines six items at Italy’s Ghisallo Museum that illuminate the history of cycling, next to the cycling-oriented chapel honoring the Madonna del Ghisallo, the patron saint of bicyclists. Although once again, you’ll have to get past the magazine’s paywall. And I’d gladly make the case for Bartali as the patron saint of cyclists. 

 

Finally…

If you kill two people while speeding and driving impaired, be sure to call your cop daddy before dialing 911. You won’t find any anti-bike bias in Pearls Before Swine, either. When you’re riding your bike with a pair of outstanding arrest warrants and a baggie of meth, put a damn rear light on it, already.

And maybe it’s not the best idea to attack the cops after they stop you for drunkenly speeding in the bike lane.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

New Venice Blvd ghost bike after reported dooring, speeding teen kills man on deadly PCH, and arrest made in Culver City bus killing

October 5, 2026 / / One comment

I’m told there’s a new ghost bike on Venice Blvd in Palms.

Rumor is the victim was killed in a dooring a few weeks ago. The victim’s name, which was confirmed by an anonymous comment over the weekend, was Oscar Lazaro.

If that name sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the name I had been given for the ebike rider killed by a driver in Arleta on September 13th. The commenter also confirmed that the victim in Arleta was on a legal ebike, not an e-moto, as I had questioned.

Meanwhile, the fundraiser started by Lazaro’s brother has raised over $19,000.

If anyone knows anything about either death, please let me know, either in the comments below, or at the email address on the About page.

That makes them the 55th and 56th SoCal bicycling deaths we know about this year, the 20th in Los Angeles County, and the sixth and seventh in the City of Los Angeles.

But there are probably others in LA we haven’t heard about, since the LAPD and LADOT no longer feel the need to inform us, or anyone else.

Thanks to David for the heads-up.

As for today’s photo, I can’t speak for you, but I’m sick to death of ghost bikes. And the need for them. 

……….

This is who share the road with.

Deadly PCH has claimed yet another life, and once again at the hands of a speeding driver.

According to the Los Angeles Times, 51-year old Ryo Uchimiya was killed when a 16-year old boy slammed his speeding Range Rover into Uchimiya’s parked car early Saturday, as he slept in his car after arriving early for work at the famed Nobu Malibu restaurant.

The Times reports the 21-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway that runs through Malibu has averaged roughly four deaths a year as a resulting from traffic violence over the last decade.

The driver reportedly didn’t have a license, according to TMZ.

KNBC-4 has surveillance video of the moments leading up to the crash.

The tragedy is compounded by the news that Malibu will delay a 60-day period of issuing warnings from 21 new speed cams to November, after it had been set to begin last month.

During testing, speed cams in just four locations on PCH recorded over 100,000 speeding violations over a nine-day period last month, from September 16 to September 24.

Which means we can expect needless deaths to continue at least through the end of this year.

………

Speaking of people we share the road with, a suspect has been arrested for the fatal shooting of a Culver City bus driver last week.

Fifty-five-year old Jose Zayas was suspected of being intoxicated when he got into an argument with the driver over a missed stop, then made his escape on a bicycle after shooting the driver.

He is being held on $3 million bond. The 42-year old victim has not been publicly identified.

………

Is it really surprising that pediatric ebike and e-scooter injuries have jumped in recent years?

A breathless San Francisco news report said that the orthopedic unit at Children Hospital Los Angeles reported a 675% jump in injuries over the past five years, from 16 in 2019 to 124 last year, with e-scooter injuries more common but the percentage and severity of ebike injuries increasing with time.

Researchers also found that the overwhelming majority of patients were male, with a median of 14 years old, and many were “violating age or helmet laws” at the time of their injuries.

However, in the context-free manner we’ve become accustomed to, researchers apparently neglected to note that ebike and e-scooter usage has also skyrocketed over the same period. And that many, if not most, young riders are using what are actually illegal electric motorbikes, which allow far higher speeds than legal ped-assist bikes.

So what you really have is a problem of more kids illegally using illegal e-motos and scooters, underage and without a license.

But sure, let’s just keep up the panic over ebikes, of any and all types.

Thanks to John for the tip. 

………

Apparently, Streets For All founder Michael Schneider has a book coming out next March, something I learned yesterday from a brief review on the Middle Eastern website Aran News.

“Car Sick” is an engaging account of how a car-obsessed Los Angeles tech entrepreneur became an advocate for safer streets whose primary mode of transportation is his bicycle. It paints a lively picture of what it’s like to navigate LA’s sprawling metropolis on a bike—including catching a flight from LAX with kids and luggage—while giving readers the confidence they need to feel comfortable biking in urban settings themselves.

Michael Schneider explains why city streets are not safe for anyone who’s not in a car and how to stay safe on streets that weren’t designed for bikes.

You can pre-order Car Sick: Cycling to Freedom in a Gridlocked World for a mere, um, $99.95 for the hardcover copy; fortunately, the paperback version costs $78 less. 

………

Streetsblog has come out against Prop 45, which is billed as a reform to overly restrictive CEQA laws, but which the nonprofit transportation news organization says “would roll out the red carpet for just the type of projects that we created CEQA to prevent and mitigate in the first place.”

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A three-year old girl narrates a video — in Japanese, Swedish, English, and “Dogs” — of her parents taking her and a pair of golden retrievers riding on their pink and blue ebikes with matching sidecars,

Instagram post

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Sometimes, it’s the person on two wheels behaving badly. 

A 37-year old Aussie man was arrested after crashing his ebike into a 16-year old girl while riding drunk and stoned; the girl was critically injured, while the ebike rider had an alcohol level more than two and a half times the legal limit, and tested positive for coke and meth. The woman he was apparently riding with just kept going.

………

Local 

Streetsblog reports nine of the city’s 15 council districts saw no repaving work at all last year, as the city shifted to working on smaller streets to avoid complying with Measure HLA and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

This is who we share the road with, part three. Forty-one-year old registered nurse Nicole Linton faces multiple life sentences after she was convicted of six felony counts of second-degree murder for a fiery 130-mph Windsor Hills crash in 2022.

KTLA-5 will sponsor a team for the Bike MS: Bay to Bay 2026 in conjunction with Rock n’ Road Cyclery on October 17 and 18. 

 

State

Calbike is looking for a full-time policy associate on a remote-work basis.

This is who we share the road with, part four. A 75-year old Santa Ana woman has been arrested for animal cruelty and animal abandonment after she was accused of intentionally running over and killing a puppy last month. A witness said Hahn Nguyen placed dog food in the street, then ran over the puppy, named Blackey, when it scurried over to eat it; she then stopped on top of the dog for about 15 seconds before driving off.

Motorcycle magazine Ride Apart asks the question most of the media has avoided, wondering why the Orange County DA’s office shelled out the big bucks to buy back legal ped-assist bicycles, which don’t cause any problems, along with the illegal e-motos that do.

San Diego’s NBC station looks at the battle over a bike lane on Encinitas’ Santa Fe Drive, which seems to have ended with a new state law making it difficult, if not impossible, to remove for at least five years.

Concern is growing for a 63-year old Temecula man who disappeared after going mountain biking 11 days ago.

Sad news from Sacramento, where a man was killed riding his bike on Thursday.

 

National

James Taylor — no, not that one — is bringing furry joy to his fellow Seattleites in the form of his 115 pound, bucket bike-riding Bernese Mountain Dog, Pickle.

A Wisconsin woman has set out to ride all 44 of the state’s bike trails, a total of 1,700 miles.

There’s not a pit deep enough for the 37-year old Illinois man who just drove off after hitting a little kid riding a bicycle, leaving the 11-year old little boy lying critically injured in the roadway.

The Michigan man who designed prosthetic legs using bicycle parts says he’s giving the design away, and has no intention of profiting from his invention so amputees around the world can benefit from it.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 90-year old North Carolina man just completed his 36th consecutive 150-mile ride to raise funds to fight MS.

Louisiana bicyclists rode to remember Mickey Shunick, a 22-year old college student who was kidnapped and murdered by a registered sex offender while riding her bike home after visiting a friend in 22.

 

International

The worldwide bicycle industry is short 45,000 bike mechanics right now, and will need another 105,000 within six years — a job that should be AI proof for the foreseeable future.

Bike riders in Ontario, Canada were left shaken after a 34-year old man was killed riding his bicycle on a roadway with a 50 mph speed limit; one man said he couldn’t understand how it could happen on a day with clear visibility unless the driver just wasn’t paying attention. Apparently, cellphones and distracted driving must be new up there. 

A London writer says legal ebikes are a game changer, but they’re getting caught in the backlash against illegal e-motos.

French soccer superstar Mbappé is one of us, posting video of rehabbing his knee by riding a bicycle, despite Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho’s “non-negotiable” rule forbidding team members from riding bikes. And yes, he was wearing a helmet.

Raleigh is marking the former UK company’s 125th anniversary with a new, but very old school, steel-frame bicycle combining British heritage with Japanese parts and design.

 

Competitive Cycling

Remco Evenepoel may have lost out on the world championship, but he was able to claim the European championship on Sunday, outsprinting — or out-throwing — Italy’s Giulio Ciccone in a photo finish.

Former Team USA track cyclist Christina Birch has been named a NASA mission pilot as she prepares for her first spaceflight next year.

Cycling Weekly examines an Eddy Merckx team bike from 1972, the year the Cannibal won the Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double, Milan-San Remo, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Il Lombardia, La Flèche Wallonne, the Trofeo Baracchi and set the hour record in Mexico City — but the frame is too small to be the great one’s own bike.

Britain’s DAS-Hutchinson women’s Continental team is just the latest cycling team to bite the dust.

Colombian climbing great Nairo Quintana called it a career after Saturday’s one-day Giro dell’Emilia.

 

Finally…

Nothing like a tandem unicycle to define real teamwork. Try to avoid breakneck mountain bike stunts in the weeks before your wedding.

And repeat after me — when you’re riding high and packing coke on your bike, don’t ride salmon and put a damn light on it.

The bike, that is, not the coke.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bass makes production of signing 2 CicLAvias worth of Metro open streets funding, and Newsom signs bill defining ebikes and e-motos

October 1, 2026 / / No comments

Welcome to the worldwide A Week Without Driving.

Or as I call it, Thursday.

……….

After ignoring bicycles since the last election cycle — pun intended — Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Karen Bass made a theatrical production of signing a resolution dedicating a whopping $1 million for CicLAvia and other open streets events.

According to LA Magazine,

“As a lifelong biker and native Angeleno, I know how important open and slow streets events like CicLAvia are to our city and the L.A. region. These events connect communities, bring people together, support local businesses, and help us reimagine public spaces in the second-largest city in the country,” said Mayor Bass.

Which is enough to fund two — count ’em, two — CicLAvias. But it’s better than nothing, which is what Metro’s budget originally included.

And speaking of which, CicCLAvia returns to the Heart of Downtown on October 11th, celebrating 16 years and one day since the first one on 10-10-10.

And yes, I still have the T-shirt. But either it shrank, or I didn’t.

……….

On the last possible day for California bill signings, Gavin Newsom signed Encinitas Senator Catherine Blakespear’s SB 1167, defining the difference between ebikes and e-motos.

Which Streetsblog’s Damien Newton called the best of all the many ebike bills debated by the legislature this year.

Here’s how PeopleForBikes explained it.

SB 1167 establishes a clearer distinction between legal electric bicycles and higher-powered vehicles that are not e-bikes under California law. The legislation reinforces the state’s existing 750-watt and maximum speed limits for e-bikes while strengthening requirements for how e-bikes and other electric vehicles are labeled, marketed, sold, and operated.

Now let’s hope the cops and press read it, and stop confusing the two every chance they get.

Meanwhile, another bill signed by the governor places a 10 mph speed limit on sidewalks — presumably for ebikes and e-scooters, as well as regular bicycles — and allows local authorities to set speed limits on bike paths and trails.

………

Fox News considers what sets America’s greenest cities apart, as WalletHub ranks Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco as the top three in a Bay Area sweep.

San Diego is the top SoCal city at six, followed by Irvine at eight. Meanwhile, Los Angeles checks in at a relatively lowly, and overrated, 24, with green Long Beach just two notches higher.

And what sets the greenest cities apart is they’re all in blue states, which probably isn’t what Fox News had in mind.

………

Thanks to Megan for forwarding a flyer for a rally in memory of two bike riders killed on the same street on or near UC Davis, as she says the university “punts” on safety measures, as well as responsibility.

………

And credit the very prolific Megan again with forwarding video of a student-led ride in Kragujevac, Serbia as they launch an anti-corruption campaign in advance of elections later this month.

………

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

No bias here, as a TikTok user complains about being momentarily stuck behind two Colorado bicyclists riding in the roadway next to a “perfectly good” pathway, even though the bike riders aren’t doing a damn thing wrong, and he’s illegally filming them with a handheld phone.

@motorfeed

Cyclists are so annoying. 🤡

♬ original sound – MotorFeed

No bias here, either, as Megan again forwards video of New York residents alarmed by a block completely taken over by ebikes, while failing to even notice the line of cars parked across the street.

Two real rocket scientists sharing an ebike in York, England recorded themselves assaulting a bike rider by trying to push him off his bicycle as they passed — apparently not realizing they were just creating evidence for their own prosecution.

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

The woman hit by a bike rider near Boston University on Tuesday remains in critical condition, but is expended to survive with non-life-threatening injuries.

………

Local 

Nice to see our old friend Kent Strumpell in the pages of the Los Angeles Times, arguing that the best approach to bike networks is building them out as quickly as possible.

 

State

San Francisco Streetsblog reports a driver killed a pedestrian at an intersection where a fully funded safety project was supposed to be finished three years ago.

 

National

The bike counter on Seattle’s Fremont Bridge just hit 1 million trips so far this year.

A Washington State bike rider was found badly injured in the bushes next to the roadway, with “at least” six broken ribs, broken jaw, a broken eye socket, broken clavicle, several abrasions and a brain bleed, but the cops don’t think he was a hit-and-run victim, insisting he said there wasn’t a car involved, even though all he remembers is waking up in the hospital. Which is pretty fucked up for just falling at less than 12 mph. 

Bicyclists want safer streets and expanded bike lanes in Louisville, Kentucky. Just like bike riders pretty much everywhere else. 

New York’s city council considers a ridiculous 23 separate bills to rein in ebike riders, or “the scourge of lawless riders” plaguing the city, according to the Post. However, New York’s delivery riders just fear the bills will result in more police stops and racial profiling.

Around 60 bicyclists occupied one lane of DC’s Connecticut Ave during the morning rush hour to call for the protected bike lanes they were promised, until the mayor dropped the plan two years ago citing parking and access for emergency vehicles — even though an ambulance didn’t have any problem passing the protestors.

Speaking of DC, Trump’s plans to turn a popular public golf course into upscale PGA-caliber links could jeopardize a beachfront roadway popular with bicyclists and runners by extending the course to the water’s edge.

New Orleans will offer rebates up to $1,000 on ebike purchases, with the first round limited to 100 people.

 

International

A London bicyclist records a taxi driver squeezing past him on busy Oxford Street, which is set to be pedestrianized later this month.

A British pro cycling site offers a guide to Nova Scotia’s nearly 200-mile Cabot Trail, saying it appears to be ideal for bicycling until you consider the steep grades. Which is the same problem I had with freshman algebra.

Taiwan’s Minister of Transportation and Communications biked a part of the island’s 633-mile Cycling Route No. 2 with other government officials, which differs from Cycling Route No. 1 in allowing people to ride at their own pace. No shit.

Road.cc considers why the West wants Chinese mountain bikes, and the Chinese want Western ones.

 

Competitive Cycling

Slovakian National Team masseur Vladimir Kovacik evidently rubbed pros the right way, saying many top cyclists came up to congratulate him for making it through the first 100 kilometers of the men’s elite road race at the recent World Championships, after he was pressed into service when none of the team members was able to make it to the starting line.

What do WorldTour cyclists think of Artificial Intelli…excuse me, Super Intelligence? We may never know, since I refuse to pay extra on top of my NY Times subscription to get The Athletic, otherwise known as the Time’s sports section. 

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can bid on an actual replica bike owned by the late, great Pee-Wee Herman and his adult theater-wanking alter-ego, Paul Ruebens. New York’s plan to stop homeless people from cycling between the streets and hospitals apparently has nothing to do with transportation.

And shaming the Eveready Bunny by signing a new pro contract at 50.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

LA River path costs double while Valley dog park suffers, last day for CA bill signing, and the fight goes on over deadly Forest Lawn Drive

September 30, 2026 / / 3 comments

The good news is that no one riding a bicycle appears to have been killed in Southern California yesterday, for only the fourth time in the last eight days. 

The bad news is that a report on the Citizen app showed the aftermath of a bike rider struck by a driver in my own Hollywood neighborhood yesterday, at Sunset and Detroit a little before 4 pm.

The video showed police closing Detroit to investigate, which is never a good sign, likely indicating a serious collision.

So fingers crossed.

Rendering of West Valley LA River bike path project shamelessly stolen from LA Streetsblog. And I’ll try to catch up with all the recent email submissions in tomorrow’s post.

………

I hate to say it, but she’s got a point.

Writing for CityWatch, Miriam Preissel says she continues to fight the completion of the many named LA River bike path through the Sepulveda Basin, not because she hates bikes, but because she questions how the price tag ballooned to nearly $100 million.

I am not anti-bike. A safe, continuous RiverWay through Los Angeles is a good idea. But taxpayers should still be able to ask a basic question: How did less than three miles of bike and pedestrian improvements become a project approaching $100 million, while five major undercrossings once included in the plan were pushed into the future?

That is where this stops being just a bike-path story and becomes a public-accountability story.

That’s nearly double the original estimate.

Preissel also questions why the bike path has to take a chunk out of the San Fernando Valley’s only dog park, located in Balboa Park.

For years, I have asked a simple question: Why not keep the path on the south side?

The City has never provided what should settle the issue once and for all: a side-by-side analysis comparing the north-side and south-side routes, including cost, engineering constraints, available width, environmental effects and recreational impacts…

In 2023, the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Areas Steering Committee questioned the north-side alignment and said it could find “no supportable justification” for moving approximately a mile of the path from the south side to the north.

The committee also noted that the proposed north-side route would run only a few hundred feet from the existing Orange Line bike path along Victory Boulevard and questioned whether existing bicycle connections might provide much of the same transportation function. It also raised concerns about future floodplain and habitat restoration.

Then there’s the question of lighting, both on the bike path and in the dog park.

The RiverWay is expected to include roughly 233 lights. The dog park still has none.

The park closes at sundown. During the shorter days of the year, that means many working residents may not get home in time to use it. For apartment dwellers, the dog park is not merely a recreational luxury. It may be the only large, legal place nearby where their dogs can run off leash.

Yet the park continues to struggle with basics: irrigation, bare ground, supplies and routine maintenance. At the same time, a nearly $100 million transportation project is moving forward next door.

I wish I had the answers.

I suspect part of it is because construction on the bike path is paid for with grant money, while the dog park comes out of city funds. But if Los Angeles is ever to become the great city it professes and pretends to be, we’ve got to be able to do the basics.

Chop wood, carry water.

This city is failing, and has continued to fail for the past decade, to do the simple things that make a city livable.

Fix potholes. Pick up trash. Get the drug users and people with mental illnesses off the streets, and into housing and treatment programs. And for God’s sake, light and maintain the damn dog parks.

We may have a spiffy new bike trail to show off to the world at the ’28 Olympics, but it will only hide the fact that we’re failing as a city.

Yes, I want all 52 miles of the LA River bike path finally finished, from the headwaters of the Los Angeles River to its mouth to the Pacific in Long Beach.

But I also want a livable city.

Is that really too much to ask?

……….

Today is the last day for Governor Newsom to sign a number of outstanding bike and traffic safety bills. Anything left unsigned at the end of the day automatically becomes a veto.

Meanwhile, CalMatters looks at the four DUI laws that Newsom signed last week.

Now let’s focus on getting something passed in the next session allowing DAs to charge hit-and-run drivers with second-degree murder for making a conscious decision to flee rather than helping the victim, or at least calling for help.

Is that really too much to ask?

………

LA Taco looks at the dispute over improving safety on Forest Lawn Drive.

Which isn’t really a dispute over safety, or even bike lanes. But whether a city street should be kept dangerous to placate the wealthy owners of Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai cemeteries.

Twitter post

………

At least Culver City can get things done. Even if it takes a couple decades.

Twitter post

………

As a side note, I revised that Spanish language version of my ghost bike t-shirt to make it brighter and highlight the bike, after realizing the previous version was a tad too dark.

………

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

A 34-year old North Dakota mother faces multiple charges after allegedly driving her car at a group of children at a reported 55-60 mph before swerving away at the last minute, allegedly because the kids hid her son’s bicycle as a prank before returning it; she says she was only doing 35 to 40 mph, which does not make it better.

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

The arch-right Daily Caller reports that bicyclists berated bystanders tending to the father who was struck and killed by a bike rider while walking in New York’s Central Park. Which is something no one else seems to have reported, so take it with a grain of salt, if not the whole bag.

A Singapore man calls the police after a teen riding with a group of boys accidentally crashed into his bicycle and apparently didn’t apologize sufficiently. He then tells the group they’re “kind of pathetic,” to which one of the kids answered “thank you for the compliment.” I’ll leave it to you to decide which side belongs here. 

………

Local 

Volunteers with People’s Vision Zero once again embarrassed city officials by painting their own crosswalk where a 16-year old boy was killed by a driver in South LA last week, and his sister seriously injured. As we noted above, a city that can’t do basic things like install crosswalks will never be great, and barely be livable. 

Jim sends word that Palos Verdes Drive South will be fucked up for sewer repair work until next February, which may block access to the “switchbacks” on PVD East.

 

State

LAist says ebikes are Orange County teens’ ticket to independence, but questions if they’re too dangerous — then actually takes the time to explain the legal classifications for ebikes, noting that only 12% of ebikes used by middle and high schools in Marin and San Mateo counties fit into the legal classification system. And no, that’s not data from Orange County, but there’s probably a correlation there somewhere, and the same goes for LA County beach cities.

The LA Times reports on All Kids on Bikes classes in the Inland Empire, with Rancho Cucamonga kindergarten kids learning how to ride in gym class.

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies are cracking down on bicycle and ebike violations in the Ojai Valley, as if the people on two wheels were somehow the biggest danger on the streets.

Road.cc says the phenomenon of Oakland’s scraper bikes continues. I saw my first scraper bike outside a Hollywood Target a few weeks back, although purists would argue it wasn’t a real scraper because it wasn’t in Oakland.

Mill Valley is building a citywide culture of bicycling by focusing efforts on getting elementary students at one school to bike to class, and measuring the results.

Horrible news from Sonoma County, where a woman’s body was discovered in a ditch eleven hours after a hit-and-run driver left her bicycle more than a mile from the crash site. And no, the detail about eleven hours isn’t in this Patch article, but the more detailed information is hidden behind the local newspapers’ paywalls. 

 

National

She gets it. A Salt Lake City op-ed says bicycling deaths like the writer’s father’s aren’t anomalies, but rather, the bloody cost of our car-obsessed world.

Iowa Democrats are calling the Republican candidate for governor a carpetbagger, after the man’s quickly deleted Strava account shows he actually lives across the border in Kansas.

A Boston woman suffered life-threatening injuries when she was struck by a bicyclist while walking near Boston University; the rider was also injured, but not as seriously.

The wacky New York Post says the city must rein in ebikes, arguing that ebikes should offer no speed advantage over regular bikes. Apparently forgetting that a skilled rider on fast bike can easily top 30 mph, which tops the maximum speed allowed by legal ebikes.

The honeymoon appears to be over for New York Mayor Mamdani, as Streetsblog contends he is allowing a street to be a fatality waiting to happen.

Two North Carolina men in their 40s were killed while sharing an ebike when they were struck by a 22-year old man; the driver was not arrested or cited, despite a history of five moving violations in three counties since 2022.

Electrek says a ticket issued to an 11-year old Florida boy for riding an illegal e-motorbike shows we don’t need more ebike laws, because the ones we already have are pretty good.

 

International

Momentum surprisingly offers a what appears to be a new story based on 2026 PeopleForBikes data highlighting ten North American cities quietly getting better for bicycling, including our own Long Beach.

The success of the new Gordie Howe International Bridge is reinvigorating historic neighborhoods in Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, as bicyclists fill the streets, businesses boom and forgotten landmarks are being rediscovered.

A group of Toronto doctors, nurses and other front-line healthcare workers denounced the province’s move to rip out the city’s popular bike lanes, citing the risk of traffic violence.

A 69-year old Canadian man claimed the record as the oldest man to circumnavigate the earth by bicycle, riding 18,600 miles in 324 days in honor of his late wife.

If you build it, they will come. Gloomy Glasgow, Scotland saw a 74% jump in bicycling rates over just a two-year period after investing, and continuing to invest, in new bikeways.

Thousand’s of bicyclists turned out in Birmingham, England for a viral DJ-led drum and bass bike ride, saying it displayed the dangers bicyclists face in the city.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a 15-year old kid riding an illegal e-moto was ordered to pay just the equivalent of $652 after crashing into a 46-year old father riding a bicycle, leaving the victim hospitalized with life-changing injuries after eight full months.

Spain introduces new bicycling rules allowing bicyclists to take the primary position in the lane and requiring drivers to take more care passing bicycles; however, the law now requires all bike riders to wear a helmet under all circumstances.

An Indian travel website offers a slideshow of the world’s ten most beautiful bicycling routes, including our own PCH on the California coast, which only turns really deadly once it reaches Ventura County.

A man from Kazakhstan is 100 days into a 3,200-mile bicycle journey from the country’s capital to Australia.

Beijing opened a new 21-mile section of what will eventually form a nearly 30 mile greenway on both sides of the Qing River.

 

Competitive Cycling

Outside profiles Brandon McNulty, who most Americans never heard of until he won the men’s world championship last week. And still haven’t.

It was a double victory for the US at the worlds, as American phenom Ashlin Barry became the first-ever Yank to win in the men’s U-23 race.

 

Finally…

That feeling when rising gas prices lead a ’90s pop group to trade their tour bus for Lycra and bicycles. Your next bike could be a Bugatti, for a mere $27,000 — or you could buy your toddler a Tesla balance bike for just $225. Your old bike could be someone’s new prosthetic leg.

And it’s probably not the best idea to punch someone in the chest at a bike lane meeting and call her a “stupid cunt” when you’re an elected semi-city official.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ebike rider killed in Arleta collision, LA installed bike lanes on 1 whole mile of streets last year, and man rollerblading from LA to NY killed in Kansas

September 28, 2026 / / 5 comments

I guess we’re going to ease back into this slowly. 

I’m apparently still affected by the adverse reaction to the Moderna covid and flu shots last week. I had hoped to play catch-up today, and cover most if not all of what we missed last week. 

But after falling asleep mid-sentence and running my laptop battery down to zero, it’s clear that I still don’t have my strength back — something I discovered after thinking I was okay on Saturday and nearly passing out at a WeHo dog event. 

But at least I got to see a nice bakfiets someone rode to the dog park. Even the corgi stopped to check it out. 

Due to the resulting time constraints, I’m going to be an asshole today and not take the time to look up who sent me what. So thank you for sending me stuff, even if I don’t credit you individually. 

………

I promised someone last week, before everything went to hell, that I would look into the death of man killed by a driver while riding an ebike in Arleta early in the morning of Sunday, September 13th.

The victim was struck by the SUV driver before 2 am in the 13000 block of Osborne Street.

A crowdfunding campaign posted by his brother has raised over $17,000 of the $20,000 goal to help pay for funeral expenses, describing in heartbreaking detail how much he loved, and was loved.

However, as we have discussed before, it’s difficult to determine whether a fallen ebike rider was on an electric bicycle or an electric motorcycle, since the police and the media can’t seem to tell one from another. And while any death is tragic, only the former are the subject of this site.

So unless I know for certain that the victim of a crash was riding a ped-assist bicycle, and not some other form of two-wheeled electric conveyance, I’m not including them in the already too high count of SoCal bicycling deaths.

And yes, even one is one too many.

So while my heart goes out to the family and loved ones of Oscar Adrian Lazaro, I won’t be adding his name to a 51 others who have lost their lives riding a bicycle in our deadly corner of the country.

But if anyone can convince me he was on a legal Class 1, 2 or 3 ebike, I’m more than willing to reconsider.

………..

Gracias por nada, Los Angeles.

Or rather, thanks for a whole 2.2 miles of new bike lanes installed in the last fiscal year, from June 2025 to June 2026. Except that’s lane miles — i.e., counting each side of the roadway separately — so we’re really talking about a whole one and one-tenth mile of net new bike lanes.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton wrote earlier this month that the City of Los Angeles, not to be confused with the other 87 cities and various unincorporated areas that make up LA County, built a whopping 7.5 miles of new bike lanes. But at the same time, the city removed 5.3 miles of already existing bike lanes, resulting in the wholly underwhelming 2.2-mile net total.

They also improved a whole 14.1 miles of existing bike lanes, which usually translates to adding a row white plastic bendie posts and calling it protected, as if those wands will somehow magically ward off a couple tons of ballistic steel and glass.

Which is like trading the family cow for a handful of magic beans. I mean, your family does have a cow, right?

And people wonder why I’m voting for Nithya Raman, if only because she’s not Karen Bass — the current mayor who not only supervised the non-building of bike lanes for the last three-and-a-half years, but also personally intervened to keep Forest Lawn Drive deadly.

Not to mention my current state Assemblymember, who voted to make it virtually illegal to fix the deadly street after a more than $300,000 lobbying campaign on behalf of Forest Lawn and Mt. Sinai cemeteries, in what can only be seen as a blatant attempt to drive more business.

Pun intended.

………

Speaking of things that suck, as we seem to be this morning, yet another person traversing the county without benefit of a motor vehicle was killed by a driver before they could reach the other coast.

According to the New York Times, 24-year old Norwegian Joachim Lanham was killed by a driver in Kansas while attempting to rollerblade from Los Angeles to New York.

Lanham was 22 days into his journey when he was apparently run down by an 82-year old woman, once again raising the question of what the hell someone that old was doing behind the wheel. Except that in many, if not most cases, auto-centetric road designs and the lack of viable options doesn’t give them any other choice.

I’m just tired of people coming to this country on a tourist visa, and being sent home in a box.

………

If you’ve been hanging around this site for awhile, you’ve probably seen my complaints that, despite common perceptions, bike helmets aren’t the life-saving equivalent of seat belts and air bags, and do little to protect again high-speed crashes or injuries to other parts of the body.

However, I may be forced to reconsider their utility, after a woman in Philadelphia used her bike helmet to stop a sexual assault.

No word on what the man actually did, or attempted to do. But the 63-year old woman responded by whacking the guy with her bike helmet — and continued to chase after him, yelling and smacking him with it, until a stranger intervened to protect her.

And him, apparently.

One more reason you should always have a helmet handy, evidently.

………

Metro Bike says “Westward ho!” by expanding service between West Los Angeles and DTLA, as well as Downtown Los Angeles southward to the Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor.

Twitter post

………

Kyle writes to say that Bike Streets is launching in Torrance.

They’re looking for 20 people willing to log every ride with Bike Streets and help build a Low-Stress Torrance Bike Map; you can sign up at bikestreets.com/join.

According to Kyle’s email,

Bike Streets takes a practical “Network First” approach to making biking safer and more accessible.

Instead of waiting years for individual bike lanes to be designed and funded, Bike Streets helps communities:

• Map the safest, lowest-stress streets and paths that already exist
• Connect those routes into a usable bike network
• Identify dangerous intersections and missing links that prevent the network from working
• Focus resources on fixing those critical gaps
• Start with practical, lower-cost improvements while working toward permanent infrastructure

The goal is to create a connected network that people can use now, and then continually improve it over time.

I think this is an approach worth learning about for anyone interested in making it easier and safer for kids and families to bike around their communities.

He says the project began with a podcast video from Avi Stopper of Strong Towns.

………

A Bay Area TV station says a new bike trail offers a safer way to ride into Sausalito.

………

A New England-based law firm forwarded their guide to safer electric transportation, covering everything from e-cars to ebikes, electric scooters and hoverboards, for whatever it’s worth.

………

Sometimes, it’s the person on two wheels behaving badly. 

A 41-year old father of two died four days after he was struck by a speeding 32-year old bicyclist while walking in New York’s Central Park.

………

Local 

Hoodline reports the LA Board of Public Works is set to approve an $84 million contract for a 2.9-mile segment of the Los Angeles River bike through Reseda, but will abandon planned under-crossings in order to finish in time for the 2028 Olympics, forcing riders to cross major streets.

Long Beach, like her larger neighbor to the north, met its target year for eliminating traffic deaths in abject failure, with 35 traffic deaths already this year, including six in just 18 days this month.

Speaking of Hoodline, nice to see their Jake Rodriguez reads this site, and thanks for citing me in his article about the fatal Paramount hit-and-run.

 

State

Construction has started on a bridge extending San Diego’s Fenton Parkway over the San Diego River in Mission Valley, providing bicyclists, pedestrians and yes, motor vehicle drivers with a safe crossing during high-water events.

Sad news from San Jose, where a 32-year old woman was killed by a driver while riding her bike.

 

National

You can all sleep better tonight, knowing the NTSB, aka National Transportation Safety Board, is on the case of the Milligan University massacre. On the other hand, it’s not comforting to know that Tennessee thinks a bicycling route with a 55 mph speed limit is somehow okay.

New protected bike lanes in Queens NY are the physical benefit of New York’s congestion pricing tolls.

A Baton Rouge, Louisiana group is still riding together, ten years after it was started by a 45-year old man to uplift the community.

 

International

Having obviously run out of things to talk about, Momentum continues recycling old articles, in this case linking to a 16-month old Japanese study showing that riding a bicycle can help people over 60 live independently. In other breaking news, researchers have confirmed that ursine creatures do, in fact, defecate in the woods. 

 

Competitive Cycling

In a win that shocked the world, the men’s elite cycling world title went to none other than Brandon McNulty, the 28-year old journeyman becoming the first American rider to take the title since Lance Armstrong in 1993, and Greg LeMond in 1983 and 1989; McNulty won by a 52-second margin in a two-lap solo breakaway.

Aussie Michael Matthews finished second in the race behind McNulty, with Mathieu van der Poel taking bronze.

The women’s world’s were marked by a massive 15-rider crash that changed the outcome of the race; fortunately, the two most seriously injured riders were showing marked improvement a day later.

Dutch cyclist Demi Vollering may have won may have won the rainbow jersey at the Road World Championships, but she was still sanctioned with a 1000 CHF fine — the equivalent of roughly $1,200 — a 25-point deduction in UCI rankings, and a yellow card for “using a non-compliant position or point of support on the bicycle.”

A 32-year old man documented his ride in the Race Across America, better known as RAAM, finishing the more than 3,000 race in 11 days, 23 hours and 3 minutes in a tribute to his father, who is suffering from prostate cancer; his film The Road to Why is now available on Apple TV and Amazon.

Twenty-three-year old Afghan cyclist Fariba Hashimi won silver in the Asian Games, after having to disguise herself as a man in order to train without abuse in the ultra-conservative country.

A 25-year-old Aussie cyclist and coach is back racing just two years after a life-saving heart transplant.

 

Finally…

Speaking of the worlds, the masseur for the Slovakian team had to shave his legs and compete in the race, after none of the country’s team members were physically able to race; he made it 100 km — 62 miles — before dropping out.

Twitter post

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.

 

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