Alex Pretti was one of us.
The 37-year old Minneapolis VA nurse, who was fatally shot — okay, murdered — by ICE agents on Saturday was a lover of the outdoors, and an active mountain bike rider.
Which is just one reason the bike community is rallying behind him.
Minneapolis’ Angry Catfish bike shop, which claimed Pretti as a frequent customer, is helping to organize memorial Unity Rides rides across the country for this Saturday, starting with Minneapolis.
The Radavist is calling for the entire bicycling community to come together for healing and to honor Pretti, who he says could have been any of us. Although I’m not sure how many of us would have stepped up to help a stranger at the risk of our own lives.
Meanwhile, Minnesota-based Salsa Cycles is urging bike riders to contact their legislator and join in a Unity Ride to protest the recent fatal shootings by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
According to Cycling Weekly,
“Our neighbors are being unlawfully detained, harassed and murdered at the hands of the federal immigration enforcement agents,” Salsa Cycles wrote in its statement. “Now is the time to speak up and stand up…”
“Community is important in times like this,” Salsa Cycles states. “Alex Pretti was a member of our local cycling community…We encourage you to come ride with us, host a ride in your community, or simply go ride in solidarity on Saturday.”
Bike Portland reports other rides have been announced for Portland, Oregon, Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia; Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, Texas; Bellingham, Washington; San Francisco, California; Wichita, Kansas; and Memphis, Tennessee.
West LA Bicycle will host a Unity Ride here in Los Angeles (click here in case the Instagram link below doesn’t embed properly).
https://www.instagram.com/p/DUCoEbDjDuR
Anyone interested in organizing a ride can contact Community@angrycatfishbicycle.com for more information.
Let me know if there are any other rides planned for Los Angeles or Southern California.
I honestly don’t care what your politics are.
No one should be killed for legally, and peacefully, exercising their 1st and 2nd Amendment rights.
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Ten years hardly seems like enough.
Thirty-two-year old Tiffany Sanchez was formally indicted Tuesday on felony charges of vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run for killing six-year old Hudson O’Loughlin as he rode his bike with his family on a Pacific Beach sidewalk January 18th.
The former carries a maximum of six years, while the latter has a max of just four years, thanks to California’s lax hit-and-run laws.
And that’s only if she is convicted on both charges, and gets the maximum penalties, to run concurrently.
Anyone want to give odds on that?
Sanchez is accused of knocking Hudson off his bike as she turned right into an alley, stopping briefly, then fleeing the scene and driving over the boy as he lay helpless on the ground.
According to 10 News San Diego,
“The defendant did not stop, she did not render aid, she did not assess the situation or try to help out, she didn’t, she did not call 911,” said Cassidy McWilliams, deputy district attorney.
Never mind that she hasn’t had a valid driver’s license for nine years, and shouldn’t have been on the road in the first place.
She was ordered into custody on $150,000 bond, and will be required to wear an ankle monitor and forbidden from driving if she manages to post it.
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A new map from the San Francisco Chronicle shows the most dangerous streets and neighborhoods for bicyclists and pedestrians, based on traffic deaths from 2020-2024, as reported by law enforcement agencies to the Transportation Injury Mapping System at UC Berkeley.
According to the paper,
This analysis includes people walking, biking, using wheelchairs or riding personal conveyances such as rollerblades or skateboards. In total, nearly 6,500 people were killed while walking or biking across California during this five-year period, a toll that includes about 800 cyclists.
Fatalities climbed steadily for nearly a decade across the state, reaching a peak of 1,429 deaths in 2022, before receding to 1,208 in 2024. In comparison, the Bay Area has remained relatively stable. The number of fatalities has ranged between 150-180 deaths per year.
The map pinpoints the location of both pedestrian and bicycling deaths, while blocking out high-fatality hotspots.
The latter of which makes Los Angeles look like the hot mess it is.
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Active SGV is hosting a free Learn to Bike class in El Monte on Sunday.
https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/2015903927703646291
The group is also hosting an easy ride to Whittier Narrows next weekend.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A New Jersey legislator is “backpedaling” on his own proposal to require a $50 annual bicycle registration fee to make bike riders contribute to the cost of their own infrastructure, with public comments running 61% against. Because apparently, people who ride bikes don’t pay taxes like normal folks, and the proven societal and health effects of bicycling are worth nothing. And no, drivers don’t pay their own way; the overwhelming cost of building and maintaining roadways comes from general tax funds.
The simple act of bicycling without a helmet or hi-viz clothing could soon become a criminal offense in Ireland if a new government proposal is enacted; the president of an Irish bicycling organization calls it “performative policymaking,” arguing “there is no credible evidence” that it would significantly reduce collisions or fatalities. Meanwhile, an English author and columnist writing for the Irish Times says that “Anyone who thinks cyclists ‘come out of nowhere’ should not be in control of a vehicle.”
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Carpenteria is becoming the latest coastal California city to crack down on ebikes without distinguishing ped-assist bikes from the electric motorbikes and illegal ebikes causing the problems, although they are capping ebike speeds at 28 mph, mirroring state law.
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Local
Metro will mark the birthday of civil rights icon Rosa Parks next Wednesday, aka Transit Equity Day, with free rides throughout the system, including Metro Bike; the agency is also conducting a survey to better understand the needs of neurodivergent riders.
UCLA is now requiring that every ebike and e-scooter kept on campus be UL-certified and registered with the school transportation department.
A Canyon Country bike rider was hospitalized with minor injuries as a result of a hit-and-run crash with a truck driver leaving a movie set. Which means the driver shouldn’t be too hard to find.
He gets it. A personal trainer from Signal Hill says Long Beach residents don’t need another fitness trend, because all they have to do is go outside to enjoy one of the city’s most effective health resources, including the beachfront bike path.
State
Once again, a bike thief has been busted in Orange County, after stealing a bait bike worth over $2,000 in Huntington Beach, which makes it a felony. Meanwhile, the LAPD still won’t employ bait bikes because a former city attorney feared it could be construed as entrapment, even though similar charges have held up in other cities that do.
Laguna Beach city leaders are debating potential locations and designs for a pump track, though they haven’t made a commitment to building one yet.
A 71-year old man was critically injured when he was struck by a pickup driver in Indio Tuesday morning and knocked under the truck, suffering “significant” injuries; shockingly, the driver was unharmed. And yes, that’s sarcasm.
Congratulations to San Jose, where traffic deaths dropped for the second straight year, declining ten percent from 2024 to the lowest level since 2012.
Bike-friendly Davis has released a new citywide bike map. Granted, it’s easier to build a connected bike network in a small city, but at least Davis has one. Los Angeles doesn’t.
Sad news from Lodi, where a 78-year old retired physician was killed by a driver while riding his bicycle in Amador County, southeast of Sacramento; he was called The Lone Rider by his bike club because he rode so much after his retirement 23 years ago.
National
Gadget Review ranks the fifteen best bikes from last year. Some of which actually are.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The assets of bankrupt Seattle ebikemaker Rad Power Bikes were auctioned off in a fire sale for $13.2 million, following its recent Orange County warehouse fire — a 99.2% drop from its high valuation of $1.65 billion.
Once again, someone riding a bicycle has been collateral damage in a police chase, when a bike rider was killed by a speeding driver fleeing from the cops in Tucson, Arizona, who also crashed into a pedestrian before being shot by state troopers; the driver was hospitalized, while the pedestrian suffered non-life threatening injuries.
Winter bicycling rates are skyrocketing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, increasing over 400% in the past ten years, thanks in part to the city plowing snow from bike lanes.
South Carolina authorities are searching for a 15-year old boy who disappeared under “unusual” circumstances after leaving his grandfather’s house for a bike ride a week ago, and hasn’t been seen since.
International
A writer for Cycling Weekly says like it or not, of course there are barriers to bicycling for female riders, from the cost of an entry level bike to products designed for male riders, and threatening behavior from other road users.
A new Canadian study shows that nearly 3,600 kilometers — roughly 2,200 miles — of high-quality bicycling infrastructure was added across the country, but the increase largely bypassed areas with more children and older adults, which could benefit most from it.
The London Times asks if 2025 was the year London became a bicycling city, as even Timothée Chalamet embraced the city’s ubiquitous Lime bikes.
British Transport Police have reversed their recent announcement that they wouldn’t investigate the theft of bicycles left at train stations for more than two hours.
A British man completed a six-month, 14,000-mile trip from Melbourne to Melbourne, the former in the UK and the latter in Australia.
There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a man’s wallet when he fell from his bike after leaving a nightclub in Turin, Italy, and was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver while he was on the ground.
Competitive Cycling
Two-time Tour de France champ Jonas Vingegaard was lucky to escape serious injury when he crashed on a training ride, after he tried to drop an amateur cyclist who repeatedly tailed him and wouldn’t back off; amateur Pedro García Fernández posted video to Strava showing him riding on Vingegaard’s wheel, saying he couldn’t understand the pro’s anger at being followed by a fan. It used to piss me off when some stranger drafted off me, and I’m not even famous.
Chinese bikes have made it to the WorldTour, with the Quick Pro brand signing a new sponsorship agreement with the Euskaltel-Euskadi cycling team, after more than 30 years using Orbea bikes.
Ouch. Aussie Jay Vine finished the Tour Down Under riding with a broken wrist after getting caught up in the infamous kangaroo crash.
Finally…
That feeling when you give five grand from your insurance settlement to the driver who knocked you off your bike because the crash cured your back pain. We may have to deal with rabid LA drivers, but at least we hardly ever run into potentially rabid baby bats. Who needs a bike seat when you’re Ryan Seacrest?
And honestly, who wouldn’t want their very own lobster bike?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
