Slauson shared use path named one of US best, and suit alleges LAPD cop murdered another cop in bike training exercise

January 13, 2026 / / Comments Off on Slauson shared use path named one of US best, and suit alleges LAPD cop murdered another cop in bike training exercise

LA Metro comes in for a lot of criticism.

Justifiably, in most cases.

But they deserve credit for the long-awaited, if awkwardly named, Slauson Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor, as People For Bikes names it one of the best new bike lanes in the US.

As part of the long-planned Rail-to-River project, Los Angeles turned a neglected right-of-way into a shared-use path lined with hundreds of new trees, bioswales, pedestrian-scale lighting, and bike share stations. The completed Slauson segment of the Rail-to-River project (known as Segment A) stretches 5.5 miles from 67th Street and 11th Avenue to Slauson Station on the Metro A Line. The path links schools, transit, parks, and businesses, providing a safe, accessible route for both recreation and commuting in South Central Los Angeles.

As local advocates celebrate the project’s success, they continue to push for completion of Segment B before the 2028 Olympics, which would extend farther east to the LA River and create a vital link in a regional network that will ultimately connect South LA to Long Beach and beyond.

Now let’s convince Metro finish the rest of this one before 2028.

And stop fighting HLA compliance on the Vermont corridor.

………

A lawsuit is going to trial this week alleging that an LAPD cop was murdered by another officer during a bicycle training exercise.

The parents of Los Angeles Police Officer Houston Tipping are suing the city and LAPD Officer David Cuellar, claiming that Cuellar intentionally injured their son when they were participating in a bicycle patrol training class at the department’s Elysian Park Academy in 2022.

According to the lawsuit, Tipping had launched an investigation after taking a report from a woman claiming she had been sexually assaulted, allegedly by Cuellar. And that Cuellar retaliated by purposely injured him during a training exercise.

Tipping suffered a spinal cord injury, dying three days later.

………

Barry Morphew has pled not guilty to a charge of murder in a Colorado court for the death of his wife Suzanne in 2020.

Morphew had reported his wife missing, saying she had disappeared after leaving alone for a Mother’s Day bike ride. However, police later concluded he had drugged her with an animal tranquilizer, and tossed her bicycle and helmet down a ravine to make it look like she had crashed.

Volunteers kept searching for her, but it was not until 2023 that her skeletal remains were found.

Morphew was arrested on a charge of first-degree murder. He was allegedly the only person, other than wildlife officials, to have a prescription for that particular drug combination in the area.

This is the second time he has been charged in her death. He was first arrested in 2021, before her body was found. But charges were dismissed after alleged prosecutorial misconduct.

………

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

A Florida man faces charges for deliberately shoving a 74-year old man off his bicycle for no apparent reason, leaving the victim with a cracked helmet and minor injuries. Although the man told police “informants coming after him,” so there’s that.

Toronto has spent $270,000 to hire outside attorneys in the fight to retain key bike lanes that Ontario officials want to rip out; the executive director of a Toronto bike advocacy group said the money could have been better spent on transit or other projects to reduce congestion, if the province hadn’t been so obsessed with removing the bike lanes.

No bias here. A Dublin, Ireland judge reduced by 80% the damages awarded to a bicyclist who suffered a brain injury, claiming that bicyclists have become a nightmare in the city, and as a driver, he was entitled to take judicial notice of his own experiences. Just wait until someone tells him about the nightmare drivers have become. And not just in Dublin. 

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

London is installing three new signalized crossings in the city’s Regent’s Park to slow bike riders after too many collisions and near misses with pedestrians, as many riders exceed the park’s 20 mph speed limit.

A Scottish letter writer complains that bicyclists need to show more care around pedestrians on shared paths, with too many riders coming up from behind with little or no warning. Seriously, pedestrians are the only ones who are more vulnerable on the streets or pathways than we are. So slow down, give them a warning and pass them like you wish drivers would pass you. 

………

Local 

Streets For All reminds us about two critical votes at the LA Metro Planning and Programming Committee meeting this Wednesday, to select a preferred option for a rail line through the Sepulveda Pass, and give final approval to extend the C, aka Green, Line to Torrance.

A Caltech scientist refutes the notion that he doesn’t exist, after a woman stood up in a Pasadena city council meeting to suggest that no one rides bikes in the city.

 

State

A man reportedly suffered major injuries when his bicycle was rear-ended by the driver of a Dodge Charger near Indio Monday morning. Although there’s no explanation for why the driver apparently didn’t see a grown man on a bicycle riding directly in front of his car. 

Sad news from Santa Rosa, where a man riding a bicycle was killed in a collision with a SMART commuter train. Train collisions are the easiest wrecks to avoid, because the trains are confined to their tracks, and crossing gates warn you when they’re coming — as long as you don’t go around them.

It may be justice delayed, or even denied, for a Sacramento woman who was nearly killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding her bike in 2023, leaving her with four broken ribs, a broken collar bone, a concussion, a collapsed lung and a lingering bruise on her thigh, after the driver arrested a year later filed for a mental health diversion rather than facing trial — something the victim calls his Get Out of Jail Free card.

Folsom is busy rebuilding the city’s bike park under a new public-private partnership.

 

National

Bicycling says some of the “Amazon’s Choice” bicycling gear is surprisingly good, despite being cheap. Although that endorsement might mean a little more if they didn’t get a kickback on any click-through sales.

The lone survivor of an Asheville NC crash that killed two bicyclists and seriously injured a third, is now the co-founder of the The White Line North Carolina chapter, and fighting for passage of the Magnus White Cyclist Safety Act (H.R. 3649) mandating automatic emergency braking systems for motor vehicles to detect cyclists and other road users.

A Massachusetts town is finally ready to approve the city’s draft bicycle and pedestrian mobility plan, 32 years after they started work on it. Yes, 32 years. And I thought the fight over the Los Angeles bike plan took forever.

 

International

Urban Bike News recaps the current outlook for, well, urban bikes.

Momentum recommends the top ten bikepacking routes to tackle this year, including California’s own Pacific Coast Route from Canada to Mexico. Although whether this is actually a new story or another recycled piece from years past is TBD. 

A British Columbia columnist urges bicyclists to follow his example and tilt their headlights down, so they don’t blind oncoming riders. Which is exactly what I’ve done for years, which offers the added advantage of providing a better view of the road surface. 

London’s department of transportation equivalent is asking people to nominate women who ride bikes, planning to pick ten women to name bikeshare bikes for them in honor of International Women’s Day, as well as increase female ridership. Because nothing will inspire women to ride more than naming a bicycle named after one of them. Right?

A British university is complaining that a new painted bike lane near campus is too slippery, resulting in slips and near misses, but the local council insists there’s nothing wrong with it and people just have to be more careful.

 

Competitive Cycling

Interesting piece from Cycling Weekly, arguing that the WorldTour pro cycling model is broken, as the complexity and cost of bicycles continues to climb, putting high-end bikes out of the reach of most consumers — and that the solution is to ban current pro bikes from being sold to consumers, just like F1 cars may promote the brand, but you can’t buy one and drive it on the street.

Surprisingly, Wout van Aert is already on his bike and back to training, just ten days after he had surgery on his broken ankle.

 

Finally…

Forget Everesting — try riding the elevation of Olympus Mons, the highest known mountain in our solar system. That feeling when your $12,000 ebike was designed by an F1 team.

And if you’re riding your bike with an outstanding arrest warrant while illegally carrying a loaded gun, put a damn light on it.

The bike that is, not the gun.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Protected bike lanes boost biking rates, induced demand works for bikes too, and ebike gaslighting as a government skill

January 12, 2026 / / Comments Off on Protected bike lanes boost biking rates, induced demand works for bikes too, and ebike gaslighting as a government skill

If you build it, they will come.

A new ten-year study from several Canadian universities show that bike lanes can reduce injuries and increase bicycling rates.

But only if they’re protected.

According to the study, painted bike lanes showed an actual increase in bicycling injuries, as well as either only slight increases in bicycling rates. Or even a decrease in one city.

Protected bike lanes are another matter. They showed either no effect, or a drop in bike-rated injuries, while resulting in significantly higher riding rates — up to 700% in one city.

Results for converting painted lanes to protected bike lanes were inconclusive, simply because there weren’t enough examples to draw a conclusion.

Another interesting tidbit was that researchers had to verify both the type of bike lanes and their installation dates, because municipal records were often either inaccurate, or misidentified what was installed.

Which makes you wonder if they were referring to what Los Angeles too often calls a protected bike lane, while offering little more than a little car-tickler bendie-post to keep errant drivers out, rather than any form of actual protection.

Photo of the late, great MOVE Culver City protected bike lane by Mitchell Guzik.

………

Another study, this time from the UK, shows that induced demand is real.

In more ways than one.

The process of widening highways to cure congestion has been compared to losing weight by loosening your belt or buying bigger pants, because traffic will soon increase to meet, or exceed, the additional capacity.

Hence, inducing demand.

Like the widening of the 405 Freeway over the Sepulveda Pass, which cost $1 billion and resulted in increased congestion in less than a year.

We would have gotten more for our money if they had just burned that billion bucks and used it to power the city.

But now a study from England’s iconic Cambridge University shows that the same thing works with bike lanes and transit lanes, as well.

Build or expand a new bike lane, and the number of bicyclists using it will go up; improve train or bus service, and the same holds true — the added capacity encourages more people to use it.

Although as that Canadian study shows, the quality of the infrastructure matters, too.

Build a bike lane that people feel safe using, and they will. Build a bike lane they don’t feel safe using, and they won’t.

Which means we need to demand the kind of infrastructure that will induce demand.

………

Calbike responded to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget by calling for an additional $200 million for the state Active Transportation Program, and $15 million for ebike incentives, arguing it’s “one of the most cost-effective, scalable, and immediately transformative investments California can make.”

The ATP remains California’s only dedicated statewide funding source for walking and bicycling infrastructure. It is also one of the state’s most effective climate tools. Yet, despite delivering measurable reductions in vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions, ATP funding continues to lag far behind demand. In recent funding cycles, the California Transportation Commission has been forced to turn away the vast majority of high-quality, shovel-ready projects. At the same time, the transportation budget preserves billions in highway and freight investments that continue to induce driving, increase pollution, and undermine the state’s climate goals. These backward-facing investments lock Californians into decades of higher emissions and greater exposure to climate disasters, even as the state acknowledges the scale of the climate crisis.

Governor Newsom has been clear: “This January budget is not the final word. It is a beginning—a statement of purpose.” CalBike urges the Legislature to use that opening to correct the imbalance in transportation spending. That begins with significantly increasing funding for the Active Transportation Program and making a clear commitment to a transportation system that prioritizes people, safety, and climate outcomes over vehicle throughput alone.

Let’s hope someone is listening this time.

………

Meanwhile, Brooks forwards a LinkedIn profile for one of the people who helped lead the disastrous California Ebike Incentive Program, who seems to frame it as an enviable success.

Because as we all know, gaslighting is an invaluable career skill if you’re going to work in government.

………

In news that should surprise absolutely no one, a former cop is alleging that no one properly investigated a 13-year old crash involving the wife of the premier, or governor, of Australia’s Victoria state, and a 15-year old boy on a bicycle.

One that cost the kid his spleen.

According to the premier, his wife had came to a full stop, and was just starting to turn when the boy came flying out of the woods on a bike path, and slammed into the side of her SUV with enough force to bash in her windshield and fly over her car.

That’s what she says, anyway.

Because after that, things get a little funny. The officer initially assigned to the case — the same one making the allegations — says he was rushing to the scene when he was told, in effect, to never mind.

Mr Hanley, who was initially instructed to attend the crash scene before being ordered to stand down, alleges police committed at least 35 procedural failures.

He claims officers failed to interview Mr Meuleman (the victim) or key witnesses, did not properly examine the vehicle involved, and allowed the investigation to die a natural death.

Mr Hanley has also alleged Mr Andrews delayed calling triple-0 (or 911 in this country) for more than six minutes and that the damaged SUV was moved from the scene, claims the former premier has previously rejected.

It’s not like a sitting premier could have pulled strings to get the investigation dropped or anything, directly or indirectly.

Right?

It’s taken the boy’s family 13 years to get justice in this case. And nothing says they’re going to get it now.

But maybe now they’ve got a shot.

………

Streets For All is hosting a mobility debate on January 22nd with the candidates running for LA City Controller.

Twitter post

………

LADOT wants to know what you think as they prepare the city’s first Mobility Action Plan, which will guide how LA invests in streets, sidewalks, transit, biking, and walking for the next 5–20 years.

And no, I don’t know how that’s any different from the city’s mobility plan, which purports to do virtually the same thing.

Unless the MAP is how the city plans to implement the mobility plan, which they have so far been doing everything they can to avoid implementing.

………

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

A writer for Canada’s conservative National Post says a judge’s ruling that a right to bike lanes is guaranteed by the country’s charter — equivalent to our constitution — makes a mockery of it, and should be overturned on appeal.

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

A local newspaper is calling for safety improvements on a South Carolina bridge after a bicyclist killed a pedestrian when the man wandered out in front of him on the shared pathway across the bridge, while riding at around 20 mph.

………

Local 

The popular Larchmont Village bike corral is now in its second decade of service; it was originally installed by LADOT in 2014 at the request of former CD4 Councilmember Tom LaBonge, in cooperation with local businesses and the erstwhile Flying Pigeon LA bike shop.

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

CityLab makes the case for why we still don’t know if robotaxis are any safer than human drivers.

Police in Iowa are looking for a pair of motorcyclists who tore up a golf course, then fled on a bike path when police arrived, nearly hitting a pair of bystanders.

Damn. Chicago authorities are offering a $10,000 reward for information on whoever beat a 62-year old man to death on the Loop in 2023, first using a construction sign, then the victim’s own bicycle.

A 72-year old Tennessee writer confesses that he now own an e-mountain bike, of the ped-assist variety.

You’ve got to be kidding. Life is really cheap in Massachusetts, where a driver walked with a suspended sentence for killing a woman walking her bike in a crosswalk, while he was driving distracted and without a license.

Gothamist says a key test of New York Mayor Mamdani’s commitment to bicycling will be what he does with a three-block stretch of bike lanes on Bedford Ave, where the former parking-protected lane was abruptly removed by former Mayor Eric Adams in a effort to appease, and get the votes of, the Orthodox Jewish community.

Jury selection has begun in the trial of a “homeless drifter” accused of killing a 14-year old boy in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida more than four years ago, when the boy was attacked and stabbed for no apparent reason as he was riding his bike, leading to a multi-day search when the boy didn’t return home; the suspect changed his plea from an insanity plea to not guilty, which will void any future attempt at an insanity defense.

 

International

Bike Radar answers the burning question of whether a tubeless tire is more likely to blow out than a clincher with a tube.

Five cities where owning a bicycle can save you thousands of dollars, or the local equivalent, per year. Only one of which is in the US. And none of which is Los Angeles. 

Rapha is addressing its financial problems by closing five stores in the US and UK, following eight successive years of financial losses; the closures leave 20 Rapha Clubhouse shops around the world.

The best five minutes of your day may be this piece from Canadian Cycling Magazine, recapping the best bicycling cameos in scripted television, from Monty Python and Benny Hill to the Simpsons and Family Guy. We’ll ignore for now that most unscripted television is, in fact, scripted. Just a little less so.

Life is cheap in England, where a road-raging driver was sentenced to a lousy 150 hours of community service for blaring on his horn and brake-checking a group of bicyclists. But at least the judge warned him to give people on bikes space and respect on the road.

Everything you always wanted to know about getting around Paris by bicycle, but were afraid to ask.

Dutch electronics chain Coolblue will now sell bike helmets, as well as require helmets for their bicycle couriers, after the company’s CEO fell off his bike and broke his front teeth. Even though bike helmets provide little to no mouth protection. 

A Vietnamese website questions whether the new 3.6-mile bike lane in Ho Chi Minh City will spark greater interest in urban bicycling, and help make bikes the country’s new transportation solution.

 

Competitive Cycling

World champion and four-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogačar joined hundreds of other bicyclists on a memorial ride for Samuele Privitera, the 19-year old Italian cyclist killed during last year’s Giro della Valle d’Aosta.

American cyclist Chloé Dygert has launched a crowdfunding campaign for former tracking cycling teammate Sarah Hammer-Kroening, one of US cycling’s most decorated athletes with four silver Olympic medals and 12 world titles, after Hammer-Kroening underwent seven operations for a severe medical condition; the page has raised nearly $89,000, far exceeding the previous $55,000 goal.

British mountain bikers competed in a 24-hour, snow-covered challenge over the weekend, completing as many laps of the 7.5-mile course as they can in that time period, in temperatures down to 0 degrees. Although that’s Celsius, which translates to a relatively balmy 32° Fahrenheit on this side of the Atlantic. 

 

Finally…

Your next ebike doesn’t have to look like one, as long as you don’t need an actual water bottle in the water bottle holder. That feeling when you finally recreate the iconic movie scene of a bike flying in front of the moon with ET in the basket — without the actual flying, of course.

And tackling a 43.5-mile roundtrip over the highest mountain pass in Great Britain, aided by a rickety old bike and a “wee dram” of whiskey.

Or maybe a lot of “wee drams.”

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Man riding bicycle killed in San Dimas collision Friday evening, first SoCal bicycling death of 2026

January 10, 2026 / / 5 comments

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

We managed to make it a full ten days into the new year before someone was killed riding a bicycle in Southern California.

That we know about, anyway.

That ended Friday evening, when a man was struck and killed by a motorist while riding a bike in San Dimas.

According to SGV City Watch, the victim, who has not been publicly identified, was riding north on San Dimas Ave near East Baseline Road when he was run down by the driver of a pickup around 6:30 pm.

He was taken to a local hospital, where he died.

There’s no word yet on how the crash happened, or who may have been at fault. Although a sheriff’s spokesman said it appeared to be “accidental.”

So, just an “oopsie.”

Even if a photo showed significant damage to the front of the truck, suggesting a hard impact. But at least the driver stuck around this time.

Hopefully, we’ll learn more soon.

This is the first bicycling fatality that I’m aware in of Southern California this year, as well as the first in Los Angeles County.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones. 

Category: Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , ,

NY shows what LA bike riders could have — but don’t, ride your bikeshare to the battleship, and ebike vouchers work

January 9, 2026 / / Comments Off on NY shows what LA bike riders could have — but don’t, ride your bikeshare to the battleship, and ebike vouchers work

Curbed says the first week of new NY Mayor Zohran Mamdani was very good for bicyclists.

You know, just in case you need a reminder what a bike-friendly mayor could actually do, since it’s been so long since we’ve had one here in Los Angeles.

Then again, it’s been a few years since New York had one, too.

When Eric Adams took office, he too made a show of being a bike lover, riding a Citi Bike to meetings on his second day in office and promising to build 300 miles of protected bike lanes by the end of his term. But then he and top aide Ingrid Lewis-Martin spent four years ripping up protected bike lanes and sabotaging planned road diets — perhaps most infamously the McGuinness Boulevard bike lane, with Lewis-Martin charged for allegedly accepting a bribe (and a film cameo) to stop it. In the end, Adams fell 210 miles short of his promise.

Mamdani spent his first week in office undoing much of what Adams had wrought. On his third day, he and new DOT commissioner Mike Flynn announced they would be installing the original McGuinness road diet, reversing Adams’s reversal. The administration also announced it is working to finish Astoria’s 31st Street bike lane, a project that a judge halted in part because Adams hadn’t gotten the required certification from the FDNY and other agencies. “We are beginning the mandatory consultations and will issue the notices needed to restart the project, while also filing a notice of appeal of the court’s decision,” Flynn said in a statement. Over the weekend, Mamdani also said he would direct the DOT to “daylight” city streets, a commonsense safety measure that would keep intersections clear of visual obstructions like parked cars (a promise the Adams administration made but then backtracked on).

At least you can’t say that LA Mayor Bass has fallen short on her promises to the city’s bicycling community.

But only because she hasn’t made any.

You have to go back to the last years of former mayor and current gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa’s administration, after his famous road to Damascus moment, to recall anything like Mamdani’s first week in office.

And if it sounds like I’m envious of New Yorkers this week, it’s only because I am. Even if the NYPD doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo yet.

This is what we could have here. But only if we’re willing to fight for it.

………

New plans call for a 50,000-foot park next to the Battleship USS Iowa Museum at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, including a new bikeshare station.

Which assumes that Metro will finally get management of the Metro Bike program worked out, something is far from guaranteed at this point.

………

More proof that ebike voucher programs work, as over 2,700 people bought new ebikes in just six months using vouchers worth up to $1,500 from Ava Community Energy in partnership with the Alameda County Transportation Commission.

Meanwhile, California’s ebike voucher funds are still being spent to keep more cars on the road.

And LADWP’s ebike voucher program doesn’t exist.

………

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

Police in Denton, Texas arrested a hammer-wielding man who ran out of the woods and began chasing a bike rider, claiming the bicycle was his and demanding the rider give it to him, and continued to threaten the bicyclist even after police intervened.

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

A Gilroy man was busted by the CHP for riding his bike in the slow lane of the freeway while under the influence of…something.

………

Local 

You have a little more than three weeks left to get your comments in on plans to extend the LA River bike path through DTLA and points south to provide a continuous route from Long Beach through the San Fernando Valley. Which was supposed to be completed before the ’28 Olympics, but won’t be.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton continues his seemingly ubiquitous looks at new LA-area bike and/or walkways, this time visiting the first and last mile construction around Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station.

The South Bay’s Easy Reader takes a look back at the past year in Hermosa Beach, including how a violent assault made the city “part of a multilayered national conversation on the impact of reckless e-bike riding in neighborhoods.”

 

State

Residents of Laguna Beach are urged to attend a public meeting on Monday to discuss plans for a new bicycle pump track in the city.

No bias here. Voice of OC says Encinitas residents continue to blame former mayor and current state senator Catherine Blakespear for the city’s perceived problems, including controversy over the Coastal Rail Trail, which she was for, before she was against it, before she was for it again, even though it’s now widely used and popular among residents.

 

National

Escape Collective mostly drops their paywall for a tutorial on how to photograph bicycles and bike riding. But you might want to make a quick pdf for reference, because once you hit the paywall at the bottom, it’s gone.

Security video captures the moment a 73-year old New Jersey man was killed when he was riding salmon on an ebike, and crashed into the side of a police car as the driver was turning right onto the street the man was riding on. Yet another reminder to never ride against traffic, because drivers won’t be looking for you coming from the wrong direction, even though drivers should have looked both ways before turning. Even cops.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A 75-year old North Carolina man was killed when he was rear-ended by a semi-truck driver while riding his bike, after spending a full third of his life accompanying music students at Wake Forest.

 

International

A writer for The Guardian describes how he went from being afraid to change a tire after taking up bicycling during the pandemic, to building his own bikes by learning bike mechanics from YouTube videos.

Canadian Cycling Magazine makes the case for why bicycling will make you a better driver, which has been born out by a number of studies.

Another writer for The Guardian questions whether people in the Netherlands have forgotten how to ride their bikes in the snow, as the city “descends into chaos” during an increasingly rare cold snap, with climate change reducing snow days in Utrecht to an average of just three a year.

A man in Zimbabwe uses his Buffalo Bike provided through international charity World Bicycle Relief to chase away lions and other wild beasts from crops and farm animals surrounding his village, saying lions have no idea what kind of animal he is when he rides up trumpeting on his vuvuzela. Then again, most SoCal drivers might not either, even without the plastic horn.  

Chinese authorities shut down two manufacturers and seized $2.4 million worth of counterfeit Specialized frames, handlebars and Roval wheels, as well as fake Pinarello, Cannondale, Cervélo and Trek products.

Taiwan-based Giant is recalling their Giant Animator and Liv Adore children’s bicycles due to faulty brakes.

A New Zealand paper celebrates Christchurch’s ranking as the most bike-friendly city in the Asia-Oceania region, though they’re only 38th internationally in the global Copenhagenize Index.

 

Competitive Cycling

Yet another pro cyclist is unexpectedly calling it a career, as 28-year old Belgian pro Eli Iserbyt announcing that doctors advised him to quit due to decreased blood flow in his femoral artery.

A new bike tour promises to give you VIP access to this year’s Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, while enabling you to ride the routes before the pros do.

Twenty-seven year old former Pan-American road champion Skylar Schneider is rejoining her sister on the LA-based L39ION of Los Angeles cycling team, saying she has some unfinished business on her mind as she returns to domestic racing.

 

Finally…

Okay, so maybe throttle-controlled ebikes do come in handy sometimes, like riding your bike across a frozen river. Maybe your bike wouldn’t handle so badly if it all faced the right way.

And that feeling when bike riders get blamed for wanting to lower drunk driving limits.

Which they should do.

But still.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

Speeding Long Beach driver kills 2 — after killing bike rider 3 months earlier, and Mandani loses a just little bike street cred

January 8, 2026 / / One comment

Un-effing-believable.

A 24-year old woman was formally charged with felony manslaughter for the October death of a bike rider in Long Beach.

Just one day after she was arrested for killing two other people in a Long Beach hit-and-run on Sunday.

According to the Long Beach Post, Ahkeyajahniq Owens was arraigned on a single count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for running down 35-year old Long Beach resident Raul Augustin Gallopa on October 6th.

Owens was allegedly driving her BMW around 100 mph when she slammed into Gallopa while he was attempting to turn left off of Fourth Street near Bonita Ave.

Remarkably, given Owen’s speed, he survived for two weeks in the hospital before dying of his injuries.

The deputy district attorney mentioned the additional killings almost in passing as she asked that Owens to be held without bail, arguing that she is “a huge risk to the community.”

Well, no shit.

Like the earlier crash, she’s accused of running red lights at over 100 mph before slamming into two cars at Sixth Street and Atlantic Avenue in Sunday’s crash, killing two people and injuring three others.

Which makes you wonder how the hell she manages to survive those high-speed crashes.

It also makes you wonder why her license wasn’t immediately pulled after killing one innocent person, let alone three.

It’s also stupendously idiotic that Owens wasn’t taken into custody after the first crash; instead, she was let loose on society after getting booked on suspicion of misdemeanor reckless driving.

Because apparently, inflicting life-threatening injuries at 100 mph on someone riding a bicycle is merely “reckless.”

In a functioning society that actually gives a damn about human lives, that would have been enough to suspend her license at least until a decision was made whether to file formal charges.

But we don’t seem to live in that society.

Instead, we just give dangerous drivers a pat on the back, and send them back out to get their cars fixed, and do it again three months later.

To say I’m disgusted and sickened would be a huge understatement.

To cap it all off, California’s lax traffic laws mean she faces a maximum of six years behind bars if she’s convicted for Gallopa’s death.

Too bad the judge can’t add a year for each 10 mph over the speed limit.

The only good news, if you can all it that, is that she should face a similar sentence for each of the two people she is alleged to have killed on Sunday. Although the DA should upgrade it to 2nd degree murder by arguing that she should have known the danger of speeding after the earlier crash.

We can hope, anyway.

At the end of Monday’s hearing, Owens was ordered held on $200,000 bail.

No word on whether the judge also took away her license until the trial is completed.

Thanks to Chris for the heads-up. 

Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels. 

………

We finally got to see the first crack in the New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani thus far flawless bike-friendly veneer.

According to Streetsblog, Mamdani agreed that scofflaw bike riders shouldn’t be getting criminal summons in the Big Apple, rather than regular traffic tickets.

But he stopped short of saying he would direct NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to end the policy she implemented last year, instead just saying they’re still having “conversations.”

“These are part of the conversations that we’re having,” Mamdani said. “In addition to the question of what kind of a summons, we also have to make it easier to be a cyclist in compliance with the law, because I will tell you that you will find a cyclist biking on a pavement, and sometimes when you ask them why they’re doing so, they’ll point to the car that’s driving in the bike lane.

“We have created infrastructure issues for cyclists that we are then ticketing them for, where it is easier to be out of compliance with the law than in compliance with the law,” the mayor added.

Although if wants to maintain the bicycle street cred he’s built up in the first two weeks of his administration, he needs to stop conversing and start stopping things.

………

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

The Canadian Constitutional Foundation is entering the battle over Toronto bike lanes, joining the appeal of a judge’s ruling blocking the province’s effort to rip them out, by contesting the constitutional basis for it.

Road.cc claps back about why “certain MAMILS” ride in the roadway rather than in a bike lane, in response to an anonymous Facebook poster complaining about four people riding perfectly legally two-abreast next to the kerb, uh, curb.

………

Local 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton takes a look at the work by Caltrans contractors to prepare for new lanes on Santa Monica Blvd in the Sawtelle neighborhood, which can also be used by bicyclists once it’s finished.

 

State

A Wasco man will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars after being sentenced to 86-years to life for fatally shooting a 51-year old man in a dispute over a stolen bicycle — which is convenient since there’s already a state prison right there. Seriously, no bike is worth a human life. Just let it go, and let the cops handle it. 

 

National

Bike Magazine hosts three expert framebuilders discussing the challenges of building bicycles in the US, and the tradeoffs involved in making bikes overseas.

CyclingSavvy offers a lesson on the safe use of separated bikeways.

Forbes writes that ebike regulations are being tightened across the US in the wake of irresponsible drivers. But by “drivers,” they mean the people operating ebikes, not the ones in the big, dangerous machines.

Like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, a Massachusetts man says he depended on the kindness of strangers on his recent three-and-a-half year, 46,000-mile bike journey around the world.

New York will appeal a judge’s ruling that blocked an Astoria bike lane, while also addressing the concerns she cited.

A December demonstration project showed the practicality of delivering fresh seafood to a New York market via freight ferry and heavy-duty cargo bikes.

A Wilmington, North Carolina public radio station examines ghost bikes through the lens of a man who would have been 38 yesterday, if he hadn’t been killed by a driver while riding his bike over seven years earlier.

A recent South Carolina college graduate considers the people he met and the lessons learned riding his bike across the US, while raising $2,500 for charity.

 

International

Momentum ranks the bicycle festivals worth traveling to this year, starting with Monterey’s Sea Otter Classic in April.

Quartz highlights ten of the world’s best bike cities. None of which is Los Angeles, of course. Or even in the US. 

An Irish writer considers why bicycles are a favored symbol of the country’s rural life, despite the damp and dreary weather.

A group of Indian soldiers are riding a thousand miles across the subcontinent, retracing the march of Peshwa Bajirao to victory in the 1737 battle of Delhi.

A kindhearted South African woman worked with a local bike shop to repair and refurbish her gardener’s broken bicycle at no cost, which is his main mode of transport.

A Chinese province used a recent mass bike ride to propagandize against “xie jiao,“ or “illicit religions, ranging from Falun Gong to perfectly orthodox Christian churches.

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to Beijing with a new ebike, along with Chinese ceramics, a coffee cup set, apples and dried persimmons, and a traditional Korean painting symbolizing peace and prosperity. Seriously, he had me at ebike.

 

Competitive Cycling

In a surprise announcement, 33-year old British pro Simon Yates decided to quit at the top, calling it a career after after winning last year’s Giro, seven years after his first grand tour win in the 2018 Vuelta and 13 years after debuting alongside his twin brother Adam.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can cosplay being a real Tour de France cyclist. Nothing like a bunch of rapping skinny ass white kids in spandex to get you in the mood for racing season.

And post this one under “problems SoCal bike riders seldom have.”

Reddit post

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

LA approves $6.8m for crappy Chandler Bikeway extension, and NY mayor takes literal shovel to bridge bike lane bump

January 7, 2026 / / One comment

Los Angeles thinks you want to ride in the center of the roadway.

And they’re willing to bet nearly $7 million of your money they’re right.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles City Board of Public Works approved a $6.8 million contract to build an extension to the popular Chandler Bikeway, with a design that places the semi, kinda but not really protected bike lanes on the left side of the road.

Because parking.

As in, they weren’t willing to risk the wrath of LA’s angry drivers by removing parking to create space for the bike lane on the right side.

Because nothing is more LA than your God-given right to free car storage right next to the curb in front of your home. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.

But giving city leaders the benefit of the doubt, maybe they think they’re going to protect us by putting bikes over there on the left, where no one would expect it. Kinda like safety in invisibility.

And we know how well that’s worked out for us.

But there it shall be, henceforth and forever more running down the center of the road — not in the median like it is in Burbank, but over there on the left shoulder. With nothing but those chunky white bendable bollards that no one would ever think of running over to protect us.

Right next to what used to be known as the fast lane, before every lane turned into one.

Joe Linton shares his own thoughts about the coming new bike lane in a Bluesky thread that somehow seems only slightly less pessimistic than me.

So take it away, Joe.

Please.

Bluesky post

Bluesky post

Bluesky post

Bluesky post

Bluesky post

………

Call it the further adventures of life in a bike-friendly city.

Unlike, say, here in Los Angeles, where our mayor says she’s one of us, while doing everything she can to avoid implementing the city mobility plan — or complying with the Americans with Disability Act — going so far as to replace street resurfacing with something called “large asphalt repair.”

Because resurfacing the street would trigger Measure HLA’s requirement to implement the mobility plan, as well as requiring ADA-compliant curb cuts.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, New York is using $700 million in congestion pricing tolls to improve transit, while the city’s new bikeshare-riding mayor demonstrated his administrations new bike-friendly direction by reversing cuts made to a major bike safety corridor that was tainted by a bribery scandal under the previous adminstration.

Now Mayor Zohran Mamdani is grabbing a shovel himself to repair a major obstacle blocking the bike lane on the Williamsburg Bridge, infamous among the city’s bicyclists as the “Williamsburg Bump.”

Although not everyone was happy, since the bump gave them a chance to catch a little air.

Twitter post

Thanks to Megan for the YouTube video. 

………

ActiveSGV & SGV Water Action invite you to join them on a ride to Santa Fe Dam on the 17th.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/2008585641722839307

………

LABikeBoy shares what it’s like to live in LA without a car for a full year.

………

A 23-year old “lad” rode more than 15,500 miles from the UK to Australia, retracing the bikepacking tour his father took 40 years earlier, while riding the same bicycle.

………

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

Seriously? Business owners in Cathedral City, California try to make the case that new green plastic bike lane bollards are cutting into their sales by reducing visibility and accessibility, leading to a drop in foot traffic. Or maybe foot traffic is down because it’s been raining for the last two weeks. 

Leaders with the UK’s Bikeability training program expressed fears that hostile tabloid media coverage is scaring parents out of letting their kids ride bikes.

………

Local 

An ebike rider was lucky to escape without serious injuries when they were right-hooked by a driver while riding in the painted bike lane on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood; witnesses described the crash as a hit-and-run, but sheriff’s deputies insisted the driver stuck around.

 

State

Police in Merced are asking for the public’s help finding an 87-year old man suffering from dementia, who was last seen riding a pink adult-sized bicycle

 

National

A man in Portland was killed when he apparently hit a pothole while riding his bike. Demonstrating once again that bad roads pose a greater risk to bike riders than they do to motorists. And a single hole in an otherwise good road surface can be even more dangerous, because bicyclists may not be expecting it. 

Detroit’s new Gordie Howe International Bridge, named for the former NHL great, is set to open early this year, allowing people to bike and walk between the Canada and the Motor City, as well as drive. Look, I’m not saying I’m old, but I remember watching Howe skate. 

New York bikeshare users are calling on the city to subsidize the Citi Bike program, after fees increased for the fifth year in a row.

Atlanta is about to break ground in the city’s largest greenspace on what they’re calling a “world-class bike park for all ages and skill levels”.

 

International

Momentum is busy recycling old news stories as new news, making it harder to tell what’s actually new and what isn’t — although it’s kind of a dead giveaway when a story about why cargo bikes are better than minivans for family vehicles begins by predicting Europe ‘will’ sell half a million cargo bikes in 2022.

Unbelievable. For the second time in just two days, a 13-year old boy was killed by dogs while riding a bicycle, this time in Nova Scotia, where a boy died three days after he was attacked by “three large-breed dogs” as he was riding past someone’s property. Seriously, just keep your damn dogs secured, already.

A London bicyclist is convinced a professional thief used Strava to track his movements and trace him back to his home before stealing three high-end bikes worth the equivalent of 40 grand.

A Scottish mountain biker relates his obsessive pursuit of summiting all 282 of the Munros, the Highland peaks topping 3,000 feet in elevation named for Sir Hugh Munro, who first mapped them in 1891.

A Dublin professor says it’s about time the city began focusing on better bike lanes and the newly pedestrianized College Green between Trinity College and the old Irish Parliament building, arguing that bikes, buses and walking are the only solutions to worsening congestion.

That didn’t take long. People on motorbikes are already encroaching on Ho Chi Minh City’s first bike lane, less than a week after it was opened in the city formerly known as Saigon, Vietnam.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist ranks pro cycling kits from worst to first; needless to say, Ineos Grenadiers and their white shorts came in dead last — although Velo foresees those white shorts paired with a pink jersey, as they predict a win for the Grenadiers in the Giro.

The world’s most famous bike mechanic is riding off into the sunset, as the mustachioed Calvin Jones hangs up his Park Tool apron after 28 years.

 

Finally…

Why buy a titanium bike when you can acquire the whole brand? That feeling when you meet the love of your life at a bike race, and end up featured in People.

And always ride with a pool cue in case you find yourself unexpectedly jousting with trash.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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