Morning Links: Still more big hearts for the holiday season, and driverless cars won’t solve LA’s traffic problems

December 14, 2015 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Still more big hearts for the holiday season, and driverless cars won’t solve LA’s traffic problems

Don’t forget to tell us what it’s like to ride your bike, wherever you ride, for our new Describe Your Ride feature — good, bad, or anything in between.

It can be anything from a few sentences to a detailed description, a rant, a rave, a bike cam view or your latest bike-related music video, here in LA or anywhere else. Just send it to the email address on the About BikinginLA page.

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‘Tis the season.

A Yucaipa teen with Cerebral Palsy will receive a special adaptive bike to give him more independence.

Over two dozen bike riders take part in a combination scavenger hunt and alley cat race to gather contributions to a Santa Barbara food bank.

A group of Sacramento businesses and charities give 4,000 bikes, along with 4,000 toys and helmets to needy children.

An Ohio bike shop owner is still collecting donations to give bikes to kids despite being burglarized twice this year; last year he gave away nearly 900 bicycles.

UK community members pitch in to buy a specialized bike for a four-year old girl who can’t walk or speak, raising the equivalent of over $15,000.

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Help keep the Corgi in kibble this holiday season.

Every time you give to BikinginLA, an angel gets its wings.

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Local

An Aljazeera OpEd says driverless cars won’t save Los Angeles, and they’re no substitute for bikeable, walkable streets.

Richard Risemberg says Santa Monica is batting a thousand when it comes to bikes and mobility.

Any Redondo Beach bike rental shop that has a Corgi — not Corgy, thank you — can’t be all bad.

 

State

Civic leaders are working to improve safety for bike riders in Orange County, where an average of four riders were injured or killed every day in 2012.

San Diego service members remember an Army vet who was killed in Texas last month, while on a cross country ride to call attention to the plight of homeless veterans.

Coronado holds Safe Routes to School workshops to make biking and walking safer. Maybe it wouldn’t be the state’s deadliest city of its size for cyclists if the residents weren’t so hysterical about banning bike lanes.

San Franciscans are in a heated debate over the proposed Idaho stop law, with the city council still two votes short of a veto-proof majority.

 

National

The first legally blind musher to compete in the Iditarod gives up her dream of competing as a tandem cyclist in next years Paralympics to become a mom.

In a truly bizarre tragedy, a Minnesota bike rider is killed in a collision with a train, at the same station where he had survived a similar collision just four months earlier.

Columbus, Ohio drivers and cyclists are confused by the city’s first protected bike lane. Actually, the description does actually sound pretty confusing.

Former Victoria’s Secret and current L’Oreal Paris model Karlie Kloss is one of us, as she rides a Citi Bike through the streets of New York.

A Baltimore to DC train finally gets bike cars, but only on weekends.

 

International

Advice for riding at night this winter.

Business are being asked to support the expansion of a London cycle track in the face of heavy opposition from taxi drivers.

Malta is accused of having an institutional bias against bicyclists.

Controversial Russian cycling team owner Oleg Tinkoff vows to leave the sport after next year’s racing season; a Canadian site says the man who compared Obama to a monkey won’t be missed at all.

Bangladeshi women are turning to bicycles and motorbikes to escape harassment on public transit.

Dubai continues to get safer for cyclists, adding the equivalent of 35 miles of residential-area cycle tracks to the city’s existing 110 miles of bike lanes.

A 14-year old Australian girl is planning to ride over 600 miles on a tandem to raise funds for a charity camp.

A New Zealand cyclist sets a new record for riding around the world in just 125 days, although he’s disappointed it only raised the equivalent of just over $2500 for charity.

Kiwi mountain bikers vow to ignore attempts to close illegal bike trails.

Five hundred Filipinos ride for cleaner air and call more action to help sustain the environment.

Caught on video: Twenty passers-by save the life of a Beijing bicyclist by teaming up to lift a car off her. Warning: Even knowing the positive outcome, the first part of this video is very hard to watch.

 

Finally…

Why bother checking the statutes when you can just ask Twitter whether sidewalk cyclists should be fined. An e-car driver wants permission to politely honk to tell bike riders to get the hell out of his way.

And chances are, you’ll never win the Nobel Peace Prize, but your bike might.

Maybe we can all spit the $1.5 million award.

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Thanks to Wesley Reutimann for contributing to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive on behalf of BikeSGV.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , ,

Weekend Links: South Bay 3-foot enforcement, bike safety is actually up not down, and more ‘Tis the season

December 12, 2015 / / 4 comments

Guess how many tickets have been written in LA’s South Bay cities for violating the state’s three-foot passing law in its first year.

No, seriously, take a guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJjpffKnJMM

That suggests drivers aren’t even being ticketed for driving too close if they actually hit someone.

Thanks to Mike Wilkinson for the heads-up.

………

Despite an incredibly misleading headline, more pedestrians and cyclists aren’t actually being killed on US streets.

According to a recent GAO study, the rate of bicycling fatalities has increased only slightly, while ridership has gone up; in fact, bike commuting is up over 60% since 2005. As a result, the actual risk to riders has decreased significantly.

The same report adds that bad street design may explain why bike and pedestrian deaths haven’t dropped, even though motor vehicle deaths have.

………

‘Tis the season.

A Sacramento charity is raising funds to give homeless people patch kits, tools and air pumps to keep their bikes on the road.

An Illinois group raises funds and collects bicycles for a rescue mission. Although they probably don’t have much competition as “North America’s premiere professional fur-covered bicycle cycling team.”

Alabama third and fourth graders get bikes as a reward for being responsible, respectful and/or safe.

Belfast police dig into their own pockets to replace a bike stolen from a boy with Asperger’s syndrome.

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Help keep the Corgi in kibble this holiday season.

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A top amateur cyclocross racer was banned for one year for using coke, although presumably there’s no way to tell if was recreational or performance enhancing.

Speaking of ‘cross, a transgender racer who was born male has been barred from competing with the men this year because she identifies as female, even though she has been one of the top men’s finishers in previous years.

Forty-five-year old American cyclist Chris Horner has contracted an antibiotic-resistant superbug that could end his unusually long racing career.

And Ivan Basso looks back on a great career that ended with his successful treatment for testicular cancer

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Local

Streetsblog asks for your tax-deductible donation to support LA’s most important site covering transportation and livability issues.

The LA Weekly lists the city’s most dangerous intersections, all but one of which are in the Valley or the Southside, and mostly in low-income areas. Not surprisingly, two of the most dangerous intersections for pedestrians are just a block apart on Hollywood Blvd; nothing like inviting tourists to visit LA, then throwing them to the wolves on our deadly streets.

Culver City installed bike Fixit stations along the “bike path” at Sepulveda and Culver Blvds and adjacent to Syd Kronenthal Park near Jefferson and National Blvds. It would be nice if they said which bike path, though; presumably, the first is on the bike path along Culver, while the other appears to be at the east end of the Ballona Creek path.

If you read this early, there may still be time to clean up trash on Mulholland with pro cyclist Phil Gaimon, and get a free cookie.

 

State

The OC Register talks with San Clemente bike/ped advocate Brenda Miller, who says things are looking up.

A San Diego cyclist suffered a serious leg injury when he was the victim of a hit-and-run; he allegedly ran a red light while riding downhill.

The madness continues in Coronado, where a letter writer complains about bikes and skateboards on the sidewalks. A problem that could have be solved if residents hadn’t risen up with torches and pitchforks to fight proposed “vertigo inducing” bike lanes.

The Santa Barbara planning commission approves a plan for bike lanes that will require the removal of 85 parking spaces on a busy street , over the vociferous objections of local residents.

Something’s seriously wrong in Mountain View, where bike collisions spiked 480% over the summer.

Caught on video: A driver appears to deliberately attack a San Francisco cyclist. Unfortunately, the beginning of the incident is cut off, so it’s hard to determine exactly what happened.

 

National

Bicycling looks at the history of what may be cycling’s hardest and coldest competition. Which runs along the same route where my soon-to-be formerly Alaska-based brother used to race sled dogs.

Seattle police are looking for a bike rider who left an 85-year old man with serious injuries in an October collision as he was walking for a flu shot. Like the recent case in Echo Park, the rider stayed to talk to paramedics, but left without giving her contact information; and despite the tone of the article, it’s entirely possible that it may not have been her fault.

Atlanta kills plans for bike lanes on the city’s iconic Peachtree Road in the face of heavy opposition, even though the planned road diet will go forward.

Now that’s more like it. DC dramatically increases fines for traffic offenses, including a ten-fold boost in the penalty for hitting a bicyclist; naturally, AAA calls the increases draconian and promises to fight them. Then again, it was only a fifty buck fine to hit a cyclist before, which some drivers probably considered worth it.

 

International

An Aussie cyclist plans to ride non-stop across Cuba in less than 55 hours. Lengthwise, I assume; crossing the width of the island would be little more than a century, at best.

The rich get richer. Bike-friendly Vancouver approves another 12 new bike lanes, mostly in the downtown area, even though that will mean the loss of up to 50% of parking spaces on some streets. However, Vancouver bike lanes aren’t just for bikes anymore.

Just five months after opening, ridership has doubled on Calgary’s network of protected bike lanes.

Evidently, bike riders are under attack in the UK. Welsh police are looking for the jerks who grabbed a teenage bike rider from a moving car and pulled him off his bike, while another rider crashed into a tree after being pushed from behind.

A 20-year old Indian track cyclist is the first woman from her country to be ranked fourth in the world, just eleven years after she survived the Indonesian tsunami by hiding in a tree.

 

Finally…

Make your own DIY bike-powered menorah, just in time for the last few days of Hanukkah. Challenge an auto-centric writer to bike commute for a week, and he may actually enjoy it.

And kids, don’t try this at home; it’s probably not the best idea to hold onto a truck with one hand with a full-size dog slung over your shoulder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlqXBNKHHA4

 

Category: Law Enforcement, Morning Links / Tags: , , ,

Morning Links: A Vietnamese bike flute, up on the rooftop with St. MacAskill & a self-pumping bike tube

December 11, 2015 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: A Vietnamese bike flute, up on the rooftop with St. MacAskill & a self-pumping bike tube

It’s Friday, and no one really wants to work.

So kick back with a veritable boatload of links, starting with a couple of perfect pre-weekend timewasting videos.

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Anyone can ride a bike, but how many of us can actually play one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwbgt0B78eg

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Turn the sound down and pretend you’re working while you watch Danny MacAskill turn the rooftops of a Spanish town into his own cycletrack.

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A Swiss inventor claims to have perfected the first self-inflating bike tube, which works with standard wheels and tires by pushing air into the tube through the mechanical energy from riding.

This would be great if it actually works. But they’ll have to prove it to me.

Update: British bike historian Carlton Reid notes that this technology is nothing new, pointing out that a patent for this same technology was issued in 1913. He adds that it really does work, but has a number of downsides, including cost. 

………

Submitted without comment.

Britain’s 18-year old junior national time trial champ admits to using EPO because cycling’s doping culture made it seem normal and justified.

A banned British masters champ swears he wasn’t doping, he just borrowed someone else’s used syringe.

And Lance says his biggest regret isn’t doping, it’s being such a colossal effing jackass in the way he treated people. Okay, I may have paraphrased that a little.

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Local

Nice OpEd from the Times, as a young woman overcomes her fear of riding in LA traffic by bicycling from Marina del Rey to DTLA with the help of LA Bike Trains.

The planned redevelopment of the Redondo Beach waterfront includes a bicycle drawbridge.

The mayor of Agoura Hills plans bike-friendly improvements in the city, including a bike path on Agoura Road and a new bike race.

Clear your calendar for BikeSGV’s Holiday Social and Open House on the 19th.

 

State

The SoCalCross Prestige Serious wraps up their cyclocross season with the Santa Cross this Sunday in Silverado.

Wilshire Blvd is getting traffic circles and being converted to a bike friendly street. No, not LA’s iconic boulevard, this one’s in Fullerton.

San Diego installs a road diet to slow traffic on Clairemont drive, where speeds range up to 70 mph despite the 35 mph speed limit.

San Diego firefighters rescue an injured mountain biker who fell while riding in heavy fog.

Sad news from Kern County, as a bicyclist was killed while riding in East Bakersfield.

The active transportation coordinator in bike-friendly Davis says don’t pile leaves in bike lanes, for obvious reasons. The same goes for trash cans, parked cars, delivery trucks, or anything else that keeps the people they were intended for from using them.

The CHP finally releases the 911 call from when a Sacramento judge ran down a cyclist last month. Clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks something stinks with the investigation on this one.

 

National

Gizmag looks at the year’s top 10 bicycling innovations, which doesn’t include a 14 pound foldie.

The president of People for Bikes talks about the new federal transportation bill and what’s in it for us.

Bicycling isn’t just a way to get from here to there, it’s a lesson in physics.

Traffic author Tom Vanderbilt talks with Kurt Searvogel, the American rider trying to break the year record for most miles traveled by bike in a 12-month period.

Fort Worth is finally on the long road to becoming bike friendly, even if it takes a Chihuahua in a backpack to make drivers back off.

Fast Company looks at New York’s Citi Bike bikeshare brought itself back from the brink.

Someone strung a rope across a bikeway in New York’s Prospect Park where it clotheslined a cyclist. Acts like this aren’t pranks, they’re deliberate attempts to injure and intimidate bike riders, and should be treated like the crimes they are.

A DC website says letting cyclists yield at stop signs won’t lead to chaos, despite what detractors say.

A Virginia professor discusses his new book on the golden age of cycling in the 1890s.

Key West riders celebrate the holidays with the traditional Christmas dolphin bike.

 

International

Caught on video 1: A London bike rider blows a red light and come within inches of crashing into a pedestrian.

Caught on video 2: A British cyclist gets caught in a terrifying ongoing dispute with a road raging driver who repeatedly attempts to run him off the road.

The UK’s Milton Keynes wants to become the city of bicycles, with its 170 miles of bikeways.

Touring Spain’s Andalusia region by bicycle.

Czech and Polish border towns are teaming up to build nearly 125 miles of singletrack for your off-roading enjoyment.

Recycled bikes from Britain gives South African kids a way to ride out of gang life.

When he’s not crashing vintage airplanes, Star Wars’ Harrison Ford is one of us as he rides his bike and fixes a flat Down Under.

Caught on video 3: A Kiwi rider’s multiple bike cams lead to the conviction of a road raging driver.

Thailand’s crown prince will lead an estimated 500,000 cyclists in a ride to honor the country’s king today.

 

Finally…

If you’re riding brakeless with dope in your backpack, try not to get hit by a car. Anyone can tow a trailer behind a bike, but how about a houseboat?

And evidently, every lane really is a bike lane, as a woman is under arrest for riding her bicycle in the middle of I-10 just outside New Orleans.

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Extra added bonus: If, like me, you’re struggling to get into the holiday spirit, a polka version a Christmas tune couldn’t hurt. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , ,

They drive among us…

December 10, 2015 / / 21 comments
Help keep the Corgi in kibble this holiday season.

If you don’t give, the angry anti-bike cranks win.

My apologies for no Morning Links today.

Attending a Wednesday night meeting meant putting off my meds in order to remain at least semi-functional until I got home. Which inevitably means paying the price later.

And I am.

So instead, let me leave you with this piece from the Tolucan Times, in which a self described former Disney Exec takes a break from telling the kids to get off his lawn, and goes on a rather remarkable rant against “nasty, radical bike Nazis.”

No, really.

It’s people like this we share the roads with, in case you wondered what the impatient, angry driver who just buzzed you or laid on his horn was thinking.

Feel free to offer your comments. I’d offer my own thoughts, but the meds are finally kicking in, and I’m going to go curl up in a ball for awhile.

Can’t wait to see part two next week.

War on cars (Part I)

BY GREG CROSBY ON DECEMBER 4, 2015

We’ve had the war on poverty, the war on drugs and the war on women. Politicians and their marketing consultants for purely selfish political interests have invented every single one of these “wars.” None of these so-called “wars” can ever be won because they are bogus.

The poverty and drug “wars” have had billions in federal funds poured into slogans, ad campaigns and bureaucratic committees and programs for decades.

The “war on women” is totally made up, invented by the Democrats as a way of rallying their base by vilifying Republicans as the party who hate women and want to keep them down.

But we have a new political “war” quietly going on across our country and this one is for real. I call it the “war on cars.” This war is being waged by a coalition of liberal opportunistic politicians and radical environmentalists. To borrow the Obama phrase, they want to “fundamentally transform the United States” from a car-centric nation to a country dependent on public transportation, bicycles and walking.

The difference between those other bogus political wars and this one is that this is one they are winning.

After having returned from a three-week road trip all over California I can honestly say that our highways and streets are being taken over by bicyclists (not sweet little families happily jingling their bicycle bells as they peddle their Schwinns around the Leave It to Beaver neighborhood, I’m talking nasty, radical bike Nazis). These bicyclists with major attitudes and an elite sense of entitlement purposely ride two and three abreast and do anything they can to frustrate motorists, like riding in the middle of a lane on a mountain road where there’s no place to go around them.

Everywhere we drove we encountered these selfish bicycle jackasses in their spandex outfits and European-style alien helmets.  They look like giant skinny mantis insects on wheels. We drove on all kinds of roads and it seemed no matter where we went, we would run into them (not literally, but sometimes it came close). They were on country roads, narrow high mountain roads, city streets, and get this—ON STATE HIGHWAYS. That’s right; California Highway 101 is now open to bicyclists.

I’m not taking about some quiet parts of sleepy little coast Highway 1 along the beach, (although the bike people are there too). No, I’m referring to a major four-lane each way, 80 mile an hour, truck route freeway. Highway 101 is a major, congested freeway and now the idiots that run the state of California are allowing bicycles on it.

They are not simply “letting” this happen, they ENCOURAGE it.

The official road signs are posted all along our highways and city streets now: “SHARE THE ROAD.” Some have images of bicycles and pedestrians on them.  Other signs demand that autos “SHARE THE LANE” because now bike riders have as much right to use ALL LANES in the streets as do the cars and trucks.

The California Bicycle Coalition website says: “Bicyclists can ride wherever they want if they’re traveling at the speed of traffic. If traveling slower than the speed of traffic, they can still position themselves wherever in the lane is necessary for safety. The law says that people who ride bikes must ride as close to the right side of the road as safely practicable except under the following conditions: when passing, preparing for a left turn, avoiding hazards, if the lane is too narrow to share, or if approaching a place where a right turn is authorized. CVC 21202.”

You can see there is lots of wiggle room for the bike riders.  While it is true that the California law states “bicycles may not be ridden on freeways and expressways,” they’ve added a loophole.  The law goes on to state, “where doing so is prohibited by the California Department of Transportation and local authorities.” So when the state has posted signs that say, “SHARE THE ROAD” on these busy highways, it sends the message that it’s okay for bikes to use them.

More on this next week.

It gets better.

Greg Crosby is a writer and cartoonist and former executive at the Walt Disney Company.

Thanks to Mike Kim and Todd Munson for the links.

Category: Car vs Bike / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: Still more big hearts to celebrate the season, and how to ride a bike in Amsterdam

December 9, 2015 / / One comment
Help keep the Corgi in kibble this holiday season.

Donating to BikinginLA ensures your name will move to the top of Santa’s Good List. Or maybe Hannukah Harry’s.

In case you missed it, we started a new feature yesterday in which everyday riders describe their rides, starting with Adra Graves’ commute along the beach in Venice and Santa Monica.

If you want to tell us about your ride, good, bad or otherwise, just send it to the address on the About page.

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‘Tis the season for bighearted people.

Hats off to Long Beach’s Velo Allegro Cycling Club for donating 197 new bicycles, one for every kid in the third grade at the city’s Roosevelt Elementary School. Thanks to Allyson Vought for the heads-up.

The LAPD Foothill Division helped donate over 100 bikes and 1,500 toys to Pacoima families.

The Southern California Velo Cycling Club is collecting toys in conjunction with Incycle Bicycle Stores, and will host a Toy Ride on the 19th to deliver them to the San Dimas Sheriff’s station.

Midnight Ridazz is hosting the annual All City Toy Ride this Friday, with feeder rides starting throughout the city (scroll down).

Menlo Park police and city officials will join with cyclists for a bike ride with Santa Claus to deliver gifts to children at the Boys and Girls Club this Saturday.

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Trust me, it’s worth three minutes and 44 seconds of your day to watch ‪The Bike Instructor’s Guide to Cycling in Amsterdam. Especially since it explains why you should always ride with a potato in your pants.

Thanks to LA Streetsblog for the link.

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Local

LADOT Bike Blog asks riders and pedestrians to to safely and politely share the LA River Bike Path at the Glendale Narrows.

An Aussie website looks at LA artist Carolina Fontoura Alzaga, who turns junk bike parts into high-end chandeliers. As much as I admire the art, my preference remains turning bike parts into bicycles.

Santa Monica Spoke is hosting an evening with the Adventure Cycling Association this Saturday.

A Manhattan Beach attorney gives kind of a weak response to a question about whether bicyclists should be licensed and insured, though he more or less gets it right about where we can ride.

 

State

Oceanside votes for temporary safety improvements where a 12-year old bike rider was killed on his way to school — but still has the boy’s father ejected from council chambers.

Modesto is building an additional two miles of curb-protected bike lanes. Which is about two miles more than LA has.

San Francisco’s proposed Idaho stop law moves towards a threatened mayoral veto. But despite what a local TV station says, it wouldn’t be the first city to have such a rule, since treating stop signs as yields has been legal in Idaho since 1982.

A Vacaville teen is convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for stabbing another boy who laughed when he fell off his bicycle; he was acquitted on a more serious charge of attempted murder.

 

National

Adventure Journal looks at why it’s standard to mount a bike from the left.

HuffPo talks with the director of Bikes vs Cars about how cities worldwide are rethinking bike safety.

Visually impaired New Yorkers naturally fear reckless bike riders, just like they are undoubtedly afraid of reckless drivers and careless pedestrians. Which has absolutely nothing to do with allowing cyclists to roll stops when it’s safe to do so, despite the breathless fear mongering of the local press.

A Florida killer hit-and-run driver gets a sweetheart deal from the DA; instead of facing 40 years, he gets off with a sentence of just two. On the other hand, Florida courts weren’t so generous with a 21-year old woman, who will spend the next 30 years of her life behind bars for killing a cyclist while fleeing from police in a stolen car.

 

International

A Brazilian cyclist plans to attempt a new world record for drafting a car on a public highway at the equivalent of 124 mph. Which is only about 90 mph better than my best.

The BBC says those bike parts you bought may be counterfeit.

A UK woman hugs and forgives the driver who cost her one of her legs in a bicycling collision.

A Brit writer explores the linguistic Babel that divides the world of bicycling.

A bike cam catches a near collision between runners and a mountain biker on an Australian trail. A good reminder to always be prepared and on the lookout for, and considerate of, others.

Domino’s has switched to e-bikes in an Australian city to increase delivery efficiency with a lower environmental footprint.

About damn time. An Aussie coroner says trucks should not be allowed on the roads without appropriate technology to eliminate their blind spots. Now we just have to get authorities to come to the same conclusion here and everywhere else.

A successful Chinese entrepreneur walks away from the global business he built to found a new smart bike company; the $390 bike includes GPS tracking, puncture-resistant tires and a self-powered, battery-less electric system.

These days, it seems like wealthy Chinese are buying everything. Including, possibly, the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España.

 

Finally…

There’s nothing like a multimodal police chase. Or riding your bike with 129 pounds of millstones balanced on your helmetless head.

And if you’re going to flee the scene after hitting a cyclist, make sure you take your license plate with you.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , ,

Perris bike rider killed while crossing busy intersection

December 8, 2015 / / One comment

Sad news from Perris, as a man was killed while trying to cross a busy street.

According to the Press-Enterprise, 60-year old James Pica was riding his bike on Orange Avenue when he attempted to cross Perris Blvd at 6:13 pm, when he was hit by a northbound car. He was pronounced dead sometime later at a local hospital.

The 18-year old driver remained at the scene, and was not suspected of being under the influence.

No other information is available at this time.

A satellite view shows a wide, multilane intersection with traffic signals in every direction; no word on who may have had the right-of-way.

This is 72nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 10th in Riverside County. It’s also the third riding death in Perris in the last three years.

My deepest sympathy and prayers for James Pica and all his family. 

Category: Bicycle Safety, Injuries and Fatalities / Tags: , , ,

Describe Your Ride: Commuting to work on the beach path and tourist-lined streets of Santa Monica

December 8, 2015 / / 6 comments
Adra and Ellie at the beginning of their commute

Adra and Ellie at the beginning of their commute

Today we’re starting a new feature in which bike riders tell us about their ride — the good, the bad, the ugly, the everyday experience of riding a bike, wherever and however they ride.

First up, bike commuter Adra Graves describes her daily bike commute through Venice and Santa Monica, partly on the bike path, partly in bike lanes and partly on city streets.

If you’d like to share your ride with us, just send it to the email address on the About BikinginLA page. It can be anything you want, from a few sentences to a detailed description, a rant, rave or anything in between. Or maybe you tell the story best visually, verbally or musically.

And no restrictions on location, where you ride here in LA, SoCal, or anywhere in the world.

Let’s get a conversation started.

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Bike path at Ocean Park

Bike path at Ocean Park

I may have one of the best commutes in LA county. At the very least, I have 75% of one.

Every morning around 9:30, I load my purse and laptop into my pannier, my dog into my front basket, and ride the half block to the Venice boardwalk, where I turn north and take the beach bike path a mile and a half up to Santa Monica. There are no stop lights, no cars, few pedestrians, and even the sun is at my back. I have to look out for the occasional sand puddle, which can make me skid out of control (it’s a lesson I’ve learned the hard way), but for the most part, I can ride along and try to glimpse the waves across the sand to my left, with few distractions.

Company on the bike path, and Santa Monica Pier in the distance

Company on the bike path, and Santa Monica Pier in the distance

Just before the Santa Monica pier, I leave the bike path and make my way up to a small street called Appian Way. At this point, the nice part is over.

I ride towards the pier on Appian and make a right up a steep hill that will bring me up to Ocean Avenue. (If I’m feeling super energetic, I’ll take advantage of my bike’s gears and ride up in first gear, but more often than not I walk.) At the top, there’s no good way to immediately get to the northbound side of Ocean, so I ride along the sidewalk for a block (less than ideal: I would normally never advocate for a cyclist to do that, but this stretch doesn’t have any other palatable options) to the pier and cross Ocean at Colorado Avenue.

Up the hill at Appian Way, looking up at Tongva Park

Up the hill at Appian Way, looking up at Tongva Park

From here, I do my best to stay in the bike lane, but there are cars pulling in and out of the hotel, buses (sightseeing + regular) taking up the entirety of the lane at Broadway, and a nasty angled section (pictured) where I’m forced to dodge into traffic if there’s a car parked (entirely legally) there. This is part of why I cross where I do: a red light stops other northbound traffic and so I have a little more protection for if and when I need to ride outside the bike lane.

Worst case scenario (biking north on Ocean Avenue at Colorado)

Worst case scenario (biking north on Ocean Avenue at Colorado)

At Broadway, I make a right, and head inland for a mile or so. There’s a green bike path from 5th Street on, but west of there, we only have sharrows. If you’re on the westbound side of the road, as I am when heading home, there’s a bus lane that I usually ride in so as not to draw the ire of the cars making their way through the area. (This works great when there are no buses.)  Once across Lincoln, I’m at my destination.

My ride home is all downhill along Ocean Avenue (after it diverges from Neilson) if I so choose. During the summer, I don’t—there are too many cars searching for parking on that stretch—but in the winter, I’m often the only person there.

Sharrows are great and all but...

Sharrows are great and all but…

My fiancé is the one who pushed me to start riding to work five years ago, when I lived and worked in Santa Monica and had a mere mile and a half to go to work, almost entirely along streets with bike lanes. Aside from a short stint last summer when I was working in Culver City, I’ve biked to work almost every day since then. We chose our apartment in Venice partly because we love the area, and partly because it allows both of us to walk or bike to work. (He walks to work along Abbot Kinney, also an enviable commute.) While I consider myself lucky to have this setup, it wasn’t an accident, either. Our apartment search was a bit more difficult because of location constraints, but being able to bike to work is important to both of us.

From sharrows to bike lanes (yessssss)

From sharrows to bike lanes (yessssss)

Being able to bring my dog with me is the cherry on top. She’s small enough to fit in the bike basket, and well-behaved enough to stay there. Yes, it took some time to get her used to it—she immediately leapt out the first time I tried to put her in!—but she’s a pro now and knows what to expect. In cold weather, she wears a red hoodie to stay warm, and it is the cutest damn thing you’ve ever seen.

I have no idea what we’ll do when El Nino rears its head—with a dog, I don’t think the bus is an option—but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. (Probably in a raincoat.)

AG Bike Map

Category: My Ride / Tags: , , ,

Morning Links: Bike traffic up in Santa Monica, and more bighearted people for the season of giving

December 8, 2015 / / One comment

Today we’re starting a new feature, Describe Your Ride, in which normal, everyday bike riders tell us how and where they ride, good, bad or otherwise.

So come back later this morning, when Santa Monica bike commuter Adra Graves will describe her usually pleasant, and in places, challenging ride to work.

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Big news from Santa Monica, as bike traffic continues to rise, up 4.4% from 2013, while bike crashes are down 10% over last year.

Bicycling now has a 5% mode share, far beyond any other city in the area, even that’s still just one third of the city’s goal of a 15% share by next year.

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‘Tis the season.

For the 20th year in a row, a Portland group gives bicycles to kids, along with a helmet and safety lesson; 300 kids were able to pick out their own bikes this year.

A Billings MT group donates 50 bikes to elementary school children, including 26 unclaimed bikes from the local police department.

Atlanta cyclists will dress up like Santa Claus to raise funds to fight leukemia and get a free beer.

And if anyone needs a stocking stuffer, GoPro has slashed the cost of their ice cube-sized Hero4 Session cam to just $199, less than half the original $399.

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Local

The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) wants your input on a draft regional transportation plan covering the next 24 years; the proposal includes regional greenway and bikeway networks, as well as a plan for continuous trails along the coast.

CiclaValley goes cyclocross racing in Griffith Park.

Santa Monica considers changing vehicular access to the pier, and converting the existing bridge to pedestrian and bike use as an extension of the coming Colorado Esplanade.

Santa Monicans freak out about parklets approved last week for Main Street, fearing that people using them will be sitting ducks for out of control cars. Because that’s been such a problem everywhere else they’ve been installed, right?

Multicultural Communities for Mobility hosts a year-end fundraiser this Friday; the suggested $25 donation includes vegan food and custom brews.

 

State

Just Another Cyclist’s Ross Del Duca expounds on the difference between pedaling and riding.

A Newport Beach bike shop suffered half a million dollars in damages in a Friday fire.

Not surprisingly, the proposed 50-mile bikeway circling the Coachella Valley will do little to improve air quality, though it could have lasting health benefits.

San Francisco’s proposed Idaho stop law passes it’s first committee test, even though members of the disability community somehow feel it would adversely affect them. However, the law would be strictly advisory, requesting that the SFPD make bicyclists rolling stops their lowest priority.

Megan Lynch sends word of a planned environmentally friendly grad school building in Berkeley, including 250 bike lockers, as well as showers and dressing rooms.

Caltrans big idea to improve safety for NorCal cyclists will require riders to push a beg button before crossing a narrow Fernbridge bridge, which will then cue flashing lights to warn drivers that there’s a bike on the bridge. How about making drivers get out and push a button before they’re allowed to cross, instead?

 

National

The best thing you can do for the environment is to leave your car at home.

People for Bikes says the latest trend in protected bikeways is getting them done fast. Let’s hope LA lives up to its trendy reputation, then.

Go ahead and have that drink. A new study shows a positive relationship between exercise and moderate drinking. As W.C. Fields said, “A woman once drove me to drink, and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.” But I will thank Richard Risemberg for the heads-up.

Only in Portland. A bike-riding, sweater-wearing hipster Santa with a man bun.

Seriously? After a bike-riding Seattle radio host nearly hits a ninja cyclist while driving to work, he says that drivers have the deck stacked against them and bike riders should have to pay for their share of the roads, just like drivers — except we already do, and drivers actually don’t, as an Austin TX writer patiently explains. Thanks to Steve Katz for the latter link.

Denver advocates form a Vision Zero coalition to help the city live up to its commitment to safer streets.

KC cyclists get a shiny new bike box.

A former critic of New York’s Citi bike bikeshare becomes a frequent-riding convert.

Most bike riders have trouble getting service at drive-through windows; a West Virginia man gets 60 years for robbing a bank on one.

Richmond VA’s person of the year isn’t one, as a local magazine proclaims this the year of the bicycle.

 

International

Must be nice. Bike friendly Vancouver plans for 12 new bike lanes over the next five years, which will require a substantial loss of on-street parking. That would make it a non-starter just about anywhere else.

Caught on video: An angry London motorist drives over a cyclist’s bike during last month’s Critical Mass, apparently on purpose, after honking and shouting abuse.

Bike Magazine asks if mountain bike tourism could aid in Nepal’s recovery from a devastating earthquake.

Manila reopens a limited bikeshare program, with just 40 mountain bikes that can only be used along established bike lanes.

Heartbreaking story from Australia, as a bike rider was killed just hours before his surprise 60th birthday party.

Aussie multi-hyphen actor-director-producer-screenwriter Joel Edgerton is one of us, going for a ride with his baseball cap and silver Schwinn.

An Aussie cyclist is riding 2,300 miles across the county to raise funds to fight motor neuron disease.

New Zealand opens a world class, magenta-hued bikeway along the Auckland coast through the downtown area.

 

Finally…

Just like most cyclists, GPS often exaggerates how far you ride. If you’re going to wave at the speed camera, maybe you should keep one hand on your handlebars, just in case.

And if you’re wondering how to park in a bike lane, don’t.

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Thanks to Alice Strong for contributing to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

And a semi-belated Happy Hanukkah to all.

Help keep the Corgi in kibble this holiday season.

A single donation could put you on Santa’s Good List, and keep the Krampus from your door this holiday season.

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

Weekend Links: Deplorable Gold Line bike locker, distracted beach biking, and a 17-mile non-CicLAvia ciclovía

December 7, 2015 / / Comments Off on Weekend Links: Deplorable Gold Line bike locker, distracted beach biking, and a 17-mile non-CicLAvia ciclovía

Del Mar 1What good is a bike room if it’s not clean, not maintained and not secure?

Sean B forwards these photos of the bike locker at the Pasadena Del Mar Metro Station, noting that the floor is filthy, half the racks are broken and one appears to have been sawed through to steal the bike that was presumably in it.

I’m told this isn’t actually part of Metro’s bike locker program, but rather, just a set of racks with walls and a roof, where a sign tells riders to lock up there at your own risk.

Del Mar 2Seriously?

If Metro really wants to encourage people to use their own bikes to solve the first mile/last mile problem, they’ve got to do a lot better than this.

Deplorable conditions like this only serve to encourage bike thieves, making it clear that no one is paying attention and they aren’t likely to be interrupted.

Del Mar 3Sean also notes that he’s tried contacting Metro about these conditions on numerous occasions, with no luck.

Let’s hope someone there sees this and makes fixing this room a priority. Or better yet, does whatever it takes to replace it with a secure bike locker.

Because bike riders deserve a hell of a lot better than this.

………

Clearly, distracted drivers aren’t the only ones we have to worry about.

Thanks to David Wolfberg and Tony K. for the heads-up.

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Now that’s what I call a ciclovía — seventeen miles through seven San Gabriel cities.

626 Golden Streets

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Maybe the solution to hit-and-run is more cars that turn their drivers in. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link.

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Pro cyclist Peter Sagan and wife light up the holidays in this Euro commercial, no translation necessary.

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Local

Richard Risemberg says the new bus and bike only lanes on Wilshire Blvd seem to have increased ridership, though dangerous gaps remain on the Westside thanks to wealthy, short-sighted residents.

Boyonabike says driverless cars aren’t the answer; transit and walkable, bikeable communities are.

Santa Monica approves a pilot program to place three parklets on Main Street.

A Santa Monica letter writer says public officials have a duty to cater to car users, who apparently have a God-given right to free parking.

Bike SGV offers an analysis of the new Duarte draft bike plan.

 

State

A mountain biker was rescued after getting lost in Beaumont; she called a friend to say she was cold, exhausted and thought she was going to die.

Be careful riding in Napa, which now officially the most inebriated city in California.

 

National

A Honolulu man faces up to 15 years for killing a bike rider while high on meth.

Caught on video: A Portland thief shows how easy it is to snatch a bike off the front of a bus. Always lock or disable your bike in some way before you put it on a bus rack to discourage potential thieves.

A bighearted Washington cop buys a stolen tandem from a homeless man, and fixes it up before returning it to its owners, who met while riding bikes 66 years earlier.

Not surprisingly, a Flagstaff crackdown on scofflaw cyclists does nothing to improve safety.

A Denver driver gets six years in a halfway house for seriously injuring a bike cop after lying about having a seizure-inducing medical condition. Although you have to wonder how long that sentence would be if his victim hadn’t been a cop.

Austin TX considers removing a bike lane to provide more parking, while local residents fight to keep it. Meanwhile, police in Austin bust a bike thief responsible for stealing 97 bikes, valued up to $12,000.

After an Ohio cyclist is rear-ended, he gets yelled at by the driver and lectured by a cop for riding in the traffic lane. Until he points out the sharrows he was riding on.

A Maine writer offers seven ways to improve bicycling in the state, most of which would make sense anywhere. Let’s face it, there are very few politicians I’d want to see naked, on a bike or otherwise. Even if the idea of voting for someone who has nothing to hide is appealing.

Turns out it’s legal for a woman to ride a bike topless in Philadelphia, even if it is a challenge to get the local police on board.

 

International

This is how you get more women on bikes. After Calgary builds out an entire network of protected bike lanes seemingly overnight, the percentage of female riders jumps.

A Toronto woman has started a petition to require cyclists to be licensed, even though the city has rejected that four times in the last 30 years. Although riders may not have to worry too much; the petition had just 15 supporters so far.

Brit pro cyclist Bradley Wiggins was bullied growing up and called a gay slur for having the audacity to wear spandex in public.

If your headphones are so loud you can’t even hear a London train coming, maybe you should turn them down a little. And don’t ride around the damn crossing barriers.

London police are treating an apparent road rage hit-and-run as attempted murder; the same driver who ran down a cyclist may have tried to crash into a cop who responded to the incident.

A Glasgow taxi driver suffered a broken nose and cheekbone when he was punched by a bike rider, after the rider had fought with the cab’s passenger. Violence is never the answer, no matter how angry you are or how much you think they deserve it. It only makes a bad situation worse.

A trio of British cyclists riding a single bike made for three survive a collision on US Route 66 when the sun gets in a driver’s eye; needless to say, he wasn’t charged.

Probably not the best idea to punch a Dubai cop for trying to stop a cyclist from riding on a jogging path.

A pair of apparent German tourists came to the aid of a Kiwi bike rider when she was assaulted by a man who punched her several times before throwing her to the ground.

 

Finally…

Help keep the Corgi in kibble this holiday season.

Help keep the Corgi in kibble this holiday season.

If you’re riding a bike while carrying burglary tools and stolen car radios, put a light on it already — and stay off the damn sidewalk. We may have to deal with LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to dodge invisible turkeys.

And hopefully, we don’t have to deal with drivers who kill bike riders while getting a blowjob behind the wheel.

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Thanks to Erik Griswold for contributing to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

An ancient Norse tradition I just made up says giving to an underfunded bike website ensures the wind will always be at your back in the coming year, and your tires will be impervious to thorns.

Category: Bike Cam Video, Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Weekend Links: CicLAvia videos, safer VA passage, more Coronado madness, and a busy bike weekend

December 5, 2015 / / One comment

Let’s start the weekend with a few videos.

First up is a moving piece about a legally blind photographer experiencing his first CicLAvia. Bruce Hall not only rode a bike, accompanied by professional cyclist Damon Roberson, but captured the day in a series of beautiful photos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rfWGTo7s6g

Which brings up this this short film that captures the magic of the Culver City Meets Venice CicLAvia earlier this year.

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If you ever wondered why some people think cyclists are crazy, semi-suicidal scofflaws, this should answer the question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Padm05-xHVM

Of course, the problem comes when they witness the actions of one rider, or even a few, and decide that all people on bikes are like that.

Which is a pretty good metaphor for a lot of what’s going on in the world these days.

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You only have until Monday to offer comments on the draft master plan for Veterans Administration campus in West LA.

While that may not seem like something that would affect cyclists, many riders use the VA grounds as a safe alternative to virtually unridable Wilshire Blvd; for decades, it was my preferred passageway on the way to the coast.

And as others have pointed out, safety could be dramatically improved for both bicyclists and pedestrians by reopening the gates to the Los Angeles National Cemetery just across the street, and allowing non-motorized traffic to use the roadway that passes between Westwood and the VA, just as they did prior to 9/11.

Here’s my take on it from a few years back.

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The collective madness continues in Coronado, where a letter writer somehow manages to tie the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, KPBS public radio and the Late, Late Show’s James Corden into a single grand conspiracy to besmirch their isthmus with bike lanes.

Note to Coronado: It doesn’t take a conspiracy to make you look like fools; you’re doing a damn good job of it on your own.

At least there’s one voice of sanity.

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Today is Global Fat Tire Day. So what are you doing to celebrate?

Here’s one suggestion.

fattire_l

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Get him to the Greek, where the SoCalCross Prestige Series brings the CACX District Championship Weekend to the Greek Theater in Griffith Park this weekend for two full days of fun and cyclcocross racing action. No word on whether Russell Brand will make it there in time.

The award-winning documentary Bikes vs. Cars opens at the Laemmle NoHo 7 this weekend; check out reviews from the LA Times, OC Weekly, Bicycling Magazine and the New York Times.

Unless you’re a very early riser, you may not have time to catch the December edition of Helen’s Cycles Monthly Group Ride with Tour de France stage winner Eros Poli. But you can still catch the Cannondale Saturday Demo at the Santa Monica store on Saturday, and the Cannondale Demo Sunday Nichols Ride on, uh, Sunday.

If you read this early enough, you may still be able to make it to the Culver City Bicycle Coalition’s Holiday Ride, kicking off at 9:30 this morning.

Santa Monica’s Cynergy Cycles will teach you how to fix a flat at 11 am today. Seriously, If you’re going to ride a bike, you need to know how to keep air in your tires.

The LACBC joins with local chapter West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition this month’s edition of their popular Sunday Funday Ride tomorrow, with the 14-mile family friendly We Go WeHo Ride.

Downtown’s Just Ride LA bike shop is taking to trip up La Tuna Canyon on Sunday.

Figueroa for All invites you to join their crew for the 2015 NELA Holiday Parade on Sunday, whether you choose to ride, walk or roll.

Join pro cyclist Phil Gaimon, the LACBC and Councilmember David Ryu’s office in cleaning up a stretch of Mulholland between Cahuenga and Runyon Canyon on the 12th.

Also on the 12th, the Southern California Toy Drive Ride will deliver toys to Camp Pendleton for the Toys 4 Tots program.

Finish the Ride will host their first ride, run, walk and roll across the San Fernando Valley on the 27th.

And mark your calendar for the first Los Angeles Bicycle Festival next May.

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Local

In non-breaking news, Metro has officially adopted the fare structure for the still-unnamed bikeshare system, which is pretty much what it was before.

CiclaValley looks at bicycling and pedestrian equity in South LA, or the lack thereof. As he puts it, “A bike network is only as good as your weakest link. It’s about time someone at least bought a chain.”

LA Times’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne calls for a series of parks and bikeways along the planned corridor for the un-built 710 Freeway extension through Pasadena and South Pas.

Actor/Director Chad Michael Collins had his bike stolen recently while he was watching the new Hunger Games movie. If you see him, tell him to list it on here with Bike Index to increase his chances of getting it back.

A cyclist will arrive in LA on Sunday after riding fixed 2,451 miles from Chicago along Route 66.

The Pasadena Star News reports a man was punched and the mountain bike he was riding was stolen while on a test ride from a local bike shop.

 

State

San Clemente plans two-way protected bike lanes along PCH.

Following the death of a 12-year old bike rider, Oceanside plans to improve safety for cyclists by installing more speed limit signs and speed monitors. Neither of which would have done anything to prevent the collision that killed Logan Lipton.

It takes a real schmuck to hit a bike-riding kid and leave him lying in the street like this Moreno Valley hit-and-run driver; fortunately, his victim wasn’t badly hurt.

A cyclist and author has his custom titanium tandem stolen in Watsonville, after 50,000 miles of touring the world and picking up riders on his empty back seat. And not for the first time.

So much for that. San Francisco police resume their crackdown on bike riders after earlier assurances it had ended.

Shaq gets an early Christmas present with an oversized 36” wheel bike made for taller riders by San Francisco’s DirtySixer Bicycles.

We all fall off our bikes sooner or later; slashing the neck of a Vacaville kid who laughed at another boy for doing probably wasn’t the best response.

 

National

It looks like that folding cargo bike collaboration between Tern and Xtracycle is a thing now.

Speaking of being a thing now, a new Kickstarter has kicked off for Invincible, which claims to be the world’s first city-proof bike; their new protection plan promises to replace your bike within 24 hours if it’s stolen while using the U-lock that comes with it. If anyone has me on their Secret Santa list, I’ll take the eight-speed version, thank you.

Finally a sentence that fits the crime. After being convicted of driving under the influence, followed by a drunken jailhouse tirade, a former Snowmass city councilman is sentenced to ride his bike 13 miles through the Colorado snow to deliver urine samples to prove he’s not drinking.

Nice thought from a writer from my hometown, who says we all share the same roads and face the same issues, and need to stand together as one, no matter how you ride.

Chicagoist offers five mistakes to avoid after a bike crash.

To improve safety on New York streets, focus on the cars, trucks and SUVs that cause 97.6% of deaths and injuries, not the bikes that cause the rest.

Crash into a cyclist, attack him and throw his tire into the woods before fleeing the scene, and a Maryland judge will let you walk with just 16 lousy hours of community service. Nice to see they take road rage seriously there. And yes, that’s sarcasm of the dripping variety.

Eighteen months after controversial bike lanes were installed in Alexandria VA, they’ve calmed traffic, reduced collisions and increased the number of bike riders on the street, despite the fears of local residents.

 

International

What to get for the bike riding women in your life.

Toronto considers allowing their parking officers to take a photo of cars parked illegally in bike lanes, then follow up with a written ticket later.

Not surprising that the founder of Britain’s Motorists Association would call for cyclists to “pay their way,” just like motorists, who actually don’t; even then, the equivalent of $75 a year seems excessive.

Good news from France, as a gendarme who was critically injured by an out-of-control race moto at this year’s Tour de France is making a miraculous recovery from his injuries.

A new Dutch program promises to take elderly Kiwi residents on rickshaw bike cab rides, while a Dutch bicycle engineer says sharrows aren’t necessarily a bad thing — as long as they’re used on streets with a speed limit under 19 mph.

Fund-Drive-With-Type-2

Help keep the Corgi in kibble this holiday season.

The Department of DIY strikes in Jerusalem, where residents paint their own bike lanes to protest the city’s delays in building bike paths.

 

Finally…

Sometimes, a bike theft isn’t a bike theft. If you’re doping to win an age-group Masters race, you have a serious problem.

And stealing a car, hitting a cyclist and fleeing the scene while five months pregnant probably isn’t the best way to win Mother of the Year.

 

Category: Bike Events, Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , ,
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