Morning Links: New Colorado pro race, bikes and microbrews coming to Echo Park, and riding 30 days the wrong way

January 26, 2017 / / 2 comments

Through the end of this month, BikinginLA is supporting local bike shops and other small businesses in the bike industry by offering deep discounts on our usual advertising rates. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.

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Colorado’s USA Pro Challenge is dead and buried. Now the four-stage Colorado Classic pro race, which will include a two-stage women’s race, will rise from the ashes to take its place. Although they still seem to think women are too fragile to compete on an equal basis with the men.

Evidently, former pro Frank Schleck still likes to go fast; he’ll lose his driver’s license for a month and face five year’s probation for driving 52 mph in a 31 mph zone.

Former British world road champ Nicole Cook says the problem with pro cycling is the sport in run “by men, for men” and doping is being fought by “the wrong people, in the wrong way, with the wrong tools.”

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Local

Echo Park could be soon home to LA’s first microbrewery/bike shop.

The Radical Optimism series is hosting a panel discussion on How We Move: Getting Around the “Shrinking” City of Los Angeles tonight in Culver City.

Santa Monica’s Cynergy Cycles hosts a discussion on bikepacking tonight.

Hermosa Beach will start using bike cops in an effort to control late night partying in the downtown area.

 

State

Ventura police bust a man who jacked a bicycle at knifepoint after he’d removed it from the back of vehicle while the driver slept inside.

A San Francisco bicyclist was the victim of a hit-and-run near the city’s Pier 39 following a failed pass.

Just days after San Francisco officials stared down Chinese app-based bikeshare company Bluegogo, a US-based startup wants to bring their dock-less, app-based bikeshare system to the city.

A San Francisco native says no, cyclists, pedestrians and drivers have not always hated one another, but we should all come together to hate the people on hoverboards.

 

National

The CEO of Affirm and co-founder of PayPal is one of us, taking his bike with him wherever he travels.

Popular Mechanics gets it, saying it’s time to rethink our roads so they work for everyone, including bicyclists.

Next City talks to Motivate CEO Jay Walder, head of the nation’s largest bikeshare company, who says Donald Trump should look to America’s transit revolution for guidance on how to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure through public-private partnerships.

No bias here. Colorado considers adopting the Idaho Stop law, but one TV station says it allows bicyclists to run red lights and stop signs. Actually, it just lets bike riders treat stop signs as yields, and treat red light like stop signs. Big difference.

A Victoria TX newspaper says all it would take is a little paint to bring the city into the 21st Century by putting in some bike lanes.

Detroit police are still looking for the bicycle-riding killer of a university police officer, releasing a photo of the bike he was riding.

A Northwestern University professor says cyclists, pedestrians and drivers all have to work together to ensure safety.

Note to Boston Globe: A “suspicious device” made from a beer bottle half filled with gasoline with a rag sticking out of it, like the one found on a bike trail, is called a Molotov cocktail.

New York-based BMX pro Nigel Sylvester makes Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30, to go along with his 200,000 Instagram followers and seven million YouTube views.

A Virginia columnist says the state doesn’t need a proposed law banning bicycling while drunk, calling it a legal solution in search of a problem.

Before you detain a teenager for stealing your son’s bike, make sure it really is. A Florida man faces felony kidnapping and robbery charges because he didn’t. And it wasn’t.

 

International

James May, host of Amazon’s The Grand Tour, is one of us, but says most bike riders are a bit hopeless, awkwardly peddling badly adjusted bikes with no idea how to use their gears.

Cycling Weekly patiently explains why cyclists ride in the middle of the road. But they neglected to mention that it makes riders more visible to drivers, which is why taking the lane is taught by both the League of American Bicyclists and CyclingSavvy.

London’s Independent says forget riding down Bolivia’s Death Road; if you want a real challenge, try riding Peru’s Pichu Pichu volcano.

Bike riders are donning facemasks to deal with London’s crushing smog.

Now that’s a close call. A Brit driver just misses a bicyclist riding in a bike lane before plowing into a street sign.

 

Finally…

Breaking News: Riding at night isn’t like riding during the day because it’s dark. If you’re trying to make it home for the holidays, make sure you don’t ride for 30 days in the wrong direction.

And if NASCAR is going to be more like bike racing, does that mean the drivers will start shaving their legs?

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , ,

Morning Links: Los Angeles selected for bike riding boost, and carfree plan moves forward for Mt. Hollywood Drive

January 25, 2017 / / 5 comments

Through the end of this month, BikinginLA is supporting local bike shops and other small businesses in the bike industry by offering deep discounts on our usual advertising rates. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.

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In case you missed yesterday’s big news, PeopleForBikes has selected ten cities for their inaugural Big Jump Project intended to double or triple ridership in select neighborhoods in just the next three years.

Surprisingly, Los Angeles made the cut, with efforts to focus on Downtown LA and adjacent University Park.

This was my take on it when the news broke around noon yesterday.

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In what could be the final step in a long, drawn-out battle to keep cars off Mt. Hollywood Drive in Griffith Park, the LA City Council’s Arts, Parks and River Committee approved plans for a shuttle system to take people up to the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign; the proposal goes before the full council today for final approval.

BikinginLA sponsor Josh Cohen wrote an open letter to the council in support of the plan.

Dear Lovers of Griffith Park:

I have been a CD 4 resident and homeowner, employee and employer in one capacity or another since the late 1960’s. I have a wife and a five year-old girl. We all use Griffith Park at least once a week. I live in Franklin Hills. My parents are elderly and they live in Beachwood Canyon, right under the Hollywood Sign. They too use Griffith Park.

Many other users of Griffith Park and I have watched as the City has struggled with traffic problems and the issue of motor vehicle traffic on Mt. Hollywood Drive.

Griffith Park is and must remain a place for people, not cars. Colonel Griffith J. Griffith bestowed the Park to the people of Los Angeles as, “[…] a place of recreation and rest for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people […] to make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner, and finer city.”

The absence of motor vehicles in the Park is a prerequisite to Colonel Griffith’s mandate. Car-free, natural and unspoiled venues in Los Angeles are rare and precious. The absence of motor vehicles makes the Park a safe haven from the hectic, break-neck pace of life in metropolitan Los Angeles. Families like mine can escape to its confines and breathe unspoiled air. Children can run free without fear of getting hit by motor vehicles.

These truths impart an inherent value that supersedes the need for vehicular access to touristic vistas. Tourists’ desires for photo opportunities cannot outweigh Angelenos’ need for an escape from the mechanized dangers of city life. Los Angeles and its amenities must first be a place for its own residents.

Many Angelenos struggle in their daily lives because they cannot afford cars. Commuting and navigating the City unfairly burden them with logistical difficulties. Merely crossing the street threatens them with becoming another of Los Angeles’ 20,000 annual hit-and-run victims. They often lack recourse because the choices that shaped our great City’s landscape failed to account for anything but cars. Pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities are implicitly considered the cost of doing business.

For these reasons and more, Griffith Park must remain car-free to the fullest extent practicable. The Griffith Observatory Circulation and Parking Enhancement Plan keeps it so. It provides unprecedented transit access to the Park for those unable to afford a car, or for those who decide that one less car in the park is a good thing. Car-free policy lifestyle benefits the environment and Angelenos, and fulfills Colonel Griffith’s vision and mandate. And frankly, the tourists enjoy car-free Griffith Park more too.

The thousands who have signed petitions and attended meetings are pleased and grateful to know that Mt. Hollywood Dr. will remain motor vehicle free.

Thank you for protecting the Park’s wild interior and for improving the lives of Angelenos.

Joshua C. Cohen

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If you want to see the new documentary on Russia’s systematic doping program, you’ll have to get Netflix.

The four-stage Tour of Abu Dhabi will roll next month after moving from its previous October date.

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Local

LA-based battery maker Immotor plans to bring an ebike to market later this year as proof-of-concept for their advanced batteries.

Pasadena will host a public workshop tomorrow to get input on the city’s draft Street Design Guide.

ASSOS will be the title sponsor of the Malibu Gran Fondo for the next two years.

Violent crime may be up in Long Beach, but bike theft has dropped over 26%. Maybe they could tell LA how they did it.

Speaking of Long Beach, work has begun on completing the Ocean Blvd road diet, which should have bike lanes by Friday.

CiclaValley tackles the famed Gibraltar climb above Santa Barbara.

 

State

Fifteen San Bernardino students got new bikes and helmets for maintaining perfect attendance records.

A Morro Bay mother who lead the fight for a BMX bike park has been honored as the Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year.

A San Francisco cyclist was injured in a fall on a bikeway that’s been taken over by a homeless encampment, despite promises from the city to clean it up.

Davis is looking for input on new wayfinding strategies.

Not content with smashing windows at a Davis mosque and draping bacon over door handles, a woman was caught on security cameras slashing tires on bikes that were parked outside it.

A writer says bike riding is an opportunity for Calaveras County, but streets remain a major obstacle. Sort of like nearly everywhere else.

Instead of getting rid of rumble strips that pose a risk to Northern California cyclists, Caltrans just paints a wedge on the pavement to warn riders about them.

 

National

Soap opera star Martha Madison is one of us, as she recovers from a broken elbow after falling of her bike.

How is it that Los Angeles, where year-round riding is easy, doesn’t have a winter bike week, but Denver, where it isn’t, does?

It’s a win for Montana bike riders, as a bill that would have banned bicycles from most two-lane roadways has been withdrawn, and will be redrafted with bicyclists’ input; the lawmaker responsible for the bill says the new version won’t contain restrictions on walking or bicycling.

A new Colorado study shows, just like with anything else, familiarity breeds acceptance when it comes to ebikes on trails; once people try them, their resistance melts away.

Another salvo in the war on bikes, as a bike rider barely escapes injury when someone strung fishing line across a Wichita, Kansas bike trail.

Detroit breaks ground on a $4 million sports complex that will include a new velodrome.

The Bike League’s annual National Bike Summit will take place in Washington DC the first week of March.

A coalition of Virginia lawmakers proposes getting tough on distracted driving.

 

International

Bike Radar examines 12 cycling nutrition myths.

A new study says bikewear that promises to dissipate heat doesn’t actually work, and could prove harmful to older riders.

A pair of Vancouver bike riders will spend a week in jail and face a five year ban from US public lands after riding off-trail through environmentally sensitive lands in Yellowstone, as well as other US parks.

The war on bikes continues, as a British woman was pushed of her bicycle by the passenger of a passing car; fortunately, she was not seriously injured.

A kindhearted woman in the UK starts a fundraising campaign to buy a new bike for a woman who had hers stolen, after reading the note the victim left for the thief.

Several stars of Britain’s Tottenham Spurs go for a bike ride in Barcelona. Although those look more like scooters to me.

Road.cc asks what Brexit and the Trump presidency will mean for British bicycling, the short answer is, prepare for a major hit to the pocketbook.

Where to go on your next bicycling vacation to Denmark.

Caught on video: An Aussie cyclist swerves to avoid getting hit after he’s cut off by a U-turning driver, then gets a milkshake thrown at him by way of thanks; fortunately, the driver had really bad aim.

Now that’s love. A Chinese man rode over 1,200 miles in 15 days just to see his girlfriend on her 21st birthday. Although whether he loves her or bicycling — or both — remains to be explained.

The Chinese maker of Apple iPhones invests some of its profits in a bikeshare company.

 

Finally…

Now you can dress to match your new bamboo bike. Unless you’d prefer a paper bike to go with your paper helmet.

And if you can’t decide whether to dress for warmth or visibility on a cold winter’s night, there’s always the option of nothing.

 

Category: General / Tags: , , , , , ,

Breaking News: Los Angeles selected as part of new PeopleForBikes initiative to boost bike ridership

January 24, 2017 / / One comment

News has just come in that Los Angeles has been selected as one of ten cities to participate in the Big Jump Project.

The new initiative from PeopleForBikes is aimed at doubling or tripling bike ridership in specific neighborhoods by improving bike infrastructure.

As part of the Big Jump Project, Los Angeles will focus on improving bike infrastructure in downtown LA and University Park, the city’s business core. As a participant in the program, Los Angeles will annually receive the equivalent of $200,000 in technical support from PeopleForBikes, as well as an additional $50,000 in matching funds or financial commitments from local organizations….

Over the course of the next three years, the Big Jump Project cities will be laboratories for innovation, ultimately illustrating the ways in which U.S. cities and towns can tap into bicycles to radically improve the health and vitality of their communities.

The project is part of PeopleForBikes’ new PlacesForBikes program, a three-part plan including an easy-to-understand, data-driven system for rating bike-friendly cities; how-to resources for communities and businesses; and an annual conference for city and business leaders.

Los Angeles was selected along with New York City, Baltimore MD, Portland OR, Memphis TN, Providence RI, New Orleans LA,  Austin TX, Tucson AZ and my hometown of Fort Collins, CO.

While it’s great that Los Angeles has been selected as one of the initial cities, it’s unfortunate that it is limited to the Downtown area, which has already seen a jump in ridership, and the area north of USC, which could definitely use the help.

It would have been nice to see infrastructure-starved areas like South LA, Highland Park and Hollywood included in the program, as well as other often ignored regions of the city.

However, as always, the problem in Los Angeles is political will, and the courage of local councilmembers to stand up to the inevitable NIMBY anti-bike backlash.

Or more precisely, the lack thereof.

Hopefully, when people see what can be done to make our streets safer and more inviting for everyone, they’ll demand improvements in their own neighborhoods, as well. And elect representatives who will respond to that demand.

The other concern is whether LA will finally provide adequate staffing and funding for LADOT to meet the requirements of our streets, so this doesn’t result in ignoring the urgent needs of other areas while attention is focused on just two neighborhoods.

As former NYDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan stresses in her book Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, cities must be able to respond quickly to needs and opportunities on the streets, rather than taking years to design — and redesign in response to local opposition and lack of leadership backbone — before even thinking about implementation.

Something Los Angeles sadly lacks, and seems unlikely to change.

Maybe this will be the kick in the ass the city so desperately needs.

You can see the full press release here.

 

Category: Bike Access, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Active Trans grants approved for LA County, and fight goes on for carfree Mt. Hollywood Drive

January 24, 2017 / / 2 comments

Through the end of this month, BikinginLA will support local bike shops and other small businesses in the bike industry by offering deep discounts on our usual advertising rates. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.

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It looks like change is finally coming to LA area streets.

Streetsblog reports that thirteen new bike and pedestrian projects totaling $33.6 million have been funded through California’s Active Transportation Program, with another eight grants worth $28.78 million scheduled to be approved by SCAG — the Southern California Association of Governments — next month.

You can find a full listing of the projects, scattered throughout LA County, on the Streetsblog story.

But don’t hold your breath. As they note, the funding won’t actually be available for another two to three years.

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CiclaValley asks you to turn out for today’s special meeting of the LA City Council’s Arts, Parks, and River Committee to demand that Mount Hollywood Drive in Griffith Park be kept carfree.

The committee meets at 3 pm in room 1060 of City Hall in DTLA; if you can’t make it, he has a sample email and email addresses to send it to.

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Still more tragedy in the cycling world, as Ukrainian former U-23 world champ Dmitry Grabovskyy died of a suspected heart attack at 31. Meanwhile, tributes have flowed in for the 15-year old British cyclocross champ who died in his sleep over the weekend.

Now that’s more like it. Britain will offer equal prize money to both the men’s and women’s winners of the country’s national racing series.

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Local

As we noted yesterday, it wasn’t just Coyote Creek that was flooded by the recent rains; the LA River wasn’t exactly the safest place to ride, either.

Metro is holding a meeting this Thursday to discuss plans to improve access to Downtown’s Union Station, including a bike and pedestrian esplanade on Alameda Street.

The LACBC’s Ask An Officer panel discussion has been rescheduled for this coming Monday.

An editor with the USC paper says there’s a silver lining to having her bike stolen, forcing her to slow down and notice things she used to ride past. Although you’d think a fine university like USC would teach the difference between breaks and brakes before the senior year.

 

State

A Stanford physician and casual cyclist raised $10,000 to fight breast cancer by surviving the 2016 Death Ride, a 129-mile timed endurance ride with 15,000 feet of climbing over five mountain passes.

Speaking of Stanford, a professor there is looking for more participants for a study of bike saddles; currently over 1,000 cyclists are enrolled, but they’d like to have 10,000.

Streetsblog tries out the new dockless, app-based bikeshare bikes from Bluegogo; the company is making a soft launch with a few hundred bikes in San Francisco by locating them on private parking spaces to get around city regulations and objecting officials. Thanks to Eric Weinstein for the heads-up.

San Francisco leads the state as the most dangerous place to drive a car, and ranks second in the nation for pedestrian injuries and fatalities. None of which suggests it’s exactly a great place to ride a bike, either.

A mudslide caused by Sunday’s storm in Northern California has blocked, if not destroyed, a popular bike trail at Lake Natoma.

 

National

The new PlacesForBikes project from PeopleForBikes — who have evidently decided to save money by removing the spaces from their names — will encourage bike-friendly cities by providing an alternative to the Bike League’s rating system.

The last remaining founder of Adventure Cycling will turn 71 on Sunday and retire from the organization; Greg Siple also helped inspire the 1976 Bikecentennial cross-country ride.

A bill that would ban bike riders from most of Montana’s two-lane highways is being rewritten in committee following an outcry from advocates, but no word on exactly what changes are being made.

A proposed Iowa bill would require bike riders to have a red LED taillight on their bikes, apparently even during daylight hours; the law was suggested by a blame-shifting driver who crashed into five — count ‘em, five — bicyclists with his motorcycle as the sun was setting, insisting he would have seen them if only they’d had flashing lights on their bikes. Sure, let’s go with that.

A new study shows Minnesota residents took 96 million bike trips totaling 139 million miles last year, and generated nearly $800 million throughout the state.

University of Michigan researchers have developed a way to make materials change from hard to soft, which would allow bike tires to automatically adjust to different surface conditions, among other applications. Yes, there’s an obvious joke there, and no, I’m not going to make it.

A group of bicyclist will follow a mostly offroad route on a ride from Seattle to Boston later this year to raise funds for a local alternative high school.

New York deployed 50 bike cops to control crowds at Saturday’s peaceful Women’s March, with one source saying a single officer on a bike can do the job of three cops.

 

International

Bike-powered machines made from discarded parts are changing lives in Guatemala.

Bike Biz talks with the CEO of Zwift about whether virtual reality is the future of indoor cycling. A Scottish man used a similar system to virtually bike the length of Britain.

Life is cheap in British Columbia, where an off-duty Mounty walks with just a $1,500 fine for killing a five-year old bike rider with his jacked-up pickup; he claimed he couldn’t see the boy, who was riding with the light in a marked crosswalk with his father and brother, as he turned right. If you can’t see a little boy directly in front of your truck, it doesn’t belong on the damn roads.

Caught on video: A British newspaper seems to take great glee in watching a bike rider flip over a curb after flipping off a motorist.

A bike advocate on the Isle of Man calls for reforming traffic laws, claiming drivers cause 90% of all collisions with bicyclists.

A former assistant professor is riding over 6,200 miles across India to raise awareness of climate change and encourage people and organizations to take responsibility for reducing their carbon footprint.

A Johannesburg mountain biker nearly lost an eye when he ran into an unmarked wire that had been left across the entrance to a pathway, despite verifying that the trail was open to bicycles.

China has completed construction on a 4.7 mile elevated bikeway in the city of Xiamen, a first for the country.

 

Finally…

No, a Holocaust memorial is not the place to hop about on your bike. It wasn’t easy going onstage after a bike-riding Robin Williams.

And you don’t want to risk offending the tweeter-in-chief.

 

Category: Advocacy & Politics, Morning Links, Streets and Infrastructure / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Flooded waterway bike paths, sampling new lighted bike safety backpack, and #peaceontheroad

January 23, 2017 / / One comment

As you may know, this site has long been a supporter of local bike shops.

So starting today, we’re putting a dollar figure on that support, with our first-ever sale on ad space.

Through the end of this month, BikinginLA will be offering deep discounts on our usual advertising rates just for local bike shops, or other small businesses in the bike industry. For more information, or to find out if your business qualifies, email the address on the Support and Advertising page.

………

Mike Wilkinson forwards a reminder of the primary purpose of the popular Coyote Creek bike path.

Similar views can be found today on the Ballona Creek and the LA River pathways, as well as virtually any bike path along one of Southern California’s usually arid riverbeds.

Just in case you need a reminder of why local authorities sometimes seem to overreact by closing the paths whenever rain seems imminent.

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Look what came from India last week.

As the Onion once put it, “Visibility is crucial when biking. Ride with a lit highway flare in each hand.”

Since that’s not always practical, the Aster backpack from Lumos comes complete with built-in reflectors, front lights, tail lights, turn signals and brake lights.

I’m not normally a fan of the visibility arms race — any driver actually paying attention to the road should be able to see a cyclist without making us dress up like brilliantly lit dystopian clowns — it does promise to combine practicality with safety.

And while I’m more of a messenger bag guy, I’ll look forward trying this out and letting you know what I think.

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Nice piece from the Racers Who Ride Foundation, as pro racer Ozz Negri, Jr. discusses his love of bicycling and what #peaceontheroad is all about.

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Sad news from the world of cyclocross, as a Belgian coach apparently committed suicide after one of his junior cyclists failed a dope test, and a 15-year old British U-16 national champ unexpectedly died in his sleep Friday night.

World Champion Peter Sagan discusses the loss of anonymity that come with his cycling success.

Irish cycling great Sean Kelly says a chance encounter with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor on their South African honeymoon helped launch his pro career.

An Aussie paper talks with retired pro Cadel Evans, crediting him with sparking a Lycra revolution in the country.

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Local

Metro is holding a meeting this Thursday to discuss the first segment of the planned Rail to River trail through South LA.

Bike-friendly Santa Monica doubles down on plans for a sustainable future. Meanwhile, the city council will vote to approve a contract to study bicycle intersection treatments, including bike boxes and detection devices to help traffic signals identify bike riders.

 

State

Organizers of Saturday’s Tour de Palm Springs had to work through the night to plan an alternate route after several streets were flooded by Friday’s rain.

Marin County officials use speed guns to measure how fast mountain bikes ride on county trails. And learn the overwhelming majority of riders obey regulations.

Stockton’s interim police chief started on the road to becoming a cop when a pair of bullies stole his Schwinn back in sixth grade.

 

National

This year’s RAGBRAI will take an easier route across northern Iowa.

Winter bicycling is spiking in popularity in the Chicago area, despite the cold.

An Illinois family has given up their car and taken to their bikes as their primary form of transportation, and are documenting the experience to help others understand how to be less reliant on cars.

I want to be like him when I grow up. An 80-year old New Hampshire man still rides 1,000 miles a year.

A Staten Island website says bicyclists and pedestrians bear responsibility for avoiding crashes under Vision Zero, too.

DC area planners are measuring cycling level of stress to plan lower stress routes that would encourage more people to ride bikes. Although now stress is good for you.

A Norfolk VA paper asks if the city council is crazy for going forward with a 10 mile, $62 million bike path. They have a point; according to a road builders association, they could build a four lane highway for the same price. However, the price tag also includes prep work for future high speed transit, even though voters recently killed plans for light rail.

 

International

Bikeshare is credited with getting more women on bikes.

The executive director of a Winnipeg, Canada bike advocacy group calls on the city to adopt Vision Zero, for reason that should be obvious.

North London police get it, saying bicyclists will no longer be fined for riding on the sidewalk, and they’ll look into the reasons why people would feel the need to choose sidewalks over riding on the road.

A British councilor gets it, too, saying “Cyclists should not be expected to take their lives in their hands every time they set out on the roads.”

A new survey shows a fifth of Brits haven’t ridden a bike in over ten years, and one and ten can’t even remember how. Evidently, not even riding a bike is just like riding a bike.

This is the cost of traffic violence. After a UK musician was killed in crash while riding his bike, his band mates release the final recording he made just days before his death as a free download in his honor.

Way to kill a burgeoning bike movement. Sales for pedal-assist ebikes have plummeted in Malta after the country required helmets and registration. That should serve as fair warning for those of us here in the US.

A Malaysian city councilor calls for making Penang the cycling capital of the island nation.

A team of self-appointed bike vigilantes hunt through the streets and alleys of Guangzhou, China for bikeshare bikes that have been appropriated for private use.

Chinese-made bikes are taking over the world; 93.5% of bikes sold in the US last year were made in China.

 

Finally…

It takes a major scumbag to drag a dog behind his bike. And anyone can ride a bike, but how many can say they’ve been felicitated?

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On a personal note, it was six years ago today we took a chance on a very pissed off adult dog with major abandonment issues. 

Which turned out to be one of smartest decisions I’ve ever made.

Rescue dogs are the best.

Category: Morning Links, Product Reviews / Tags: , , , , ,

Weekend Links: LA election debates, reforming CA Trans Commission, hi-viz skin, and better libidos through biking

January 21, 2017 / / Comments Off on Weekend Links: LA election debates, reforming CA Trans Commission, hi-viz skin, and better libidos through biking

Please forgive yesterday’s unexcused absence.

The sudden failure of a hard drive cable took my laptop down without warning, wiping out all the links I’d been saving, and leaving me without access to this site.

The good news it, it was a quick, easy and relatively affordable fix. So we’re back in business, and serving up a virtual smorgasbord of fresh, hot bike links.

………

Local

Bike the Vote LA provides a list of upcoming candidate debates before the March city elections.

Streetsblog’s Damien Newton talks with Bike SGV Executive Director Wes Reutimann about better bike parking for the Gold Line.

In case you wondered, this is why many bike paths shut down before heavy rains. And if you were planning to use the protected bike lanes on the California Incline this weekend, you might want to plan another route.

Santa Monica is conducting yet another of their frequent bike and pedestrian safety enforcement days this Monday. You know the drill; follow the letter of the law until you cross back into the scofflaw loving arms of LA.

A Long Beach city councilmember says people are free to push for changes to the number and color of the green bollards on Studebaker Road, but they were put there to slow traffic and improve safety.

 

State

A bill to restructure California’s Transportation Commission would require at least one of the six members to have expertise in bicycle and pedestrian safety; two would have a background in sustainable transportation, one in mass transit, and two working with disadvantaged communities.

Calbike is looking for an administrative manager.

After starting out with ambitious plans for a Complete Street makeover of San Diego’s El Cajon Blvd, the city settles on a watered-down approach with buffered bike lanes instead of protected lanes.

Bring your rain gear. Today’s Tour de Palm Springs will roll rain or shine. Or 40 mph winds.

This is the cost of traffic violence. Thirty-three years later, a writer in Half Moon Bay still struggles with the hit-and-run death of his bike-riding father two days before his dad’s 38th birthday.

A Redding man is facing a murder charge for calmly riding away on his bike after setting a gas station clerk on fire; authorities still don’t know why, though.

 

National

Lawsuits are flying back and forth at the new company formed by America’s last remaining Tour de France winner to make low-cost carbon fiber, but not for bikes.

Bicycling explains why you should keep riding outside all winter, and how to organize a bike pub crawl.

Men’s Journal offers commuter gear every cyclist needs. None of which anyone really needs, but most of which seems pretty good for a change.

Who needs hi-viz when your skin can glow in the dark?

This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Oregon will build a bike path to fill a gap in a bike lane where a man was killed last year.

A Colorado man beat depression by bicycling across the US with just $600 to his name; now he’s preparing to race 5,770 miles across Russia.

The war on bikes continues, as a Montana legislator introduces a bill that would ban bikes from virtually every two lane road in the state. Which is most of the highways in the state, as I recall.

If you build it, they will come. Nearly one million people used the bike trail system in Sioux Falls SD last year, in a city of just 165,000.

Caught on video: A road raging Wisconsin driver rolls a stop sign, then repeatedly attempts to cut off a bike rider before getting out of his car to confront him, and complaining that the cyclist is taking up too much of the road. Even though the sharrows indicate he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.

The bike-born coffee and bread deliveries must go through, even in a Minnesota winter.

When a local hotel is razed, an Indiana woman asks for, and receives, the 600 pound boulder she used to sit on to watch her late husband, a county sheriff, ride off to DC every year to honor officers killed in the line of duty.

A Michigan TV station lists three surprising benefits of bicycling, including boosting your libido. Which probably isn’t much of a surprise for those of us who do.

Amsterdam’s bike mayor is taking her act on the road in an attempt to remake the former New Amsterdam into a bike riding city.

Philadelphia police are getting serious about ticketing people who park in bike lanes.

Now that’s more like it. A Pennsylvania man gets five to twelve years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a motorized bike rider who was on his way to see his dying father.

Life is cheap in Louisiana, where a hit-and-run driver walks after killing a cyclist; his victim wasn’t killed in the crash, but drowned in a ditch because the jerk who hit him didn’t bother to stop. Something’s seriously wrong with the prosecutors who made this deal; instead of being released on probation, he should be doing hard time on a 2nd murder conviction.

New Orleans is launching a fleet of 700 custom-designed bikeshare bikes at 70 stations around the city.

 

International

Cycling News asks if sexual abuse will be cycling’s next big scandal.

A British Columbia snow biker wants his cliff-hanging ski-bike back.

Bad British roads killed or injured 99 bike riders over a recent two year period. Meanwhile, in a totally unrelated story, the BBC asks if sidewalk riding should be legal in the country.

A Belfast woman is looking for the hit-and-run cyclist who killed her dog. I’ve had to dodge a number of dogs whose irresponsible owners let them wander across pathways on a loose leash. But, if you can’t avoid hitting a dog, human or any other animal, just stop already.

Caught on video too: Aussie police are looking for a sidewalk raging pedestrian who grabbed a 62-year old woman’s bike by the rear wheel and flipped her over the handlebars, tossing her face-first into the pavement.

A Santa Barbara couple spends three weeks riding 600 miles around Taiwan.

 

Finally…

No, bikeshare bikes don’t grow on trees. Helmets have been around almost forever.

And your next bike could actually fly. But only if you define “bike” very loosely.

 

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