Or rather, a bad reaction to my pain meds.
Hopefully, I’ll be back on my feet once the drugs wear off, and we’ll be back on track tomorrow.
My apologies.
Update: Bike rider killed in early morning Victorville collision; SB County deaths already exceed total for all of last year
Yet another bicyclist has lost his life in Southern California, in what has been the worst start to the year in recent memory.
According to the Victor Valley News, a man with a bike was hit by an SUV around 2:30 this morning on the 13400 block of Mariposa Road, near the Southwest Gas Building.
First responders found a mangled bike next to the SUV, with the victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, still on the hood of the car; he was pronounced dead at the scene. The story says he was a pedestrian; however, while he may have been walking his bike, it’s not uncommon for police dispatches to refer to bicyclists as pedestrians.
A street view shows what appears to be a three lane road with two lanes eastbound and one headed west, with a center left turn lane. The photo included with the story appears to place the wreck in the westbound lane, next to the freeway.
No other details are available at this time.
This is the 22nd bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the fourth in San Bernardino County; that compares with just three in the county for all of last year.
This has been the deadliest first two months of the year for at least the last six years. In fact, last year it took until until May 27th to reach that level in the seven county SoCal region.
Update: The victim has been identified as 16-year old Victorville resident Cesar Machuca Jr. Anyone with information urged to call San Bernardino Sheriff’s Deputies Sahagun or Haynes at 760/552-6800.
Update 2: The Victor Valley News reports the high school junior, who they identify as a Hesperia resident, was on his way home from his girlfriend’s house when he was rear-ended by the SUV’s driver.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Cesar Machuca Jr. and his loved ones.
Category: Bicycle Safety, Injuries and Fatalities, Update / Tags: bicycling fatality, Cesar Machuca Jr., San Bernardino County, Victorville
Morning Links: New women’s hour record, Ed Begley Jr. bikes the Oscars, and no more $10k tech bikes
She did it.
American cyclist Evelyn Stevens not only broke the hour record, she shattered it, beating the women’s record set just last month by nearly seven-tenths of a mile.
The former Wall Street analyst, who was 25-years old before she raced for the first time, rode 29.81 miles in 60 minutes, setting the record just seven years after she turned pro.
By comparison, the men’s record, held by British pro Bradley Wiggins, is roughly 4 miles further.
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Once again, Ed Begley Jr. rode his bike to the Oscars from his Burbank home, carrying his tux in his pannier and changing once he arrived.
You can read his live tweets from the ride and during the ceremony on his Twitter page.
And when he’s not getting chewed on by bears, new Best Actor winner Leonardo DiCaprio is one of us, too.
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Local
Richard Risemberg says it’s easy to get bike racks installed in Los Angeles.
LAist asks what could possibly go wrong by renting bikeshare bikes to tourists in the Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills without adding bike lanes on major streets. The good news is, Cedars-Sinai is just a few minutes away.
The Glendale News-Press offers a good look at LACBC local chapter Walk Bike Glendale’s efforts to hand out free bike lights to lightless riders as part of the coalition’s Operation Firefly.
Whittier rallies around the Tricycle Man, after the well-known local man’s adult trike is destroyed in a left cross collision; over $12,000 has been raised for a new bike, far surpassing the original $1,000 goal. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link.
CORBA will offer a free mountain bike skills seminar at Malibu Creek State Park this Saturday.
State
California approves $133 million for 59 trail projects and separated bikeways in the new budget.
A San Marcos flood-control project intended to revitalize the city’s downtown area will include a bike and pedestrian pathway on the levee above San Marcos Creek, along with bike lanes across two new bridges.
Times are hard in Silicon Valley, as tech start-ups are giving away fewer $10,000 custom-made bikes as signing bonuses.
Sacramento cyclists flock to examine the bikes and gear at the 12th annual North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Lucky bastards. We either need to find a way to get the show down here, or get me up there.
National
A Seattle artist offers some nice illustrations of downtown bike messengers and delivery people.
More proof bicycling is good for you. A Nebraska man lost 136 pounds over three years by walking and biking, making a planned lap-band surgery unnecessary.
Members of a Texas cycling team were lucky to walk away after eight of the twelve riders were hit, and three injured, when they were left-crossed by a van driver. Thanks to Steve Katz for the heads-up.
After a Texas rider complained about a close pass by another rider on a bike path, the second cyclist responded by pulling a gun on him.
Great idea. A Wisconsin after-school program teaches bike maintenance to middle school students. I’m told Orange County’s Bicycle Tree offers a similar program; thanks to Calvin Design for the tip.
A Vermont OpEd bizarrely insists a road diet will make cyclists more vulnerable because no one have been killed on that particular street yet, while suggesting bike riders are safer on pathways and sidewalks, even if that means paving the latter over.
A New Jersey paper provides a very auto-centric guest column from a Hoboken minister who seems to forget that God loves those who don’t drive, too.
International
The Canadian government concludes truck side guards don’t save lives after all, despite widespread acceptance overseas.
More outrage from the UK, as a man takes up six train seats for himself and his bike. I think we can all agree it’s boorish behavior. But I wonder if anyone politely asked him to move his bike so they could sit?
Who needs bikeshare when you’ve got a bike bank? A British program loans bicycles to anyone who needs one.
Apparently upset at a collision with a sidewalk riding cyclist, an angry English pedestrian takes it out on the rider’s bike.
A Parisian family revives a line of hand-made, high-end bicycles that once counted Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf and Josephine Baker as customers; the standard model will set you back $12,000, while an e-bike runs $17,000. Thus pricing beyond the reach of most tech startups.
Residents of a Mumbai neighborhood demand a cycle track.
Two hundred Aussie riders strip down for what was billed as the final Melbourne edition of the World Naked Bike Ride.
Caught on video: A rear-view dashcam captures a cyclist knocked down in a violent hit-and-run; fortunately, the victim walked away with just some nasty road rash.
An Australian writer evidently thinks their equivalent of a three-foot passing law means bicyclists have to stay that far from cars, as well. And that if you give cyclists a meter, they’ll take a kilometer.
Finally…
Who needs a weather balloon when you have a bicycle? At last, a bike for people the rest of us have to look up to.
And apparently, driving a car 280 miles a week and not riding a bike since you were 12 makes a person an expert on bike safety.
Category: Morning Links / Tags: bicycling, bike the Oscars, Ed Begley Jr., Evelyn Stevens, hour record, just the links, Los Angeles
Weekend Links: Bikeshare really is coming to Beverly Hills; new CEQA regs could encourage active transportation
Hell has officially frozen over.
As we mentioned earlier, the Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills is looking for people to test out their coming bikeshare system starting this week. Volunteers can check out the bikes and ride for free for up to one hour.
The abbreviated two-station pilot program, based on the same CycleHop system as Santa Monica’s Breeze bikeshare, is starting with stations at Beverly Hills City Hall and next to the Wells Fargo bank at Camden Dr. and Santa Monica Blvd.
The latter is where these photos were taken, proving that one of the least bike friendly cities in the LA area really is moving forward with bikeshare. And plans to have the full 10 station system up and running this April, even before Downtown LA’s long-promised bikeshare moves beyond the vaporware stage.
Of course, the question is what happens when up to 50 bike riders at a time, many of them most likely tourists with little or no knowledge of the area, hit the city’s overly crowded, auto-centric streets with their near-complete lack of bike lanes or any other bicycling infrastructure.
Santa Monica, Long Beach, and to a lesser extent DTLA, are ready for bikeshare.
Beverly Hills, not so much.
Meanwhile, Long Beach’s long delayed bikeshare system may finally be up and running this spring; it will be based on the same system as SaMo and the BBHBH.
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Cyclelicious says changes to California’s CEQA regulations could boost active transportation; the outdated, auto-centric Level of Service will be replaced by a more flexible Vehicle Miles Traveled standard.
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Local
The owners of the Sherman Oaks Vespa shop raise more than $4,000 to buy a new bike for a Burbank boy with cerebral palsy after his was stolen by a homeless man; his old bike was recovered after the new bike had been ordered, and will be fixed up and donated to charity.
CiclaValley looks at his riding buddy and pro cyclist Phil Gaimon’s Malibu Gran Cookie Dough ride in November.
State
A 68-year old Gilroy man suffered life-threatening injuries in a collision.
A Redwood City man uses Tile to recover his stolen $2,400 bike in San Francisco; whoever stole it apparently put some serious miles, with an extra 300 miles on the odometer in just three days.
The judge who bent over backwards to give a San Ramon lawyer a slap on the wrist for the drunken hit-and-run death of a cyclist now threatens to give him a tougher sentence for lying about his wife’s health to delay sentencing in the case. Never mind that he already violated his probation by failing a drug test.
Only 18% of the residents in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district own cars, yet the streets are designed to funnel motor vehicles, with no plans for bike lanes.
The Sacramento Bee makes the case for why the city needs a bikeshare system.
Chico cyclists erect a new bike-related artwork in honor of a long-time local advocate.
National
A woman was inspired to ride across the US by her grandfather’s death when she was just 16, carrying his ashes in a locket.
More proof that bike commuting is good for you, as a Provo UT man loses 100 pounds in just one year of riding to work.
Evidently, police in Austin TX think the way to achieve Vision Zero is to chase people off the sidewalk.
In the latest study from the University of Duh, Michigan researchers figure out that skilled cyclists are better at controlling their bodies when they ride, and have to make fewer large corrective moves than less experienced riders.
A new report looks at protected bike lanes in New York City. Which will likely induce envy in bike riders most everywhere else.
The Bike Law website gets it. After their webmaster was critically injured in a North Carolina collision, they vow to never call crashes “accidents” again. Period.
International
The rate of bicycling has tripled in London over the last 15 years, while driving has dropped 50%, even though the city continues to lag behind other European cities in encouraging cycling.
Brit bicyclists are warned about bike thieves sawing through bike racks, then covering it up with gaffer’s tape. That’s a common bike theft technique here as well, with cuts often covered by bicycling stickers; always check the integrity of a rack before locking up if you see any stickers or tape on it.
Study bicycling and bike infrastructure in Copenhagen with People for Bikes this June for just $5,000, plus airfare.
The Guardian aptly observes that the draconian new bike laws in Australia’s New South Wales seem designed more to deter bicycling than protect riders from motor vehicles.
Finally…
Your next bike may be printed instead of built, whether you prefer a titanium roadie or a foldie. A homeless man’s claim to fame is stealing Bruce Springsteen’s bike back in the ‘60s.
And you know your proposal to allow motor vehicles on a 243-mile bike and pedestrian trail really sucks when even bike haters think it’s a bad idea.
Category: Bikeshare, Morning Links / Tags: Beverly Hills, bicycling, bikeshare, Breeze bikeshare, CycleHop, Los Angeles, the Biking Black Hole
Update: 66-year old bicyclist killed in Montclair hit-and-run
A bike rider has been killed in Montclair Friday night.
InlandNews reports Montclair police are investigating a fatal hit-and-run involving a bike, and shows a photo of a damaged bicycle lying in the street.
They add that the suspect vehicle is a dark blue truck.
No other details are available at this time. However, KNBC-4 has confirmed the death in a story that is not yet online.
This is the 21st bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the third in San Bernardino County. That compares with eight in SoCal this time last year, and none in the county.
Update: The Daily Bulletin has identified the victim as 66-year old Montclair resident Dieu Van Nguyen.
According to the paper, Nguyen was struck by a pickup shortly before 6:30 pm on the 4600 block of Kingsley Street. Police responding to the scene found him laying on the sidewalk; he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Authorities are looking for a full-sized, dark colored four-door pick-up with lights on the roof over the windshield. Anyone with information is urged to call the Montclair Police Department at 909/621-4771.
Update 2: Nguyen was on his way to visit a friend when he found fatally injured less than one mile from his home. The Vietnamese immigrant, who recently retired, leaves behind a wife, three children and two step-children.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Dieu Van Nguyen and his loved ones.
Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
Category: Bicycle Safety, Injuries and Fatalities, Update / Tags: bicycling fatality, Dieu Van Nguyen, hit-and-run, Montclair, San Bernardino County
Morning Links: Rio Hondo bike path closed, Glendale matches LA’s hit-and-run rewards, and way better wayfinding
The LA River Bike Path isn’t the only major local bikeway closed right now.
Mateusz Suska of Bike LA County tweeted Thursday that the Rio Hondo Bike Path is closed between San Gabriel Blvd and Rush Street through the Whittier Narrows due to construction work.
The county bikeways map shows the closure is due to last through March 10th.
However, I keep getting an internal server error when I try to access the bike path closures page; maybe you’ll have better luck.
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Glendale votes to match Los Angeles in offering rewards up to $50,000 for information leading to the conviction of a hit-and-run driver.
Hopefully, the idea will spread; drivers shouldn’t get away with it just because they ran away on the wrong side of the city limits.
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The Burbank city council votes once again to ban bikes from the formerly bike, pedestrian and equestrian Mariposa Street Bridge over the LA River.
But in nearly the same breath, they voted to move forward with a separate bike and pedestrian bridge at Bob Hope Drive. Although one that won’t be ready until at least 2020, while the bike ban on the Mariposa Street Bridge goes into effect right away.
So you’re only screwed for the next four years.
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Now this is a wayfinding sign, as my platinum-level bike friendly hometown installs detailed signage along a key bike corridor.
Photo courtesy of FC Bikes
I’d like to say we could use signs like this here in LA. But first we’d have to get a key bike corridor to put them on.
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Local
Bikeshare is coming to Venice, as LA and Santa Monica approve plans for five Breeze bikeshare stations, with up to 15 more to come. The story adds that LA, Long Beach, West Hollywood and yes, the Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills are scheduled to get bikeshare systems of their own before the year is over.
Los Angeles Magazine looks at Caltrans’ plans to destroy yet another neighborhood with a flyover HOV lane exit ramp that would go right next to the historic St. John’s Cathedral, and dump drivers in the middle of LA’s first Complete Street on South Figueroa.
One percent of West Hollywood residents bike to work, compared to two percent of the people who work there; 85% of residents prefer to drive by themselves.
Long Beach’s Empact is hosting a free bike safety class this Saturday; everyone who participates will get a free helmet and bike lights.
The Times looks at the soon-to-be bike-friendly makeover of Huntington Park’s Pacific Boulevard.
Bike SGV is bringing the Cycling Without Age program to El Monte next month.
State
Coronado police bust a bike thief using a remotely monitored bicycle with a tracking device in it. Or as anyone else would call it, a bait bike.
The head of a San Diego non-profit says it’s great that the city has adopted Vision Zero, but now it’s time to pay for it.
San Diego is investing $750,000 in hosting the first stage of the Amgen Tour of California, while expecting a return of $2.5 million to the local economy.
Cathedral City moves forward with a 2.5 mile segment of the inexplicably controversial CV Link, a planned 50-mile multi-use path circling the Coachella Valley that has faced intense opposition in some cities along the route.
Palo Alto’s new bike-riding mayor says traffic won’t improve until more people get out of their cars. Which is pretty much the answer just about anywhere.
National
A Portland writer suggests five ways Vision Zero should address race and income injustice.
Oregon is becoming the next state to phase out Share the Road signs.
Las Vegas will take a year to complete the city’s first Complete Street, replacing two traffic lanes with wider sidewalks, buffered bike lanes, narrower lanes and a raised center median.
A Texas doctor raises funds to give nearly 4,000 bike helmets to local kids.
After a Cleveland man is acquitted for fatally left crossing a group of cyclists, a local bike advocacy group says being sorry for his actions should not excuse him from being accountable to them.
New bamboo bike maker Pedal Forward will employ the homeless to build bikes in New York, while 10% of sales will help fund bicycles for people in Tanzania and Uganda.
Like some creature from a horror film, the lawsuit to rip out NYC’s highly successful, five-year old Prospect Park West bike lanes refuses to die, even after all the major players have moved on.
Now that’s taking traffic crime seriously. An Alabama man gets one year for criminally negligent homicide for running down two cyclists in 2014, and 10 years for assault.
International
People for Bikes goes bike riding through Cuba.
A Vancouver website asks if British Columbia’s mandatory bike helmet law will kill the city’s coming bikeshare system. It certainly won’t help; Seattle’s helmet law is often blamed for the failure of that city’s program.
Not surprisingly, 42% of Brits surveyed say they live too far away to bike to work, while 20% cited the country’s notorious weather as their reason not to ride; nine percent don’t let either excuse get in the way.
Evidently, LA isn’t the only place where the streets are crumbling. A British cyclist complains that potholes are a disgrace after flatting both tires and narrowly avoiding the truck behind him. Maybe what he needs is a bike light that tells bicyclists where to expect them.
As bicycling booms in Israel, Tel Aviv plans to spend 30 million shekels — about $7.5 million — to expand and connect their existing network of dead-end bikeways.
Evidently having solved all other traffic and crime problems, Brisbane, Australia police crack down on bicyclists who don’t have a bike bell. Because apparently, just using your voice just isn’t good enough Down Under.
Finally…
For anyone unclear on the concept, getting drunk and throwing your bike at passing cars is not the correct way to use it. Your next bike could shoot lasers and run on the Android OS.
And the South Pole is about to become bike friendly. Sort of.