Tag Archive for active transportation

France tells carmakers to promote biking and walking in their ads, and Argentine driver runs down 5 riders on bike path

January 4, 2022 / / Comments Off on France tells carmakers to promote biking and walking in their ads, and Argentine driver runs down 5 riders on bike path
That’s more like it.

France is promoting alternative transportation by requiring all automotive ads to include a brief mention of alternatives to driving.

Options include “Consider carpooling,” “For day-to-day use, take public transportation,” or “For short trips, opt for walking or cycling,” along with the hashtag #SeDeplacerMoinsPolluer, or “Move and Pollute Less.”

That requirement applies to all TV, print, radio and internet advertising; failure to include one of the three options could result in a fine of up to fine of up to 50,000 euros, or $56,444 at current exchange rates.

Maybe we could see that on this side of the Atlantic some day.

We can dream, right?

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Horrifying story from Argentina, where a stoned driver doing 74 mph rammed five people riding on a bike path, before fleeing the scene with the help of four people waiting in a nearby truck.

Sadly, one of the victims died on the operating table.

Police arrested later arrested the driver, along with his accomplices. However, there’s no word on whether he lost control of his car and just caught a ride with people nearby, or if this was intentional and preplanned.

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Turns out some bike riders aren’t fans of red light-running scofflaw bicyclists who cut them off, either.

https://twitter.com/wildbell/status/1478125812691849216

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I want to see this sign posted along every street in California.

https://twitter.com/VisionZeroCA/status/1478114003754774528

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

Clearly, not everyone is a fan of the Bay Area’s Slow Streets. But not everyone threatens to come back with a Freightliner semi-truck and run over a woman to express their displeasure.

A Singapore truck driver was caught on video blowing through a red light while honking his horn at the woman legally crossing the street on her bike to get the hell out of his way.

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

The LAPD is looking for a man who stole a bicycle to make his getaway, after he murdered a homeless man in Panorama City in an unprovoked shooting.

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Local

Urbanize LA readers chose Streets For All’s proposal to extend the Ballona Creek bike path as the city’s best transportation project of the past year.

Newly freed Britney Spears is one of us, taking a spin on a high-performance ebike that looks more like a dirt bike with pedals, with a top speed of around 28 mph.

 

State

The San Diego Union-Tribune looks forward to Sunday’s annual Encinitas Cyclovia, combining open streets, live music, safety clinics and a bike rodeo for the kids.

An op-ed from the wife of a fallen San Diego bike rider killed by a wrong way driver, along with the advocacy manager for the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, takes the Union-Tribune to task for an editorial cartoon showing a business owner run over by bike riders, while saying the city needs to do far more to improve safety for people on bicycles and prevent more needless deaths.

A mountain biker was airlifted to a Riverside hospital with moderate injuries after he rode off an embankment on a Jurupa Valley trail, just north of the Pomona Freeway.

 

National

The National Complete Streets Coalition has put together a handy dandy little tool to help you calculate the benefits of any Complete Streets project, including safety, health, the environment and the economy.

A Colorado letter writer complains about the sentence given the speeding driver who killed pro mountain biker Benjamin Sonntag, calling the three-year sentence “pitiful,” especially since he could get out in just 18 months.

A Wisconsin man was able to get his stolen bike back after spotting it for sale online; police arrested the thieves when the man set up a meeting, and recovered several other purloined bicycles, as well.

That’s more like it, part two. New York-based grocery delivery service Buyk is expanding into Chicago with a commitment to deliver purchases within 15 minutes, without delivery fees, while paying their delivery riders a competitive wage starting at $17 per hour. Maybe we can talk them into coming to Los Angeles next.

Santa Monica based-Lime destroyed around 1,000 bicycles when they pulled out of South Bend, Indiana before the pandemic, despite donating 100 bikes to the city as the basis of a new community bikeshare system, and sending 200 bikes to Africa for people in need.

Unbelievable. The Allegheny County medical examiner ruled that the death of a Pittsburgh man was accidental, even after he was tased by police eight to ten times for the crime of taking an apparently abandoned bicycle around the block for a test ride. Which makes you wonder what the hell the cops would have to do to call it a homicide.

New York Streetsblog highlights five dangerous neighborhoods new Mayor Eric Adams needs to address to get the city’s failing Vision Zero back on track. There’s no way to get LA’s Vision Zero back on track, because it never was on track to begin with.

 

International

Bike Radar offers a complete guide to immersive chain waxing, calling it the gold standard for lubricating your bike chain.

A university in the Netherlands is testing out an 82-foot section of a smart bike path, complete with embedded with sensors, 3D cameras, wifi, radar and bluetooth, which can tell researchers how many people are using it, how fast they’re going and when; smart paths could ultimately be used to keep bike riders from waiting at red lights in bad weather, or direct riders to a faster route if it gets too busy.

The BBC shines a well-deserved spotlight on a 17-year old Ghanan boy who builds handmade wooden e-motorbikes to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. Even if the report is written in pidgin English. Seriously, I’ve known a number of people from Ghana, most of whom speak English at least as well I do, if not better.

Aussie researchers are looking at the worldwide trend of nonprofit bicycle kitchens that provide tools, second hand parts and bikes, and help with repairs, as well as offering a hub for community building. That’s true for several LA bike co-ops, including the Bicycle Kitchen, Bikerowave, The Bike Oven and the Ride On! Bike Shop in Leimert Park.

A Kenyon man spent three months riding the 2,700 miles from Malinda, Kenya to Durbin, South Africa to raise funds for orphans, while suffering three crashes along the way.

A Philippine website remembers a 74-year old endurance athlete and medal-winning triathlete who died recently from a stroke, competing for decades after losing his leg in a 1978 bombing that killed his 16-year old brother.

 

Competitive Cycling

Irish cyclist Dan Martin calls it a career after becoming just one of three Irish riders to win a stage in each of the Grand Tours, living up to his promise that he would walk away when he stopped enjoying it.

 

Finally…

Your next bike helmet could look like a turtle and unfold with the pull of a string. Arnold has to tell his ebike “I’ll be back” after being spotted with a plastic boot on his leg.

And apparently, blue is for boys and pink is for girls — even when it comes to pro cycling kits.

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

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

US bike injuries spiked last year, Streets For All CD5 debate, and Republicans willing to bike more but not drive less

October 27, 2021 / / 3 comments

No real surprise here.

A new study shows that bike-related injuries doubled across the US during last year’s pandemic lockdowns, even though overall traffic injuries were down.

Bicycling injuries rose nearly 31% at an Orange County trauma center, while almost tripling in Portland.

Researchers explained the jump by noting the increase in bicycling rates resulting from the bike boom, as more people took to their bikes for exercise and to break the boredom of being stuck at home.

Although another problem, as we’ve noted before, is the increased severity of bike injuries as drivers took advantage of the emptier streets to put their foot down on the gas pedal.

The same study showed gun-related injuries jumped nearly 25% during the same period.

Photo by Olya Kobruseva from Pexels.

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I missed Streets For All’s Mobility Debate among the candidates to replace pseudo-environmentalist Paul Koretz in CD5 while I was down for the count the past couple days.

Fortunately, LA’s one and only mobility PAC has posted the full debate online.

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Interesting take on the climate change debate, as 44% of Republicans express a willingness to walk and bike more, compared to just 39% who are willing to drive less.

Even though that equates to the same thing.

And even though two-thirds don’t want to hold fossil fuel providers accountable for the climate crisis.

https://twitter.com/Kenmcld/status/1453055860964478977

Meanwhile, a study of seven European countries shows bike rider emit 84% less CO2 than drivers or public transport users.

And Seattle’s pilot project to replace delivery vans with e-cargo bikes for last-mile trips reduced CO2 emissions an average of 30% per package.

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Apparently, you can even move a museum by cargo bike.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/1453066685041106946

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Yet another gentle reminder that free bicycle registration is your best hope of getting your bike back if anything happens to it.

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This is who we share the road with.

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

Police in Lubbock, Texas are looking for a hit-and-run driver who intentionally ran down a man on a bicycle, then got out of his car and repeatedly punched the victim, for no apparent reason.

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Local

Sadly, this is who we share the road with, too. A speeding 18-year old driver faces a possible murder count for slamming into a Van Nuys building that was hosting a popup Halloween event, killing one woman and injuring several others; the man was reportedly fleeing after police broke up a street takeover.

Pasadena police arrested a 37-year old woman for repeatedly bashing a man in the head with a bottle in a failed attempt to steal his bicycle in Washington Park.

Santa Monica celebrates the fifth anniversary of the new and improved California Incline, complete with a protected bike and pedestrian lane.

A lawsuit against a Metro bus driver and a contractor for the transportation agency goes to trial this week in the death of 13-year old Ciara Smith as she rode on a Redondo Beach sidewalk two years ago; she was killed when she rode off an angled curb cut that forced her bike out into the street.

Greg Camp, guitarist for ’90s rock stars Smash Mouth, was one of us, saying he wrote their first hit Walkin’ on the Sun about feeling afraid while riding his bike in the wake of the ’92 LA Riots.

 

State

I want to be like him when I grow up. An 83-year old Carlsbad man completed an 11-year quest to ride the 24,901-mile circumference of the Earth, without ever leaving his own neighborhood. Although I probably wouldn’t mind leaving my neighborhood now and then.

A 53-year old Santa Barbara man died in his own bathroom, hours after he brushed against a fellow moped rider and fell into the street. While this involves a moped, which is capable of higher speeds than a traditional bike or ped-assist ebike, it’s a reminder to always get checked out by a doctor after a hard fall, because some injuries don’t become apparent until hours later.

Fremont is one of the all-too-rare examples of a city that has actually made Vision Zero work, reducing traffic deaths to an average of just 2.1 per 100,000 residents each year, compared to an average of 9.1 per 100,000 in California, and 11.0 in the US. That also compares to Los Angeles, where Vision Zero has become an afterthought, with city leaders too afraid of angering motoring voters to make the hard choices needed to save lives.

San Francisco began a belated effort to fix southbound Polk street and prepare it for a protected bike lane, five months after a woman was killed and a man seriously injured when a driver used the painted bike lane to bypass a line of stalled traffic, blowing through a red light at twice the speed limit; the other side of the street already has one of the city’s best protected lanes.

Sacramento officials announced a $12 million plan to improve the popular Lower American Parkway bike and pedestrian path, although there was no word on how that would impact the homeless encampments along the trail.

 

National

A writer for Next City complains that VanMoof’s new high-speed, car-replacing “hyperbike” ebikes aren’t really bicycles and don’t belong in bike lanes, and should be regulated more like mopeds or motorcycles.

Make your own very clumsy looking DIY ebike using a modified car alternator.

A pair of kindhearted Iowa cops dug into their own pockets to buy a boy a new bike after his was stolen, when they learned about the theft from the boy’s waitress mother.

A kindhearted Oklahoma cop gave a 17-year old boy a new bike after learning the teen was walking an hour and a half to work each way.

Advocates complain that New York’s plan to make a hard-won open street into a permanent, carfree linear park fails, because drivers could easily reclaim the space by simply driving over the painted diverters and car-tickler plastic bendy posts.

Security cam video captured a New York man fighting off a half dozen attackers who used sticks, bottles and knives in a failed attempt to steal his bicycle.

Pennsylvania police are looking for a man who was allegedly high on meth, coke and other drugs when he ran down and killed a 60-year old man riding a bicycle in May; he’s wanted on ten separate charges ranging from felony counts to traffic infractions.

DC’s mayor got an earful from both sides, as residents of an affluent neighborhood complained about sacrificing parking spaces to build a protected bike lane, even though only 40% of the city’s residents own cars. The question is how many have driveways or garages they could use instead of free street parking.

Police still haven’t found the killer of a North Carolina grandfather, who was repeatedly stabbed from behind and brutally beaten while riding his bicycle on a Raleigh bike path over a year ago.

 

International

Don’t plan on getting a deal on a new bike anytime soon, as Pink Bike explains  why bicycle prices will continue to rise over the next year.

Cycling Weekly complains about the biggest irritants of modern bicycle design.

Sounds like fun. A London website recommends bicycling a 10.25-mile route through an “amazingly pretty town” on the Scottish island of Cumbrae, otherwise known as the “Island of a Thousand Bicycles.”

Scottish stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill called attention to climate change and the importance of renewable energy by riding his bike across the blades of a working wind turbine.

They get it. Wellington, New Zealand is proposing a new tunnel paralleling an existing automotive tunnel under the city’s Mt. Victoria. But only for walking and bicycling, with no additional automotive lanes.

An indigenous women’s group on a remote Australian island is in need of more bicycles, with more women wanting to ride than they have bikes.

 

Competitive Cycling

Britain’s Bradley Wiggins apologizes for being such a jerk over the years, as the former Tour de France winner explains he just didn’t know how to handle fame and adulation. Here’s a suggestion — just don’t be an asshole.

VeloNews talks with America’s only remaining Tour de France winner, as Greg LeMond lined up for his first gravel race.

L39ion of Los Angeles made a lot of news the past few days, starting with Rouleur’s interview with team founders Justin and Cory Williams about the team’s game-changing journey in its first few years.

VeloNews talks with Ian Garrison about his decision to step down from the WorldTour to race domestically with L39ion of Los Angeles; a spokesperson for the team says Garrison was “treated like a water bottle” by his former Deceuninck-QuickStep team.

And L39ion of LA is apparently trying to corner the market on bike racing siblings by signing yet another pair.

 

Finally…

Probably not the best idea to seek YouTube stardom by impersonating a campus cop, including forcing a bike rider to undergo a series of sobriety checks. Who needs a car when you can get a ski rack on your cargo bike?

And how wasted do you have to be to crash into a bicycle in the middle of the roadway, yet somehow assume no one was riding it?

Although that is possible.

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

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

Protest Malibu’s PCH door zone plan, Caltrans District 7 active transportation plan, and Sunset4All halfway to goal

July 15, 2021 / / One comment

After we sounded the alarm yesterday, Streets For All is calling on everyone to email the Malibu Planning Commission.

The street safety PAC is urging bike riders to protest plans to widen a two-mile section of PCH to “improve bicycle safety” by installing even more roadside parking, forcing bike riders into the door zone.

And yes, that means you.

Ask the City of Malibu to add safe, protected bike lanes to PCH

Thanks to our friends at Biking In LA for pointing out that the City of Malibu is considering an item on its next planning commission agenda (item 5B) to improve safety for people on bikes on PCH.

However, their proposal is really a way to add even more parking for cars on PCH, while putting people in bikes in the “door zone.” We need them to do better, and eventually would love a protected bike lane for the entire stretch of PCH.

As usual, they include a link, complete with email addresses and a sample email, to contact the Malibu Planning Commission by this Sunday and voice your concerns over this dangerous “bike safety” plan.

Photo by DJ_Moertel from Pixabay.

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Cuong Trinh, the Active Transportation and Complete Streets/ Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for Caltrans District 7, wants your input on the state DOT’s active transportation plan for the Los Angeles region.

Hello Community Stakeholder,

I wanted to let you know that we are undertaking the development of the Caltrans District 7 Active Transportation Plan.

Our plan serves as a needs assessment, by utilizing our government agency partners, non-government stakeholders and members of the public to identify bicycle and pedestrian needs along the State Highway System. In order to undertake the completion of this plan, we have a Consultant that is analyzing existing planning documents from cities and counties, as well as user and partner-submitted needs (using a location-based-needs survey) that your organization and its stakeholders can participate in.

The State Highway System includes all state-owned freeways, select regional highways and some local streets. All of these freeways, highways or local streets are signed by a red and blue Interstate freeway shield (Interstate 5) or a green California state highway shield (State Route 2).

Next Thursday, July 22nd, we invite you to attend one of our informational meetings intended for our non-governmental stakeholders where we will provide an introduction to the Caltrans Active Transportation Plans and the effort to complete the plan in Caltrans District 7, serving Los Angeles and Ventura counties. You may be aware that other Caltrans districts are also in the process of completing their district-specific plans as Caltrans has 12 districts that serve 58 counties statewide.

Your organization and its stakeholders may be aware of bicycle and pedestrian needs on our State Highways. These needs can range from missing or broken sidewalks to gaps in bicycle lanes and paths along or across State Highway System facilities. We see that your input is critical in providing locations and context for those needs. With your help, we can prioritize those needs in our future highway projects. However, without sufficient input from our stakeholders, we would be short of sufficient information that our project engineers could use to address non-motorized user needs.

You can learn more about the CAT Plans, as well as take a survey (where users are invited to place pins on a map) at http://www.catplan.org and click District 7.

We have scheduled two informational meetings in the next week that you can attend at your convenience, as the same materials will be presented at either meeting. Therefore, you can attend one meeting that best fits your schedule.

Feel free to attend one of these (virtual) meetings at your convenience:

Also feel free to forward this to anyone from other organizations or people who may find the Caltrans Active Transportation Plans effort of interest or relevance, as we may have missed many organizations and local interests.

Should you have any questions regarding the CAT Plans, don’t hesitate to contact the project lead for the Caltrans District 7 Active Transportation Plan, at cuong.trinh@dot.ca.gov.

Hope you stay healthy and safe.

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Sunset4All is now over halfway to their goal of raising $25,000 to fund a public/private partnership to build protected bike lanes on eastern sections of Sunset and Santa Monica Blvds.

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If you’ve got a few extra bucks, take a moment to help support the LA-area’s most important voice for transportation news.

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Now tell me again why businesses need to keep every car parking spot to survive.

https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1415309391889408007

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GCN explains how to successfully deploy chamois cream to keep your bike from being a pain in the ass.

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

Horrifying video from Idaho, where a 26-year old man faces charges for responding to a minor dispute between kids at a skate park by chasing two young boys in his pickup, and running over their bicycles after they barely jump out of the way. Never mind what kind of a sick schmuck would actually do something like that.

No bias here. A Missouri newspaper says a young boy was injured when he hit a car with his bicycle. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell what actually happened from the brief three-sentence article. But that probably wasn’t it.

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

There’s a special place in hell for a “‘bitter’ and jealous man” who rode his bike up to his ex-girlfriend as she got a London bus and threw a caustic chemical in her face, leaving her with severe acid burns; the attack followed a months-long harassment campaign.

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Local

LAist looks at the continuing efforts by Metro Bike workers to form a union to protect their interests with the company who manages it for Metro. As the son of a union man, you probably don’t have to guess which side I fall on.

Surprisingly, Los Angeles didn’t make the list of the 20 US cities with the worst urban heat islands. Despite what it feels like here in Hollywood on hot days.

 

State

The 4th of July continues to take a toll on bike riders, after a 15-year old Fremont boy died of injuries he suffered in a collision while riding his bike that night.

Despite a number of street safety projects across the city, San Francisco is failing to make progress on Vision Zero, with roughly the same number of fatalities last year as in 2014, when the program to eliminate traffic deaths was adopted. On the other hand, at least they’re undertaking major Vision Zero projects, unlike a certain megalopolis to the south we could mention, which continues to just nibble around the edges.

A San Francisco website says yes, the city needs cheaper bikeshare. But it also needs to do something about those damn potholes and fractured streets.

Redding hopes the public turns out for a mile-long bike parade to celebrate the opening of a new two-way cycle track.

 

National

New Statesman considers how the “populous and multifarious history of women’s cycling” set women free.

A new study shows police traffic stops don’t prevent crashes, while unfairly targeting people of color.

Writing for Road Bike Action, a doctor explains how to treat and survive road rash. Don’t get me started. I once wiped out during a high-speed turn and ended up with road rash from my ankle to my chin. Good times.

A Tucson, Arizona man faces a second-degree murder charge for the alleged drunken hit-and-run that killed a 56-year old man riding his bike.

After Tulsa, Oklahoma responded to complaints by ripping out a bike lane that had been installed without consulting the mostly Black residents of North Tulsa, a lone Black man walked the route carrying his bicycle in a powerful solo protest, saying that as a bike rider, he feels like a minority within a minority.

A Houston man got life without parole for fatally shooting a homeless man, after previously shooting the same man in the leg a few months earlier; he also faces charges for the fatal shooting of a woman riding a bicycle five years earlier.

A new book from Massachusetts-based author Peter Zheutlin spins a fictionalized tale about his real life great-great aunt Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, aka Annie Londonderry, famed for being the first woman to ride a bicycle around the world over a 125 years ago.

This is who we share the road with. Five children were injured when an allegedly stoned driver lost control of her car and slammed into a Rochester, New York home, coming to a stop in the living room where they were gathered.

Bizarre story from Philadelphia, where a driver was physically attacked by a bystander while trying to get away after running over a 12-year old boy with his pickup, with the boy’s bike still trapped underneath.

 

International

Fast Company says simply designing cities better — whether through superblocks, a Paris-inspired 15-minute city or going carfree — could cut deaths by all causes up to 20%.

The European Union commits to phasing out new gas and diesel-powered cars by 2035.

The booming gravel bike market is keeping titanium-frame bikemakers busy.

Outside continues to consolidate its growing monopoly on bike news with the purchase of Canada-based Pinkbike and CyclingTips, as well as the TrailForks mountain bike mapping app; the company already owns VeloNews, Peloton, Beta and Triathlete.

A British website explains how to keep your bike from being stolen, and what to do if it is anyway.

A Dutch village near Utrecht unveiled the world’s longest solar power-generating bike path, stretching more than the length of three and a half football fields, as part of a drive to be carbon neutral by 2040.

Speaking of Utrecht, the city’s latest new district will go even further in prioritizing bicyclists and pedestrians by banning cars entirely. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be packing my bags and dusting off my passport.

A Singapore woman begs bike riders to announce their presence to runners and pedestrians before passing by ringing a bell or saying “on your right” (or left, here), or even just “excuse me.”

 

Competitive Cycling

Defending champ Tadej Pogačar tightened his grip on the yellow jersey, as rivals tried and failed to wrest it from him on Wednesday’s penultimate mountain stage.

The New York Times and National Public Radio both pick up the story of Austrian cyclist Lachlan Morton’s remarkable solo ride along the entire Tour de France route, and every mile in between, raising over half a million for World Bicycle Relief while beating the Tour peloton the Paris by six days.

The popular Belgian Waffle Ride rolls into San Marcos this weekend with three days of festivals and bike racing, while the eponymous 132-mile multi-surface race takes place on Sunday.

A British woman was seriously injured when a commercial van driver apparently missed or ignored warning signs, and crashed into her while she was participating in an officially sanctioned time trial.

 

Finally…

How you, too, can become the country’s newest bicycle mayor. And always wear your helmet — it could save you from a tiger attack.

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

 

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

Killer meth-fueled Vegas driver gets 16-40 years, misguided recall for CD4’s Raman, and $20 million for LAC transport projects

June 10, 2021 / / Comments Off on Killer meth-fueled Vegas driver gets 16-40 years, misguided recall for CD4’s Raman, and $20 million for LAC transport projects

That was fast.

Almost seven months to the day after five Las Vegas bicyclists were killed by a truck driver, their killer copped a plea to two counts of DUI causing death.

DUI is right.

Arizona resident Jordan Barson had nine times the amount of meth in his system required to be considered legally impaired.

He now faces anywhere from 16 to 40 years behind bars, along with a paltry $58,000 in restitution.

Once he gets out, whenever that may be, Barson will be required to have an interlock device on his car for anywhere from one to three years.

Which, it should be noted, detects alcohol, not meth.

Meanwhile, a killer truck driver in Flagstaff AZ didn’t have to play the universal Get Out Of Jail Free card after local police played it for him, claiming the sun was in his eyes when he ran a red light and slammed into a group of bicyclists.

Fifty-eight-year old California resident Normand Cloutier is accused of killing a 29-year old woman and injuring five other riders in the crash.

Of course, as several people pointed out on Twitter, the correct course of action when you can’t see what the hell is directly in front of you is to pull over to the side of the road until you can.

Photo by Cameron Casey from Pexels.

Let’s hope Barson’s cell is slightly better than this one.

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Another day, another recall by people who can’t get over the fact that their candidate lost.

This time the intended target is CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman, who hasn’t been in office long enough to actually do anything that would call for one.

Not that that matters in today’s political environment.

Let’s hope this one doesn’t get any further than the idiotic attempt to recall Mike Bonin a few years, driven by conservative KFI anger meisters Jon and Ken.

Who will probably be happy to get behind this one, too.

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The new transportation bill under consideration in the US Congress includes $20 million for LA-area projects, according to Burbank Rep. Adam Schiff’s office.

In addition to traffic and pedestrian projects, the list also includes sharrows in Glendale, and pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements on Melrose in West Hollywood.

That last one could have connected with a Complete Streets makeover of Melrose in Los Angeles, if it hadn’t been summarily and singlehandedly killed by CD5 Councilmember and pseudo-environmentalist Paul Koretz.

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The Bike League announced their latest list of Bicycle Friendly Businesses, with 33 new or renewing firms honored.

None of which are in Southern California, although the LA office of the Morrison & Foerster LLP law firm got an honorable mention.

Maybe someone should tell them that MoFo may not be the positive nickname they seem to think it is.

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Maybe it’s just me, but it seems there are few things more sexist than women’s fashion magazines.

Especially when it comes to bicycles.

Because apparently, women just want to look cute on a bike, and would never want to put on spandex and get all sweaty or anything.

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Don’t miss this one if you’re in the Bay Area this weekend.

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

Clearly, he doesn’t get it, either After a community board in New York’s Upper West Side calls for banning ebikes from protected bike lanes, the city’s outgoing mayor quickly refused — because he doesn’t think they belong in traffic lanes.

Drivers in Auckland, New Zealand, are plotting to invade the city’s bike lanes on a busy Saturday morning — this Saturday, in fact — and drive on the bike lanes when they’re likely to be full of people on bicycles. Which seems to be the point. One hundred drivers have confirmed so far, so if it’s like very other Facebook event, maybe three might actually show up.

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

A Boston bike rider got off with a warning for riding through a busy highway tunnel, after state police officers told him it was both illegal and dangerous, as evidenced by the sudden braking as drivers spotted him in the right lane.

What the hell is wrong with some people? An 18-year old Delaware man faces charges for shooting an 11-year old girl with a BB gun in a dispute over the girl riding his bicycle.

A bike-riding Singapore man got off with a $5,600 fine for punching a truck driver who had tried to run him down during a mutual road rage incident; the driver had already been sentenced to a week behind bars.

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Local

KTLA-5’s Rich DeMuro visits Venice Beach’s Bike Attack to learn about electric bicycles, then test rides the VanMoof S3, calling it the Tesla of ebikes. Then again, that’s not necessarily a compliment.

Departing Metro CEO Phil Washington pens a letter to the community in support of the 18-mile NoHo to Pasadena bus rapid transit line, which includes the proposed Beautiful Boulevard plan through Eagle Rock.

Caltrans recommends a $3.532 million plan to fix the twin intersections of Rambla Pacifico and Las Flores Canyon at PCH in Malibu, which saw three traffic deaths and 81 injuries in just a three year period. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to include any bicycle safety measures on the deadly highway.

 

State

It takes a major league schmuck to steal a three-wheeled adaptive bike used by a special needs girl to help with her balance issues.

Bay Area bike advocacy group Bike East Bay wants your help to save the protected bike lanes on Oakland’s iconic Telegraph Avenue.

 

National

Seriously? Consumer Reports discovers the “hidden danger” of big pickup trucks, which are increasing in size with virtually every model year. Never mind that the risk to others should be pretty damn obvious to anyone who has ever walked, ridden or just stood next to one.

USA Cycling announced their new Let’s Ride program to teach bicycle safety and basic bike skills to elementary school children throughout the US.

A new ebike from Civilized Cycles is designed to carry up to two passengers and four loaded grocery bags in comfort, with an automated air ride system that adjusts to the weight the bike is carrying for a smoother ride.

In Style shows women what to wear to look cute on four types of bike rides. Because as we all know, looking cute is what really matters, and no woman would ever want to put on spandex and get all sweaty or anything. Right?

Marketplace examines why Phoenix-based fixie maker State Bicycles is struggling to meet the increased demand brought on by the pandemic-induced bike boom; co-founder Mehdi Farsi blames supply chain issues for an inability to ramp up to meet a two to three-times jump in sales.

Speaking of Phoenix, the downtown area just got its first two-way protected bike lane.

After a Davenport, Iowa man was killed by a red light-running hit-and-run driver while riding his bike back home, the victim’s wife says it never should have happened.

St. Louis is installing zebra lane delineators to separate bicycles and motor vehicles along a protected bike lane; the small bumps — often called armadillos in other cities — promise to be more effective at keeping drivers out than the usual thin plastic car ticklers. Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.

A study conducted by Maine’s Bowdoin College shows that cities that adopt a Complete Streets policy also see improvements in how crashes between drivers and pedestrians are covered by the media.

Long Island’s Suffolk County is cracking down on scofflaw riders from the Bike Life movement, by creating a new crime of reckless bike riding complete with a $250 fine and possible confiscation of their bicycles.

Curbed’s Alissa Walker, who always gets it, says helmet laws are not what New York bike riders need right now.

 

International

USA Today offers a modestly covered-up view of naked bike rides — and riders — around the world.

The Barbados transportation minister says bike riders have an equal right to the road, and calls on drivers to help create a more equitable environment for everyone.

Cycling Tips features the hilarious Danish helmet PSA we linked to yesterday, while calling for more “bike-adjacent” ads to feature Vikings.

A new project from the mayor of Hyderabad, India aims to address bad air quality by giving “pre-loved” bicycles to people who will use them as an every day form of transportation.

 

Competitive Cycling

Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner Tadej Pogačar is gearing up to defend his pandemic-year Tour de France win by competing in his hometown Tour of Slovenia.

 

Finally…

Go back to the wide stripe jerseys and hairnet helmets of the 1970s. Your next bike helmet might kinda see around corners.

And who hasn’t taken on a national hillclimb champ on a series of increasingly inappropriate bicycles?

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask. 

And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Bike Cam Video, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome to a pandemic Bike Week, Newsom gives extra half billion to active transportation, and don’t Koretz our streets

May 17, 2021 / / One comment

Welcome to Bike Week 2021.

Such as it is.

Thanks to year two of the pandemic, there’s no opening event, no Blessing of the Bicycles, and no pit stops on Friday’s Bike Anywhere Day — the Covid inspired replacement for Bike to Work Day.

But Metro is trying to fill the gap with a series of online bike classes ranging from basic bicycle repair and maintenance to how to use bikeshare.

Speaking of bikeshare, they’re offering a free 1-ride Metro Bike pass this Friday only, using promo code 052121, or half-off a 365-Day Pass using Promo code: BIKEANYWHERE2021.

You can also get a one-year Metro Bike Hub pass for just $20 this month, two-thirds off the usual $60. Register here with promo code MAY2021.

Metrolink — no relation to Metro, despite the similar names — is offering free rides to anyone with a bicycle this week. Which is a great excuse to hop a train to Ventura, San Bernardino or Oceanside to try riding somewhere new.

The LACBC is continuing their Bike Month Photo Scavenger Hunt all month, in conjunction with Las Fotos.

And Wednesday marks the annual Ride of Silence to remember fallen bicyclists; sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any rides scheduled in the LA area this year.

Hopefully this damn disease will be behind us soon, and we can bounce back with an even bigger and better Bike Week next year.

Photo by Michael Gaida from Pixabay.

………

Okay, so I screwed up on Friday.

Thanks to Joe Linton for pointing out that I had the wrong link to LADOT’s virtual public meeting to discuss closing the infamous Northvale Gap on the Expo Bike Path.

The meeting will take place this Wednesday at 5pm; advance registration is required.

The .7 mile gap in the bike path was forced by homeowners in Cheviot Hills, who settled for stopping the bike path through their neighborhood after failing to stop the Expo Line itself — somehow fearing that the bike path would bring some sort of criminal element, who would bike off with their bigass flatscreens.

Metro and city officials decided it would be easier to leave the gap and just build the train line, and come back to to close it at a later date — and at a much higher cost.

But the joke was on the homeowners, since the gap in the bikeway forces riders to take a more circuitous route in front of their homes, rather than on the other side of a wall behind them.

The usual NIMBYs will undoubtedly be out in force to oppose it. So make sure to attend if you can to voice your support.

This is what Streets For All is asking for.

We encourage you to attend and to make public comment asking that:

  • the bike path be open to people on bikes 24/7 (there is a NIMBY effort to close it after dark)
  • the bike path have multiple access points to maximize convenience for people on bikes (there is a NIMBY effort to limit access)
  • the bike lanes on Motor be physically protected from moving car traffic

………

Governor Gavin Newsom is tossing bike riders and pedestrians a half-billion dollar Active Transportation bone, although that’s just a small part of the state’s $79 billion pandemic tax windfall.

Never mind that he seems to be doing his best to buy a victory in the upcoming recall by spreading state money around to everyone.

………

I wasn’t the one who first turned “Jerry Brown” into a verb meaning a dangerously close pass, after he vetoed not one, but two three-foot passing laws before finally signing a much weaker version.

But I sure as hell did everything I could to popularize and spread it.

Now Alissa Walker has turned pseudo-environmentalist Paul Koretz into a verb, as well.

As in CD14 Councilmember Kevin de León tried to Koretz Eagle Rock’s Beautiful Boulevard plan.

And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/1393556992917078016

………

This is who we share the road with.

………

9 to 5 Mac puts Apple’s new AirTag to the test for a simulated bike theft. And likes the result.

………

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

No bias here. A London paper tries to stir up anger with a one hour time-lapse camera showing barely any bicyclists using a new bike lane, as drivers complain about snarled traffic. Even though it doesn’t look very snarled. It also does say what time of day the video was taken; it was likely filmed at the slowest part of the day.

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

An unidentified man escaped by bicycle following a failed attempt to scale a wall into Ben Affleck’s Los Angeles home, after he was chased off by paparazzi.

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Local

Metro plans to boost spending on induced demand by 80% in their upcoming budget, devoting $212 million to widening highways and other highway “improvements;” it will be on the agenda of their meeting this Wednesday. Eagle Rock’s resident-driven Beautiful Boulevard will also be on the agenda.

Hancock Park residents opposed LADOT’s Stress Free Connections plan for a safer and more bikeable 4th Street, with the head of the homeowner’s association saying “We want to make the neighborhood safer for everyone, not just those riding bicycles,” apparently failing to grasp that making it safer for bicyclists makes it safer for everyone.

Santa Clarita held their Bike to Work Week last week, and a community bike ride, complete with goody bags, on Saturday.

Long Beach may consider building a three-mile pedestrian pathway alongside the San Gabriel River bike path.

 

State

Call it a good argument badly framed. A columnist for the Southern California New Group points out the reasons why bike riders should be allowed to treat stop signs as yields. Although he calls it blowing though stop signs, a phrase that is guaranteed to piss drivers off.

San Diego is also dropping Bike to Work Day in favor of Bike Anywhere Week this week.

Speaking of San Diego, the city appears to be making progress with Vision Zero, as traffic deaths and serious injuries dropped for the second straight year.

The Bakersfield Californian calls for allowing ebikes and scooters on the 30+ mile Kern River Parkway Trail. Although they awkwardly refer to them as “motorized vehicles,” which likely means something entirely different to most people.

 

National

A new study from the CDC reports there were 596,972 emergency department visits for bicycle-related traumatic brain injuries in the ten years from 2009 to 2018; surprisingly, that represents a 5.5% decrease for adults, and a nearly 50% drop children. Although that could reflect a decrease in ridership among children as much as improved safety.

Gear Patrol recommends their favorite fixies, with prices ranging from $299 to $1199.

No bias here. A bad take from an insurance company based in the Pacific Northwest, which says there’s a “battle for road supremacy” in Portland and Seattle between drivers and increased numbers of people on bikes. Even though their survey shows half of the people who responded think bikes and cars share the road well.

A retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist rode his bike across the Permian Basin oil fields in New Mexico and Texas to call attention to climate change.

Heartbreaking news from Chicago, where a 13-year old boy was critically wounded when he was shot in the head and neck in a driveby shooting as he was riding his bicycle. There’s just no damn excuse for that crap. Period.

Tragic news from New Hampshire, where a 69-year old man was killed when he was struck by a bike rider as he was crossing the street. Another reminder to always slow down and ride carefully around pedestrians, who can be unpredictable and don’t always look for bikes when they step out into the street. Which is not to say that’s what happened here.

A kindhearted New York filmmaker gave his own bike to a young man who recently rode a heavy bikeshare bike up a local mountain.

 

International

Treehugger’s Lloyd Alter questions why ebike regulations are so random, and no one is looking at them as part of the larger transportation picture.

A travel website looks at the world’s most dangerous mountain bike trails. Which is a large part of the appeal to some people. 

A Montreal woman is devoting her time to ensuring kids get bikes despite the short supply cause by the bike boom by passing along donated bicycles to underprivileged children; she’s given away over 250 bikes since March.

If you insist on stealing a bicycle, probably not the best idea to steal an English police bike.

An Irish man is riding his bike over 1,700 miles from Dublin to where he first met the love of his life in Spain to raise funds to fight Motor Neuron Disease, after she succumbed to the disease at just 31-years old.

Forget an inflatable helmet. A French company is introducing an airbag jacket that inflates if you crash or fall. As long as you have an extra nine hundred bucks to buy one.

Break India’s Covid curfew and you might have to do sit-ups in the street and carry your bike back home.

A Singapore writer says “errant cycling” gives the rest of us a bad name, and “we could all stand to exercise more graciousness.”

An Australian woman cried tears of joy after receiving a custom adaptive bicycle, following the loss of both legs and most of her fingers to a bacterial infection.

 

Competitive Cycling

French cyclist Victor Lafay won his first Grand Tour stage in Saturday’s stage eight of the Giro

About damn time. The organizer of the Tour de France says they’re going to bring back the women’s TdF after more than thirty years, with the first edition to come sometime after the men’s race. But he made it clear not to expect parity with the men’s Tour.

SoCal bike racing is back with the season opener for the California Bicycle Racing 2021 CBR Criterium Series; L39ION of Los Angeles swept the podium for the men’s pro race, while Serious Cycling’s Chloe Patrick took the women’s race.

 

Finally…

Why vacuum with a Dyson when you can ride one, instead? That feeling when you accidentally photobomb a soccer team bus with your bakfiets and a poodle.

And probably not the best idea to jump into a river to avoid the police, after drunkenly smashing your head into a storefront window, and attempting to jack a bike.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask. 

And get vaccinated, already.

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

Metro considers shifting highway funds to active transportation, and LA Walks calls for saving Encino bike/ped bridge

April 2, 2021 / / 3 comments

Metro wants to know what you think.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is looking for public input on a proposal that would divert funding currently earmarked for highways to support active transportation and Complete Streets projects.

Here’s how The Source, Metro’s in-house blog, explains it.

In June 2020, Metro’s Board of Directors directed staff to explore ways to modernize the agency’s Highway Program to better align it with policy goals of reducing vehicle miles traveled while exploring the expansion of eligible projects to include active transportation and “complete streets” improvements that focus on all forms of mobility rather than just vehicles.

The changes, if implemented, would open certain Measure R and Measure M funding that is now reserved only for traditional highway or roadway projects to new types of improvements. Those improvements include bikeways, sidewalk and pedestrian safety improvements, bus prioritization and explicitly using reductions in vehicle miles traveled as a criterion for planning and designing projects.

The plan, which has already received input from local governments, has been split into two sections, here and here.

Email your comments to MMGuidelines@metro.net, or snail mail them to:

LA Metro
One Gateway Plaza, M/S 99-23-3
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Attention: MR MM Guidelines Revisions

………

Last week we learned about Caltrans plans to tear down an existing bike and pedestrian bridge over the 101 Freeway in Encino, while breaking their promise to replace it with a new and improved version.

Now an email from Los Angeles Walks is calling on them to reverse a bad decision.

Last week, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) announced their intention to permanently remove and not replace a pedestrian bridge connecting communities divided by the 101 Freeway.

While Caltrans suggested other alternatives for pedestrians, such as traffic signals and crosswalks, the removal of this bridge significantly limits the mobility of those walking or rolling. Currently, the Encino Ave. Pedestrian Bridge is located in at the intersection of Encino Ave. and Killion St (see arrow).

If removed, this reduces the number of options for residents in the area to cross the 101 freeway and places at risk a similar bridge on Amestoy Ave. about half a mile to the east. With both bridges gone local Angenelos would need to walk up to 2 miles to cross the 101 at White Oak Ave. or Balboa Blvd. Or they’ll have to walk up Louise Ave., a four lane road with scant pedestrian signage and infrastructure.

This bridge provides easy and safe access for those walking or rolling to go between the neighborhood and Burbank Ave., where you’ll find grocery stores, a pre-school, businesses, and other important community assets.

In 2019 alone, these local roads (displayed on the map) saw nearly 50 collisions. That same year the community experienced a horrific street racing crash along Burbank Blvd. that killed a 19 and 25 year old. If LA City is dedicated to its #VisionZero commitment (to reach 0 traffic deaths by 2025), tearing down a community-connecting pedestrian bridge over one of City’s largest and busiest freeways is the wrong way to go.

Our call to Action! 🚨

Let Caltrans know that the community, our seniors, our students need their pedestrian bridge. And we’ve made it easy for you!

Email Caltrans Now!

………

This is no April fools joke, as a new study shows popup bike lanes really do increase bicycling rates.

This is what the New York Times had to say.

The research, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that in cities where bike infrastructure was added, cycling had increased up to 48 percent more than in cities that did not add bike lanes.

Dense cities where public transit was already popular generally saw the largest increases. In cities with lower density, more cars per capita and higher traffic speeds, the increase in cycling was more modest. Paris, which implemented its bike lane program early and had the largest pop-up bike lane program of any of the cities in the study, had one of the largest increases in riders.

“It almost seems like a natural law that the more infrastructure you have, the more cycling you will have,” said Sebastian Kraus, the study’s lead author.

The increases held up even after taking weather and changes in public transit supply and demand into account.

Then there was this.

Bicycles, unlike cars, do not emit greenhouse gases. Matthew Raifman, a doctoral student in environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health, found in a separate study that investments in infrastructure for cycling and walking more than paid for themselves once the health benefits were taken into account.

“They increase our physical activity and reduce levels of greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality, which all have impacts on health,” Mr. Raifman said.

Which is about as good an argument for transferring Metro highway funds to healthier and more efficient uses as you could make.

………

The former Mayor Pete could have ridden in a chauffeured limo to his first cabinet meeting as US Transportation Secretary.

If he chose to ride a bike, it was to send a message.

Thanks to Keith Johnson for the heads-up.

………

Betty White was one of us.

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

Cycliq shared a pair of punishment passes, as a truck driver passes safely once, then dipped into a bike lane to apparently send a frightening message. And a driver on a country road can’t be bothered to slow down literally for a second or two so a car coming in the opposite direction can pass, and takes it out on the person on the bike, instead.

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

This one fits in both categories, as a Hermosa Beach letter writer calls on the city to remove the “silly” sharrows on Hermosa Ave, after someone on a bicycle hit his son while he was crossing the street. Seriously, slow the hell down and ride carefully around pedestrians, especially kids. But just wait until someone tells this guy about cars. And don’t get me started on sharrows, which exist primarily to help drivers improve their aim. 

………

Local

Bike Talk posted the lengthy public comment portion of last night’s meeting to discuss remaking Eagle Rock’s Colorado Blvd to support the NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit line. And hopefully, make it a lot more livable and less car-centric.

Metro Bike’s ebikes will be free to unlock this month, although standard rates will apply after that.

 

State

The San Diego Bike Coalition is in the midst of a semi-virtual Pedal With Your Peeps scavenger hunt, including a self-guided tour with peep stops tomorrow. Thanks to Robert Leone for the link.

Berkeley bike riders are being victimized by armed robbers who steal their bicycles while riding in the East Bay Hills; at least three people have been bike-jacked in the last week.

 

National

A writer for Electrek goes offroad riding on the $1099 RadMission ebike, and rates it “great.”

A Honolulu woman was the victim of a strange strong arm robbery when another woman repeatedly whacked her with a skateboard before making off with her bike — then bizarrely brought it back and walked away.

The rich get richer. Oregon bike riders will soon enjoy the benefits of a new $11.3 million program to build offroad bikeways around the the state. Much missed former SCAG Active Transportation Planner Alan Thompson heads the ambitious project.

A ghost bike for the five Las Vegas bicyclists killed by a meth-using truck driver was moved to a public school in downtown Summerlin; the plan is to rotate the memorial to different locations in the city raise awareness.

Colorado’s Tourism Office explains how to build a route through the high country wilderness by threading together by a series of scenic and historic byways. All of which are even better by bicycle. And say hi to my old stomping grounds on the Cache la Poudre River while you’re at it.

An Ohio girl became a published author while still in kindergarten, penning Bug on a Bike after getting inspired while riding with her father.

Streetsblog says yes, it’s illegal to ride your bike after smoking weed in New York, which just passed a bill legalizing recreational use. But not that illegal, since the state doesn’t have a specific statute banning biking under the influence, unlike California.

A series of weekend popup shops will bring high-end bike brands to New York that aren’t normally available in the US, including brands from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Australia and Italy. Someone needs to do this in Los Angeles, too.

An unlicensed driver living in the country illegally will serve up to 12 years behind bars for killing a Pennsylvania bike rider, then face deportation once he gets out. Although he couldn’t legally get a license in Pennsylvania, because he was in the country illegally.

 

International

Pink Bike collects the highlights of yesterday’s bike-related April fools pranks. I did kinda like the homeopathic mountain bike first aid kit.

Popular Science offers advice on how to get a bike during the worldwide bike shortage brought on by the pandemic-driven bike boom.

Cyclist examines the inside story of the perfect storm that resulted in an industry wide bike shortage.

A new report from Britain’s largest bike retailer suggests the bike boom is poised to continue post-pandemic.

No bias here. A London paper freaks out over a reality star’s video message encouraging people to get outside, recorded as he rode his bike “in the middle of the road.” Although they do approve of his helmet and uh, “bulging muscles.”

A UK website offers a head-to-pavement guide to gear for bike touring.

This one’s going on my own bike bucket list. A trio of British groups has developed a 2,000-mile bicycling route connecting all 42 Church of England cathedrals in England and Wales.

India’s abrupt lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic forced millions of people to walk, bike or hitchhike back to their hometowns; for many, life may never be the same.

 

Competitive Cycling

Both the men’s and women’s Paris-Roubaix races have been postponed until October due to the pandemic.

VeloNews examines the technical aspects of how Irish cyclist Ronan McLaughlin became the latest in a long line of recent Everesting record holders, with a time of 6 hours, 40 minutes and 54 seconds, in part by focusing on shaving time on the descents; the solo attempt involves making multiple uphill climbs equivalent to the height of Mt. Everest.

 

Finally…

Fixing flats with a water bottle. Offroad Viking biking on an Alaskan glacier.

And striking a blow for bike equality by riding up to the drive-through window to rob a bank.

Although maybe he should have picked one where they didn’t already know him.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask. 

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

Caltrans wants bike input on Active Transportation Plan, Secretary Pete talks bikes, and LACBC Women’s History Ride

March 5, 2021 / / Comments Off on Caltrans wants bike input on Active Transportation Plan, Secretary Pete talks bikes, and LACBC Women’s History Ride

My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence. Blame it on my diabetes, which took a sudden turn in a southerly direction Wednesday night.

And as I’ve learned the hard way, it’s damn near impossible to get anything done when you’re just this side of unconscious.

So grab some snacks and hunker down for a long haul, ’cause we’ve got a lot of miles to cover today. 

Adorable photo by Tatiana Syrikova from Pexels.

………

Let’s start with a call from Caltrans for more input on their Active Transportation Plan from people who ride bikes.

And yes, they specifically said in an email that they really want to hear from us, which is a nice change — and a good opportunity.

But only if we take advantage of it.

Caltrans Calls for Public Input on Active Transportation Plan Survey

LOS ANGELES — Caltrans is looking for public input on its active transportation planning process survey to identify locations for bicycle and pedestrian improvements on the state highway system. The public can play a critical role in shaping the plans by participating in this localized map-based survey.

“Today we must plan and build a transportation system that incorporates alternative means of transportation and that also considers equity,” said Caltrans District 7 Director Tony Tavares. “Public input on our Active Transportation Plan is crucial to the development of safe pedestrian, bicycle and public transit facilities on our highways.”

The public survey will allow residents to tell Caltrans where improvements could be made to facilitate bicycling and walking on or near the state highway system. Survey responses will provide specific data about the type and location of needed improvements, allowing Caltrans to evaluate these locations in developing future projects.

Caltrans wants to align the state’s bicycle and pedestrian network with the needs of local communities, with an emphasis on improving social equity, reconnecting communities, and improving access for all modes of transportation, including people who walk and bicycle. Caltrans will be actively engaging with partners and community members in areas where historic transportation decisions may have created barriers to adequate transportation.

To take the public survey using your computer, tablet or smartphone, please visit survey.catplan.org and click on District 7. This survey is also available in Spanish.

For more information about the Caltrans Active Transportation Plans, visit catplan.org/district-plans.

Here’s what Streets For All had to say about the survey.

Tell Caltrans to add bike lanes on major streets in LA!

Caltrans District 7 still owns many major streets in Los Angeles that are “state highways” including parts of Santa Monica Bl, Lincoln Bl, Venice Bl, and more. They just released a map and survey that allows you to pinpoint specific streets you feel unsafe biking/walking on. Please put pins on the map asking them to add protected bike lanes!

TELL CALTRANS WHERE TO ADD BIKE LANES

So what are you waiting for, already?

And while we’re on the subject of input, Metro wants yours on first mile – last mile connections to improve biking, walking and rolling access to and from the extension’s first three new Purple Line, aka D Line, stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega.

………

Looks like we have a Secretary of Transportation who gets it. And sees bikes as part of the solution, even if he hails from the heart of car country.

https://twitter.com/SecretaryPete/status/1367564417790070785

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The LACBC is out with a self-guided bike tour to celebrate Women’s History Month, including a real-life Rosie the Riveter.

………

More proof that free lifetime registration with Bike Index really does work.

………

Prop 22 may have rolled back protections for gig workers, but at least you get to ride an ebike all day.

………

Um, okay.

A New York expat Zoomed into a community meeting from sunny Santa Barbara CA to complain about a proposed bike lane on the Big Apple’s Upper East Side, insisting no bike riders from Queens would ever spend money at the borough’s restaurants.

And was immediately refuted by a bike rider from Queens who was doing just that.

………

A couple of notable bike notices, as Brompton recalls some of their ebike foldies due to a problem with the firmware.

And two models of Masi bicycles were recalled because a faulty fork steerer tube could lead to dangerous falls.

Meanwhile, Mavic warns that counterfeit wheels being sold under their name could lead to serious injury or death.

………

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

No bias here. A Syracuse NY website blames a critically injured bicyclist for riding into the side of a car. Then just casually mentions at the end that the driver a) didn’t have a license, and b) fled the scene.

No bias here, either. The wife of a former advisor to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the war on cars is backfiring, and Low-Traffic Neighborhoods only benefit drug dealers on scooters and wealthy bicyclists. Like herself, for instance. A wealthy bike rider, that is, not a drug dealer. 

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

Bike-riding convicted rapist and former pro football star Kellen Winslow II was sentenced to a well-deserved 14 years behind bars for a series of bizarre San Diego sexual assaults.

An emeritus professor at an Australian university conducts his own private study, and concludes that bike riders treat pedestrians far worse than drivers treat people on bicycles.

………

Local

Despite the pandemic, funding has been approved for two dozen biking and walking projects in LA County, courtesy of Metro Measure M Active Transportation grants and California Transportation Commission Active Transportation Program grants.

CiclaValley says we’re finally getting closer to protected bike lanes on the Los Angeles section of Chandler Blvd, closing the gap with Burbank’s popular Chandler Bike Path.

Metro invites you to use the Metro Bike bikeshare to take a ride on the Westside’s Ballona Creek bike path. Especially if you use Metro Bike to do it.

Harrison Ford is one of us, stopping by the Santa Monica Helen’s to get his bike fixed. Twice.

 

State

A Lake Forest man tells the story of how his father’s disappearance drove him to drink, and his bicycle helped carry him back to sobriety. And yes, you can read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

Santa Barbara now has a green center bike lane to channel riders through the carfree State Street Promenade.

After a Santa Rosa newspaper wrote about the glut of refurbished kids bikes at a nonprofit bike shop, a bighearted donor gave $2,500 to give bikes to kids whose parents can’t afford them.

 

National

US House members heard last week that unsafe streets put residents of marginalized communities at risk of inequitable traffic enforcement, as well as dangerous drivers.

Bicycling explains how to build your own DIY pseudo Peloton setup. As usual, Yahoo has the story if Bicycling blocks you.

Why worry about finding a safe place to sleep on your next bike tour when you can just tow a camping trailer behind your bike?

An executive with Ohio-based Huffy says the bike boom still has some steam, and there’s plenty more sales ahead for the company’s bicycle-shaped objects.

A Massachusetts city discovers those orange bendy posts marking a protected bike lane made drivers slow down, then speed right back up after they were removed for the winter. The same held true after the plastic wands protecting a popup bike lane in the UK were removed, too.

Today’s best headline award goes to Streeetsblog NY, for this entry about a vanishing popup bike lane: Northern Boulevard Bike Lane Lost In Time Like Tears In Rain.

The Virginia legislature passed the state’s bike safety bill, legalizing treating stops as yields and riding two abreast; it now just needs the governor’s signature to become law. Anyone who questions the safety of stops as yields should recognize that it only legalizes what most people do anyway, on two wheels or four. 

The bighearted owners of a Valdosta, Georgia bike shop are working with the local police to refurbish used bikes and give them to people in need.

If you rode a tall bike to Key West last month, the local paper apparently approves.

Florida prosecutors agreed that a schizophrenic man was legally insane when he turned his car off the road and intentionally slammed into a man and his two sons riding bikes on a pedestrian pathway, killing the father and injuring both boys; if the court agrees, he could be sent to a longterm mental health facility.

 

International

Covid-19 cut global greenhouse gas emissions last year, but it will take further dramatic reductions in carbon dioxide to keep it going; more safe urban spaces for walking and cycling could help.

A Yucatán business council is all in on plans for bike lanes in the city of Mérida.

Make up your damn mind, already. Just months after Vancouver ripped out a bike lane so drivers could go zoom zoom and park in a park, the matter is coming to a head once again as people fight to get it back.

Life is cheap in Ontario, Canada, where a woman got a lousy one year of house vacation arrest for fleeing the scene after killing a Toronto-area man riding his bike, then lied about how her car was damaged to cover up the crime.

London bike riders continue to be at risk of near-miss terror from aggressive drivers who “treat cyclists like cockroaches.”

Contrary to perceptions, a new study shows London’s Low-traffic Neighborhoods — the equivalent of our Slow Streets — don’t disproportionately benefit more privileged communities.

Britain’s Cyclist magazine features the best deals on bike helmets in the US and UK.

Ebikes now make up 17% of all European bike sales, and growing.

Your next ebike could be a Porsche. Or you could just put all that excess money in a pile, build a straw man and set it on fire.

An Indian writer discovers their grandfather’s detailed diary of a nearly 1,000-mile bike trip from Kolkata to Kashmir in 1933.

A brief photo essay from Chinese news site Xinhua looks at a wheelchair-bound bike repairman in Palestine.

They get it. The next time you get a craving for coffee and donuts in the Philippines’ Quezon City, just make a detour through Dunkin’s first-ever bike-through lane.

Talk about a bad idea. An Aussie city installed speed bumps in a park to slow down speeding bike riders and reduce collisions with pedestrians. Never mind that the speed bumps are likely to increase injuries by knocking people off their bikes, as well as riders swerving to go around them.

Hollywood’s Thor is one of us, as Chris Hemsworth went for an ebike ride through Sydney, Australia with his wife, Spanish model and actress Elsa Pataky.

 

Competitive Cycling

Rising 21-year old American cyclist Matteo Jorgenson is looking forward to tackling Paris-Nice this Sunday, as well as the Giro in May.

 

Finally…

Why face front when you can just ride your bike backwards? That feeling when you want your chain to look like it’s made of LEGO.

And apparently, LA streets may have changed just a tad in the last 126 years.

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Thanks to David A for his generous donation to help support this site, and keep SoCal’s best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

As an aside, there’s no such thing as a small donation; I know as well as anyone just how hard it can be to donate to someone else when you’re struggling yourself, and couldn’t appreciate it more.

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a damn mask, already. 

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

Low bike goals in new LADOT strategic plan, proposed retail bike registration requirement, and new Burbank bike path

February 5, 2021 / / One comment

LADOT has released their updated Strategic Plan for 2021.

I haven’t had a chance to dig into it yet. But at first glance, the section on bike planning and implementation could use some major improvement.

While it’s good news that the city is finally getting around to working on the Neighborhood Enhanced Network — one of three comprehensive bike networks in the city’s mobility plan — completing just one major active transportation project per year sets an extremely low and unambitious bar for the city.

Click to enlarge

 

At that rate, it could be decades before we’ll finally have a safe route across the city. Or through your own neighborhood, even.

And that vague term doesn’t even guarantee that the “major active transportation project” will include bikes at all.

To be fair, Los Angeles Department of Transportation continues to be dramatically understaffed and underfunded, a situation that’s not likely to improve anytime soon, given the city’s precarious financial state.

Meanwhile, biking and walking continues to take a backseat to funneling ever larger amounts of motor vehicles through our already overstrained streets.

And don’t even get me started on the largely forgotten Vision Zero program, which has been pushed so far back on the list of priorities it risks falling off entirely.

While the commitment to major active transportation projects vaguely resembles the long-promised Backbone Network of bikeways on major streets, there’s no mention of the Green Network promised in the 2010 Bike Plan, which was subsumed into the mobility plan.

The idea was to have one network leading into another, giving riders the ability to travel in their own neighborhood, through the local community, and across the city.

Instead we’re left with vague promises, as LADOT continues to set the bar so low they have to be careful not to trip over it on the way out every night.

Thanks to Kent Strumpell for the heads-up.

………

Saturday’s virtual meeting of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition will include discussion of a proposal to require retail sellers of new and used bikes to register them for the buyer with Bike Index.

Although that would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.

A better option would be to offer some sort of tax benefit to encourage bike shops to do what some are already doing — register their bikes when they take them into inventory, then transfer the registration to the buyer if the customer wants.

Thanks to Joe Linton for the tip.

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Okay, so you may not get much of a workout. But who wants to be the first to ride it today?

Thanks to Chris Buonomo for the heads-up.

………

Nice.

Pastor William S. Epps of South LA’s Second Baptist Church joined with over 50 bicyclists representing the Inner City Cycling Connection on Martin Luther King Day to pray for “healing in African American communities throughout Los Angeles.”

According to a statement issued by ICCC, the group’s members “cycle through a city where the neighborhoods have changed just like the terrain, we push and pedal towards the mountain top…we have our eyes set on the promise land and every muscle we burn, we are assured and filled with hope [that] the day of equality and justice are not just a dream. We pray for the courage to continue to stand up for justice, reconciliation and truth.”

………

 

This is the cost of traffic violence.

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

No bias here. A British city councilor says segregated bike lanes are shortsighted because they’ll get too crowded and put residents at risk, and e-scooters are dangerous to cars. No, really.

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

West Virginia police bust a bike-riding shoplifter after a circuitous chase. It seems like a straighter route would have made for a more efficient getaway. But that’s just me.

What a jerk. A bike rider in Brussels is accused of intentionally kneeing a five-year old little girl because she didn’t get the eff out of his way fast enough. And it looks even worse than it sounds.

………

Local

Congratulations to Arlo Day; the five-year old daughter of actors Leighton Meester and Adam Brody is one of us now, after her mother taught her to ride a bike.

 

State

Calbike is asking you to sign a petition calling for biking and walking to get a fair share of the federal transportation budget.

Bad news from San Diego County, where man riding in an El Cajon bike lane suffered a severe head injury when he was struck by a motorist turning into a driveway; no word yet on whether his injuries are life-threatening. Although someone should tell the San Diego Union-Tribune that it was the driver, rather than the car, who was responsible for the crash; it took them until the last paragraph to even mention that the car had one.

There’s something seriously wrong when a 14-year old Fresno boy can’t ride his bike with a friend without getting accosted and shot; fortunately, he’s expected to survive.

They get it. Pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco says Slow Streets should be made permanent. And not just in San Francisco, please.

Some Modesto parents are complaining about what they consider a heavy handed response by police in crackdown on unruly teens participating in last weekend’s Ride Out.

 

National

Make your own DIY vibration-detecting bike wheel lights.

Who needs winter bike gloves when you have USB-chargeable, heated handlebar plugs?

Bicycling says hold off on that hot shower after a freezing bike ride. Read it on Yahoo if the magazine’s paywall locks you out.

A Portland bike club was honored by USA Cycling as the nation’s Best Community Builder for 2020.

Utah’s version of the Idaho Stop law sailed through the state House, which voted overwhelming to allow bike riders to treat stop signs as yields; the bill’s sponsor said allowing riders to treat red lights as stop signs was too controversial to include it in the bill.

Bike riding has become a favored family activity in pandemic era Houston.

America’s first Bike City, joining cities like Paris and Copenhagen in receiving the designation from international cycling’s governing body, is…Fayetteville, Arkansas?

Streetsblog wants to know how New York plans to install 10,000 bike racks in two years, when they haven’t been able to consistently meet the previous goal of just 1,500 a year.

 

International

Welcome to Vancouver, the bike theft capitol of Canada.

No surprise here. The American hit-and-run driver who fled the country after killing 19-year old London motorcyclist Harry Dunn, claiming diplomatic immunity, was working for an American intelligence agency at the time of the crash.

The British government sets a goal of half of all trips in cities and towns to be done by walking or bicycling by the end of this decade.

Someone please get these people some bikes. Despite the massive increase in bicycling driven by the coronavirus bike boom, Derry residents have the lowest access to a bicycle of anywhere in Northern Ireland.

If you build it, they will come. New figures from the Paris government show that six out of every ten people using the city’s popup bike lanes are new to bicycling. Yet another example of exactly what Los Angeles is missing out on by failing to install a single popup lane during the pandemic.

Ped-assist ebike fires doubled in Singapore last year, even as the overall rate of fires declined.

That’s more like it. An Aussie truck driver got four years behind bars for killing a bike rider after he was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving and leaving the scene of a collision; the judge rejected the driver’s claim that that he didn’t know he’d hit anyone, finding it “totally lacking in credibility.”

 

Competitive Cycling

The iconic, seven-day mountain bike BC Bike Race is launching a new five-day gravel race; the inaugural race of The Gravel Explorer, or BCBR Gravel, is set to roll at the end of September.

Cycling Weekly offers a comprehensive overview of the bikes being ridden on this year men’s and women’s WorldTour.

UCI will attempt to improve safety by requiring better finish line barriers, and assessing the safety of “super tuck” descents.

 

Finally…

That is one seriously funky looking ebike. Your next ebike could have a hydraulic drive instead of a chain.

And is that enough notice for you?

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a damn mask, already. 

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

Tell Metro to fund active transportation not highways, victory for a safer Magnolia Blvd, and CicLAvia holiday shopping

November 19, 2020 / / 3 comments

Let’s start with a call to action.

If you live in the San Gabriel Vally or the South Bay, the LACBC is urging you to ask your local Council of Government representatives to support a proposal allowing Metro to repurpose highway funds for active transportation projects.

Instead of just flushing it down the toilet on more projects that will just induce more induced demand.

LA County Bicycle Coalition Logo

As we shared in our recent News Cycle, Metro has proposed a change that would open up the funding available for the highway program to be used by local jurisdictions for active transportation projects. We have been made aware that despite there being support from members of the Metro Board of Directors, they will not push to support this change so long as the Council of Governments, which represent the nine sub-regions, offer strong pushback.

If you live, work, or play in the San Gabriel Valley or the South Bay Cities, we are calling on you to take action now!

To show a groundswell of support for the motion, which would make funds more flexible and increase availability of funding for city active transportation projects, LACBC is asking you to reach out to your local COG representatives and share your support for the motion during each meeting’s public comment period.

This urgent action tomorrow could make all the difference in reducing pushback from COG leaders and help to make it possible for this change to be made.

Check out our Action Alert for more details: https://la-bike.org/2020/11/18/action-alert-modernize-the-highway-program/

We will have additional information for other COG meetings taking place in the coming weeks. Keep an eye on your email or our social media to recieve those updates.

In solidarity,

Team LACBC

………

Zachary Rynew, aka CiclaValley, declares victory in a long running battle to halt a dangerous street widening project on Magnolia Blvd.

In other words, the opposite of Vision Zero.

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CicLAvia reminds you to do your holiday shopping at their online store, where your money will go to support America’s most popular open streets festival.

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GCN answers the burning questions of whether you need to clean your bike after every ride, and how to peel a banana while riding.

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

You don’t have to speak the language to get just how dangerous this Costa Rican driver is.

………

Local

The LAPD is looking for a hoodie-wearing bike rider who is accused of sexually assaulting at least 15 women by grabbing their breasts as he rides by.

 

State

Instead of legalizing speed cams, California is begging drivers to slow down and act like responsible adults.

Fresno police cited 14 bike riders and 51 pedestrians during a crackdown on the least dangerous people on the roads.

Alameda voted to approve a “hellscape” bike and pedestrian pathway in an exhaust-choked underground car tunnel, instead of a long-promised bike and pedestrian bridge.

 

National

Bicycling offers tips on how to clean your chain like a pro. You can read it on Yahoo if Bicycling’s site blocks you. Seriously  is it just me, or is it a tad absurd for the magazine to hide their stories behind a paywall, while allowing another site to repost them with no restrictions?

CityFix says dockless bikesharing can be key to healthy, resilient urban mobility. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to exist in much of Los Angeles these days.

A Colorado boy’s bike was found in an abandoned trailer days after he disappeared on Sunday.

A missing Colorado mother who reportedly disappeared during a Mother’s Day bike ride is listed as presumed dead in her father’s obituary, who died of cancer following her disappearance.

Put this one on your mountain bike bucket list. A new Colorado trail offers 36 miles of riding, with an over 6,000 foot descent.

A Chicago area man was allegedly whacked out on alcohol, ecstasy, amphetamines and weed while speeding at 80 mph on surface streets, when he killed a man riding a bike and fled the scene.

Long Island lawmakers are considering proposals to crack down on reckless, wheelie-popping bike riders, but advocates argue the real risk on the streets comes from the big, dangerous machines.

A proposed DC amendment would allow ebike and e-scooter riders to collect damages following a collision; a quirk in current law makes that almost impossible.

Bicyclists in a Delaware town are accused of riding like it’s the Wild West by flouting traffic laws. Seriously, have they ever observed how people drive? It makes bike riders seem positively tame by comparison. And it’s not the people on two wheels who pose a real risk to others.

A Florida man is suing the local sheriff’s department after he was nearly killed by a speeding deputy in a crash caught on the patrol car’s dashcam; the deputy was doing 84 mph with no lights or siren, and no emergency call — and had been doing 103 just minutes before.

 

International

Road.cc offers a complete guide on how to buy a second hand bicycle.

Cycling News explains how to change a bike tire.

A former British Columbia coroner says bike riders deserve to have crashes investigated, after police failed to when she was struck by a driver.

Seventeen percent of British bike riders would consider an ebike if the government subsidized part of the cost.

Wired considers how Oslo got bike and pedestrian deaths down to zero. That’s easy. Just do the opposite of whatever Los Angeles is doing.

Philippine musicians are taking to their bicycles to deal with the stress of the coronavirus lockdown.

 

Competitive Cycling

A Colorado gravel bike race is reserving 25 free starting spots to Black and Indigenous riders and People of Color, to help marginalized communities in bike racing.

 

Finally…

Your next gravel bike could be a Dutch-style step through. Your next foldie ebike could be self-charging, with a virtually unlimited range.

And that feeling when Vision Zero feels like zero vision.

Something LA bike riders can relate to.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

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

Happy virtual Bike Week, Bike the Vote makes Culver City endorsements, and the time to reimagine public transport is now

September 21, 2020 / / One comment

Welcome to the long-delayed Bike Week for the Age of Covid-19, where not much is going on, and like everything else in this plague infested year, what does will be mostly virtual.

The one actual semi-activity to hit the streets will be tomorrow’s Ride A Bike Day, on what is otherwise known as Worldwide Car Free Day, in which you’re encouraged to ride your bike somewhere.

Or anywhere.

The Bike League simply calls it Bike There Day, wherever there happens to be.

So do what you’d probably do anyway, and get out on your bike to enjoy what passes for relatively smoke-free fall weather here in Southern California.

But give yourself a pat on the back for it.

Meanwhile, Ventura County has a number of eco-friendly activities to get you involved.

And enjoy this from Pedal Love.

Photo by Lina Kivaka from Pexels.

………

With the upcoming election is just over a month away, Bike the Vote LA is offering their endorsements in the Culver City race.

There are three out of five council seats on the ballot. Only one incumbent is running (Mayor Goran Erickson), as Bike The Vote L.A.-endorsed Meghan Sahli-Wells is termed out and bike-friendly Councilmember Thomas Small decided not to seek re-election. Five of the eight candidates running responded to Bike The Vote’s questionnaire. Each of the responses were promising, but Bike The Vote’s Cuvler City committee determined that these three candidates stood out as worthy of endorsements.

Meanwhile, San Diego’s BikeSD offers their own endorsements in local races.

And consider this my endorsement for Downey’s bike friendly Alexandria Contreras for city council in District One.

………

The NRDC says the moment to reimagine public transportation is right now.

The environmental organization lists three key themes, including —

  • Streets are not just for cars
  • Public transportation infrastructure needs and deserves investment
  • Access to safe, effective transit is very much a racial justice issue

That’s exactly what’s being done in cities around the world, particularly when it comes to bicycle access during the coronavirus pandemic.

And exactly what we need to do here in Los Angeles.

………

They get it.

Lyft has partnered with several New York advocacy groups to pen a white paper calling on New York City to create resilient streets for transit, biking and walking.

(You can find an edited version of the piece on New York Streetsblog if you’ve used up all your free Medium visits for the month.)

At the risk of repeating myself, that’s exactly what we need to do here in Los Angeles, where the need may be even greater than in Gotham.

And exactly what the city has been pledging, and failing, to do for the past decade.

………

Speaking of which, when is a bike lane not a bike lane?

………

Some people are seriously effed up.

Drivers in London’s upscale Hackney borough compare limited access Low Traffic Neighborhood with Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip — and the Holocaust.

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Malaysian are aghast at the sight of a bike rider drafting a truck.

https://twitter.com/Aweeff/status/1307172043171872770

The tweet awkwardly translates to this, which appears to be saying that all bike riders get blamed for one rider’s actions.

Because a drop of tilapia spoils the milk of an orange. Deck because of a cyclist’s suicide act exhausted all cyclists are beaten equally.

Which, sadly, is all too true.

And seriously, kids. Don’t do that.

………

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

Canadian authorities are looking for a man who yelled at a pair of bike-riding women, then used a telescoping camera pole to knock them off their bicycles.

No bias here. When the Queensland, Australia Department of Transportation asked online about the minimum passing distance on a road with a 43 mph speed limit, readers insisted the bike rider shouldn’t be on the road to begin with.

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

A Philadelphia bike rider opened fire on three plainclothes cops when they slowed down to ask if he was okay; another man joined the firefight after the officers got out of their car to exchange fire. Fortunately, none of the cops were seriously injured.

A road raging Irish bike rider was bitten in the nose by a passenger in a car, after the passenger got out and attacked the bicyclist for shattering the car’s windshield with his bike; both men face well-deserved charges.

………

Local

Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman offers a frame-by-frame analysis of the video the LA Sheriff’s Department says is proof that their deputies were justified in shooting Compton bike rider Dijon Kizzee, and says bullshit.

A Silver Lake gym owner and social justice advocate is riding his bike across the US, accompanied by a documentary crew, to explore American’s attitudes and show we’re stronger together than apart. Yahoo mirrored the story in case you can’t access the Times site. 

 

State

An ad hoc group of Bakersfield bicyclists are turning out for weekly half century rides on a local bike path to keep in shape during the coronavirus lockdown.

 

National

Former basketball player Damen Bell and professional skier Connor Ryan moved their Break the (Bi)cycle” ride from the left coast to the Rocky Mountain states after fires in Washington and Oregon forced them to change their route; they’re riding to call attention to mental health for Black and Indigenous men.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A Montana man celebrated his 84th birthday by riding 84 miles along the Bitterroot Trail.

A former Michigan college student was reunited with her stolen bicycle when it unexpectedly turned up four years later. Which probably means it was taken by a fellow student.

They get it, too, Michigan’s Department of Transportation says most crashes aren’t accidents.

A New York bike commuter says the laws have to be changed to better protect people on bikes from road raging drivers.

The New York Times examines the anatomy of a protest, including the role of bike blockers to protect protesters.

Leftovers star Justine Theroux is one of us, taking an apparently chilly ride through New York, a day after speaking in honor of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

New Orleans police release a video they say proves a bike rider ran a red light before being struck by the driver of a police cruiser. Except the video doesn’t show traffic signal, which could have changed before the rider went through.

A drunken hit-and-run driver in Florida faces charges for killing a bike rider, then driving another two and a half miles down the highway dragging the victim’s bike beneath his car before police pulled him over.

 

International

Yet another study shows that both drivers and bike riders break the law. But drivers do it to save time, while people on bicycles do it to save lives.

Cycling Weekly considers the best comfort hybrid bikes, and offers advice on how to buy a bike on a budget without needing an upgrade six months later.

A Montreal bikemaker uses recycled steel, ethical suppliers and local labor to build high-end bikes.

The New York Times asks whether Canada’s bike boom will last through the winter.

Scottish cyclist Josh Quigley set a new world’s record by riding the 516-mile North Coast 500 route through the Scottish Highlands in just 31 hours and 17 minutes, less than a year after he barely survived being struck by a Texas driver doing 70 mph while attempting to ride across the US.

Seventy-three-year old former Tour de France winner Joop Zoetemelk broke both his legs when a driver knocked him off his bike, 40 years after he wore the yellow jersey in Paris.

A European court ruled that Barcelona soccer star Messi clearly ain’t Spanish bikemaker Massi.

After news got out about an Indian boy who made a bicycle for his younger sister out of newspaper, a kindhearted local business owner gave him a real one.

Hundreds of Nairobi, Kenya residents rode to protest harassment of people on bicycles, after a bike rider was killed when the driver of a private minibus cut him off.

A group of Chinese bike riders are using their bikes for good, riding up to 1,200 miles to buy agricultural products to support poor villagers, and delivering food and milk to those in need.

Indonesian bike riders are now required to wear a helmet and ride a bicycle certified to meet the country’s safety standards.

Ebike sales are projected to surpass car sales in New Zealand in the next three years.

 

Competitive Cycling

The biggest surprise in this year’s Tour de France is that they actually made it to the finish in Paris in the midst of a pandemic. The second biggest surprise came in Saturday’s time trial, where 21-year-old Tadej Pogačar upset everyone to became the youngest winner of the Tour de France in 116 years, following an epic collapse by leader Primož Roglič.

Cycling News calls Tadej Pogačar a shark in sheep’s clothing, while Cycling Tips asks what do you say to someone who just lost the Tour de France.

Nice move from the pro peloton, which came together on Sunday’s final stage to condemn racism, after Kévin Reza, the only Black rider in this year’s Tour, was subjected to racist abuse from at least one rider.

More on Oneida Tribe member Neilson Powless, the only Native American to compete in this year’s Tour de France, or any other year for that matter — including a couple of near-podium finishes.

Business Insider ranks the bikes ridden in the Tour this year, giving the win to Astana’s Wilier Zero SLR, even if the team didn’t.

Bicycling recounts the biggest and craziest comeback victories in the Tour de France; here’s the Yahoo link for the firewall deprived. Greg LeMond certainly belongs there, although I’m not sure I’d include Floyd Landis’ pyrrhic victory.

The Tour of Luxembourg took place at the same time as the other, better known Tour.

Cycling Tips catches up with everything you missed in this year’s Giro Rosa — which is probably everything, since the most important stage race in women’s cycling was nowhere to be found on TV, as usual. Italy’s Longo Borghini got the win, her first after six previous top ten finishes.

 

Finally…

Your next ebike could have an Apple logo. Or maybe be spokeless.

And forget a Covid mask. Just put your bike helmet on under this.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

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