Tag Archive for bicycle

Advocacy groups call for implementing daylighting law, one last AIDS/Lifecycle Ride, and next CA ebike fail tomorrow

May 28, 2025 / / No comments
Day 148 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

………

Calbike and California Walks called on cities yesterday to implement the state’s daylighting rules.

A 2023 bill passed and signed into law sought to improve safety by prohibiting drivers from parking near intersections, providing better sightlines for drivers approaching them, as well as bike riders and pedestrians.

And better enabling those last two to be seen by the former.

The bill provided a built-in one-year grace period before full implementation. But as of the first of this year, cities were allowed — but apparently not required — to ticket drivers who parked within 20 feet of a crosswalk.

And in California, every intersection is presumed to have a crosswalk, whether or not it’s painted, unless crossing is specifically prohibited.

Yet few, if any, cities in the state have begun issuing tickets. Meanwhile others, such as San Francisco, have watered down the requirement by painting red curbs extending 10 feet from the crosswalk, instead of 20. Something cities are allowed to do if they pass an ordinance justifying the need for the change — which San Francisco hasn’t done.

According to a press release from the groups,

CalBike and California Walks urge municipal leaders and public works departments to:

  • Educate parking enforcement officers and empower them to write citations for parking within daylighting zones. No signage or curb paint is required to take this step.
  • Educate residents about the need to leave sightlines clear near crosswalks as an act of community care.
  • Install signage and red curb paint marking the 20-foot no-parking space wherever feasible.
  • Harden daylighting zones as much as possible by adding bike parking corrals, bike or scooter share docks, benches, planters boxes, bioswales, or other community amenities.
  • Use planned road maintenance projects as opportunities to demarcate and harden daylighting zones.

They’ve got a point.

We can pass all the safety measures in the world. But they won’t save a single life if no one uses them.

Photo by Labskiii from Pexels.

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California Senator Adam Schiff will be the first sitting US senator to take part in the annual AIDS/LifeCycle Ride.

Make that the final AIDS/LifeCycle Ride.

Which is kind of sad, on both counts.

Schiff was the first member of Congress to take part in the annual ride in 2014 — and will be the last, even if he only completes the final leg into Los Angeles due to votes in the senate.

The ride has raised over $300 million over its all-too-brief 31-year history to support the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

Meanwhile, a writer for Daily Kos expresses his sadness that this year’s AIDS/LifeCycle Ride marks the end of his own 26-year history with it.

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CARB, aka the California Air Resources Board, is back with another attempt at a second round of ebike incentive vouchers, after totally screwing the pooch the last time around.

So what’s the over/under on whether they somehow manage to screw it up again, given their pathetic track record and intentionally throttled funding?

Asking for about 150,000 friends.

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Metro will hold a series of community meetings this week to release the latest plans and cost estimates for a new rail line along the Sepulveda Transit Corridor, traveling under and/or over the Sepulveda Pass.

Although any plan that doesn’t provide a direct connection to UCLA will be an abject failure out of the gate.

  • Wednesday, May 28: 5:30–7:30 p.m., Presentation will begin at 6 p.m., Veterans Memorial Building Rotunda Room, 4117 Overland Avenue, Culver City, CA 90230.
  • Thursday, May 29: 5:30–7:30 p.m., Presentation will begin at 6 p.m., Westwood United Methodist Church, 10497 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90024.
  • Saturday, May 31: 3-5 p.m., Presentation will begin at 3:30 p.m., Sherman Oaks East Valley Adult Center, 5056 Van Nuys Boulevard, Building B, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403.

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

No bias here. In a prime example of a grand jury run amok, a Bakersfield grand jury questions whether the city’s green bike lanes are more of a nuisance than a benefit, and says Bakersfield shouldn’t install any more unless they cost less than $15,000 a mile. Which is about what it costs to stripe a two-lane street, without any bike lanes.

Life is cheap in North Carolina, where a man walked without a single day behind bars when a judge imposed a lousy 45 day suspended sentence for intentionally crashing an ATV into 56-year old man riding on a bike path, leaving the victim with serious injuries.

A British jury saw a doorbell cam video capturing the events leading up to the allegedly intentional crash that killed a 25-year old mother riding an ebike with another person; prosecutors allege the 23-year old driver finally succeeded in ramming the bike on his fifth attempt.

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Local 

USC Annenberg Media examines the opening of the first 5.5-mile segment of the Rail-to-Rail Active Transportation Corridor, a rail-to-trail conversion connecting Metro rail lines in South LA.

The Glendale City Council got an update on the city’s “slow and methodical approach” to its Vision Zero Action Plan.

Pasadena, Day One and the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition are wrapping up Bike Month by hosting the family-friendly Pie & Ice Cream Are Friends Ride this Saturday, for anyone with a sweet tooth and a bicycle.

Active SGV will host a community bike ride this Sunday leading to and from a public meeting to learn more about the Rio Hondo Ecosystem Reclamation Project to create multi-use bike and walking paths, along with other environmental benefits.

Long Beach will mark the end of Bike Month with the official unveiling of the Great Artesia Boulevard Project on Saturday, complete with a bike rodeo and free bicycle tune-ups.

 

State

The San Diego Union-Tribune says bike lanes proposed by SANDAG, aka the San Diego Association of Governments, are still hamstrung by delays, as they finally green lighted a $27 million project on University Ave that began planning in 2013.

No bias here. According to the New York Times, the anger over converting San Francisco’s Great Highway into a park remains, with the transformation into a pedestrian promenade setting off a clash over the city’s anti-car culture. Or maybe, just maybe, they could have talked to the many people who love the new linear park, a large percentage of whom undoubtedly drove to get there and have nothing against cars, but recognized that the former highway was no longer needed. 

A lawsuit filed by the California Native Plant Society, Marin Audubon Society, and Marin Conservation League that was settled last year is blocking ebikes from using a trail on Mount Tamalpais, regarded as the birthplace of mountain biking.

 

National

A Tulsa, Oklahoma man will take part in the 1,645-mile Black Wall Street to Wall Street Ride for Equity, connecting Tulsa’s Black Greenwood District destroyed in a 1921 race riot with the nation’s financial center; the ride is organized by Black Leaders Detroit to “amplify national conversations about racial wealth gaps, Black entrepreneurship and community resilience.”

Security cam video captured the moment a three-year old girl darted into the path of a man riding an ebike in a New York bike lane, giving the man no time to avoid a crash after she ran out from between two parked cars; fortunately, she only suffered minor injuries.

The Transportation Committee of a West Side Manhattan community board — equivalent to LA’s neighborhood councils, but with more power — voted unanimously to oppose giving criminal summons to scofflaw bike riders, arguing that more enforcement of lawbreaking bicyclists may be needed, but the NYPD policy is too extreme.

Speaking of New York, the city’s DOT, police and community organizations have been collecting bicycles to donate to people in underserved communities, with 253 bikes collected so far this year.

Atlanta was selected as the first city to get Lime’s new LimeBike ebikes, which the company says is geared towards women, older riders and commuters who need extra room for storing stuff when they ride.

 

International

A writer for Tom’s Guide explains what to consider when buying a bike helmet. All of which you could probably have figured out for yourself.

No surprise here. A French travel writer says a bike is the best way to find the secluded beaches on St. Mary’s Island, off the coast of Cornwall, England.

The Irish taoiseach, or prime minister, apologized before the country’s parliament, along with his chief deputy and the country’s justice minister, for the failures that allowed a driver with 40 previous convictions to remain on the road 14 years ago for the hit-and-run crash that killed a 23-year old man riding a bicycle, despite a court order that should have kept him behind bars. And if you wonder why people keep dying on our streets, that’s a good place to start. 

A newspaper in the Czech Republic city of Brno — apparently founded during a Middle Ages vowel shortage — takes stock of the city’s bike infrastructure, or the lack thereof, arguing that the city should be a haven for bicyclists due to its short distances, but isn’t. Sort of like Los Angeles should, thanks to our mostly flat terrain and ideal weather. But isn’t.

 

Competitive Cycling

It was a brutal day in the Alps for most of the Giro peloton on Tuesday, following an attack by Richard Carapaz that helped the Ecuadorian cyclist leap up the GC standings, leaving 21-year old Mexican phenom Isaac del Torro still leading, but just 26 seconds ahead of Brit Simon Yates, with Carapaz another five seconds behind in third.

Carpaz vows to fight all the way to Rome after emerging as the race’s biggest disrupter. Unless you count del Torro, who already disrupted the race a week earlier. 

Pre-race favorite Primoz Roglic abandoned Giro Tuesday, after being caught in yet another crash.

Italian cyclist Alessio Martinelli was conscious and in stable condition following a frightening 50-foot fall down a ravine, after he slid off his bike crashing on a rain-slicked curve during Tuesday’s stage of the Giro.

Joe Goettl and Flavia Oliveira Parks won the men’s and women’s editions of Utah’s Belgian Waffle Ride, with Carter Anderson and Courtney Sullivan finishing second.

 

Finally…

Great moments in bad headline: No, a man isn’t riding 480 miles for pancreatic cancer, he’s riding to fight it.

And that feeling when you feel compelled to prove your street cred by hating on bicycles.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin. 

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

The Urbana Bike — a very friendly and forgiving monster of a bicycle

December 9, 2010 / / 8 comments

The Urbana Bike at the beach.

Yes, it’s a monster.

Not in the Frankenstein sense, with frightened villagers carrying pitchforks and torches. But more like the creature from Young Frankenstein — big, a little awkward maybe, yet friendly and playful.

And more than ready to put on the Ritz.

In other words, this is a very serious, fun and exceptionally user-friendly monster of a bike. Think of it as an urban assault bike, the two-wheeled equivalent of a full-size Hummer — a bike able to go anywhere. And over just about anything.

SI was surprised to get an email a few months ago, asking if I wanted to try out a new bike. After all, I’d never done a product review before. Mostly because no one had ever asked me to.

This...

Next thing I knew, there was a massive box waiting at my door. And inside was the biggest bike I’d ever seen, in a shocking shade of magenta. Although they call it Sangria.

Naturally, there weren’t any assembly instructions enclosed; while I used to do my own wrenching, this was far different from anything I’d worked on before. So even though I blundered my way through putting it together, I had still it fully assembled and ready to ride within 20 minutes.

Or so I thought.

...turned into this in just a few minutes.

Used to quick release hubs, I was afraid to over tighten the nuts on the front wheel. And sure enough, two blocks into my test ride, it was flopping back and forth like a bad toupee in a hurricane. My next attempt wasn’t much better, lasting about six blocks.

After finally tightening the crap out of it, it’s lasted nearly three months without needing another adjustment.

Make no mistake, though. This is a very big, and very heavy bike; when I stepped on the scale holding it and subtracted my own weight — admittedly, not the most accurate means of measurement — it came out at a whopping 42 pounds.

But it doesn’t ride like it.

Despite the weight, the Urbana rolls as easy as any bike I’ve ridden — and a lot easier than many I’ve tried. The 8 speed Shimano Nexus internal gear hub shifts easily and accurately, and is geared so efficiently that that even on the steepest hills, I never had to shift below third. And the Shimano Nexave drum brakes stopped it every bit as fast and surely as my much lighter road bike.

Before I agreed to accept the bike, I made sure it was insured; after all, I this is L.A., where bad drivers and worse roads can turn any bike into so much scrape metal.

The Urbana rep said “Don’t worry about it. This bike is indestructible.” When I said that sounded like a challenge, she responded “Go ahead. You can’t break this bike.”

She’s right. Because I tried.

No matter how bad the pavement, those big tires handled it with ease.

I started out riding in my own neighborhood, on streets so badly degraded they might as well be the famed cobbles of Paris-Roubaix. Yet the oversized, balloon Niddepoule — or Big Sidewalk — tires rolled right over the cracks and potholes, as if I was riding a newly paved street.

And nothing changed, no matter where I rode it or what I tried to do to it.

With my own bike out of commission, I rode the Urbana at CicLAvia. I took it to the beach. I even rode through the Westwood stretch of Wilshire Blvd known as the Gauntlet, where countless right lane ruts, potholes and rippled pavement challenge even the most experienced riders — and aggressive, high-speed traffic means falling is not an option.

In every case, it handled the worst roads with ease. Rather than swerving around potholes like I do on my own bike, I aimed for them. And the worst that happened was that the rear wheel might bounce a little before regaining solid traction.

Despite the weight, it rode comfortably, even over longer distances. The only time I found it tiring was coming back up the beach, where the upright riding position made pedaling into the usual afternoon headwind a chore.

It also climbed with surprising ease, thanks to the low gear ratio. Even riding up Temescal Canyon proved easier than expected.

There was still one more challenge the bike had to pass. The rep had described it as a one-size-fits-all frame, easily adjustable for any rider.

So I took my tiny, five-foot tall wife outside, and within 30 seconds, I’d adjusted the Urbana down from my six-foot frame to fit her perfectly. And even though she hadn’t been on a bike in the nearly two decades I’ve known her, she was soon riding easily on those same broken streets I’d tested it on.

As she was riding, our neighbor stopped by to say hi. A native of Uganda, she’d never been on a bike; yet within moments, she was rolling unsteadily down the street, thrilled to be riding for the first time. And thanks to the bike’s step-through design, when she finally lost her balance, she just stepped off and let the bike fall harmlessly beneath her.

Even my petite wife could ride it with ease.

In the three months I had the bike, I rode up and over curbs, across grass and gravel, and off steep drop-offs, yet nothing phased it.

Like a serious SUV, it handled dirt, grass and mud with the same assurance it rode over pavement — and the heavy-duty fenders meant I stayed spotless, no matter what kind of muck I pushed it through.

And despite my best efforts, I just couldn’t break it.

That’s not to say it’s perfect.

The oversized wheel base means carving a turn just isn’t an option; this bike lumbers through corners I’d normally lean into. While the V-shaped handlebars make adjustments easy, I found them tiring on longer rides, and longed for the more relaxed position provided by the swept-back bars of a classic Schwinn.

View from the cockpit; thanks to Becky for suggesting the water bottle solution.

It was hard to figure out how to carry a water bottle, until a friend suggested the perfect solution of mounting it on the handlebars. And the heavy-duty serrated pedals ate the soft plastic soles of my Sidi mountain bike shoes; a pair of harder soled trail shoes fared much better.

As much as I enjoyed it, though, I won’t be trading in my road bike anytime soon. For me, the Urbana would make a nice second or third bike. But it could be ideal for a number of riders and uses:

  • Beginners — The Urbana’s intuitive design, forgiving ride and ease-of-use makes it perfect for cyclists just starting out, while its durability means it will survive beginner’s mistakes. And the sheer size and weight will do more to deter thieves than most locks.
  • Heavier riders — When I bought my current bike, I had to find a frame that would support my then 220 pounds; I could only imagine what it would be like with another 50 or 100 pounds to carry. According to the manufacturer, the Urbana’s frame will support up to 400 pounds with ease, and it offers an optional larger seat for greater comfort. It’s also available as an e-bike, making it very forgiving for anyone who may be reluctant to ride for fear of not being able to go uphill or make it all the way back.

    Sadly, though, it ate my mtn. bike shoes; harder soled shoes fared better.

  • Winter cyclists — The big balloon tires make it perfect for road surfaces slick from rain or snow, while the heavy weight should allow it to carve through several inches of ice and snow — although that’s not something I was able to test here in L.A.
  • Urban and off-road commuters — No matter how difficult your commute, or how bad the roads or trails you have to ride, the Urbana can handle it. Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to find a surface it couldn’t cover. And seriously, I pity any car that hits one of these.
  • Bike share programs — The Urbana really does fit all, in just a few seconds with just a few simple adjustments, while its strength and durability make it ideal for a bike that will inevitably take a lot of abuse as it passes from one rider to another. In fact, I’m told that Urbana will soon be unveiling a turn-key bike share system of their own.

The Urbana may not be my dream bike.

But seriously, it’s been fun. And when I drop it off in the morning, I’m going to be sad to let it go.

Because this really is one hell of a fun little monster.

Note: No payment or any other compensation was received in exchange for this review.

Darn it.

Category: Product Reviews / Tags: , ,

Update: Cyclist killed in Agoura Hills DUI hit-and-run

October 24, 2010 / / 27 comments

It’s bad enough when someone is injured or killed on the streets because of what we euphemistically call accidents.

If everyone obeyed the law and used the roads safely, there wouldn’t be any accidents.

But worse still is when someone gets behind the wheel of motor vehicle after drinking or using drugs — or willing operates their vehicle in any other impaired or distracted manner — and takes the life of another human being as a result. And worse still, flees the scene, leaving a total stranger to die in the street.

According to the Ventura County Star, S.D. Whitmansegal did exactly that when she collided with a bike being ridden by 46-year old James Laing of West Hills; earlier reports indicated the then-unidentified victim was 30 years old.

The Star reports that Whitmansegal was followed by witnesses to a nearby parking lot where she was arrested on charges of hit-and-run, vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence.

My prayers and condolences go out to James Laing’s family, friends and loved ones.

And don’t ask me what I think about someone who could do something like this. I wouldn’t like the answer I’d give right now.

Then again, she may find the real punishment will be trying to live with herself after this.

Thanks to the Ventura County Star for following up as more information became available.

Update: A few other details are slowly coming in. According to the L.A. Times, both Laing and Whitmansegal were both traveling east on Agoura Hills Road.

Meanwhile, the Star reports that Laing struck the side of Whitmansegal’s car and was thrown onto the road. When the case goes to court, the defense will undoubtedly claim it was a SWSS and that Laing swerved into the car for no apparent reason; hopefully the witnesses who tracked the driver down saw what happened.

And the Agoura Hills Patch inexplicably identifies the driver as Stephanie Segal of Woodland Hills, despite a police report identifying the driver as Whitmansegal.

Update 2: Bob points us towards a report on KCBS-2 that identifies the driver as Stephanie Segal, and says she is currently being held on $250,000 bail. The Associated Press confirms that S. D. Whitmansegal is also known as Stephanie Segal.

Laing is the 13th cyclist killed in Southern California in the last five weeks, and the 13th since the beginning of August.


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