Tag Archive for Bicycle Cop Dave

Bicycle Cop Dave, a self-appointed four-wheeled bike coach and more slime from Landis

Mea culpa.

I was going through my email this morning, and discovered a message I received that was definitely worth mentioning here.

A month ago.

So let me apologize for my oversight. And catch you up on a local phenomenon called Bicycle Cop Dave.

Or better yet, we’ll let my correspondent GDogg explain:

Well sports fans, the second installment of the mystery webcomic Bicycle Cop Dave, illustrated and lettered by the very talented Manoel Magalhães is now up at fourstory.org/.

Set in a downtown Los Angeles where gentrification displaces the working poor, where loft dwellers walk their little dogs past dark alleyways from which the sickly sweet smell of something else wafts, police officer David Richter patrols this mixed area on his trusty bike.

Some of you might be saying, who the hell is Dave?  Well, like the recently concluded Lost, Dave’s adventures include odd situations and characters – a crack smoking crooked lawyer, a preacher with more than the gospel on his mind, the dangerous Genghis Rabbit, a downtown power broker with a secret agenda (is there any other kind?) and a crazed homeless former architect who just might have all the answers.

But unlike the aforementioned television saga, all will be explained…eventually.  For now, you can come on over and read the first installment to catch up then see what’s currently up with our man, Bicycle Cop Dave on www.fourstory.org/.

You can catch up with the current installment by starting here. Or start from the beginning, and learn how bike cop Dave Richter worked his way down from detective to pedaling the mean streets of Downtown L.A.

And there’s no truth to the rumor that LAPD bike liaison Sgt. David Krumer was the role model for Bicycle Cop Dave.

Sgt. Krumer is much cooler.

………

Funny how many cycling coaches you encounter on the streets of L.A.

I was riding through the Marina Friday morning when I went to make a left from Via Marina onto Admiralty Way. So I swung into the left turn lane and took my place behind several cars waiting for the light to change, as a number of cars lined up behind me.

Once the left turn arrow turned green, I clipped back into my pedals and signaled for my turn. Which evidently was the first time one of the drivers behind noticed me, because I heard a man’s voice call out “Get off your bike and walk it across the street!”

I was a little busy at the time, so I muttered something under my breath that may have sounded sort of like “Thank you,” but wasn’t.

Then I rode through the intersection glued to the bumper of the car ahead, and was halfway down the block before any of the drivers to my rear began to catch up.

I watched the passing cars as they drove by, expecting my self-appointed advisor to continue the conversation. But no one even looked my way as they went past, so I had no idea who it was that thought he had a better perspective from behind his steering wheel on how I should ride than I did from my own handlebars.

Or maybe he just decided to shut up when I made the turn faster and better than he could with a few hundred horses at his disposal.

………

The 2nd best sporting event of the summer kicks off Saturday morning with a Rotterdam prologue; in the 1st, my money is now on the Dutch.

Contador faces a number of challengers for this year’s title; Bicycling lists 10 riders to watch, as well as the top 10 Americans. Maybe this is Tyler Farrar’s breakthrough year, but don’t overlook a determined Cavendish. Cervélo TestTeam boots Xavier Florencio for a team policy violation on the eve of Le Tour.

And last but not least, by the time you read this, the latest Floyd Landis allegations will be hitting the news stands. He claims that 60 Trek bikes were sold to fund a U.S. Postal Service team doping program in 2004; federal investigators are looking into whether government funds were used to support illegal activities. Landis also accuses Lance of illegal blood transfusions and providing banned testosterone patches, as well as involvement with strippers and cocaine.

Or as we call it here in L.A., just another Saturday night.

………

L.A.’s best site for transportation news is about to come to an undeserved and much lamented end due to a lack of local funding; Damien Newton promises a new site will soon rise from the ashes.

………

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky takes a look at sharrows. LACBC says the new bike lanes on Burbank’s Verdugo Ave need your support, or they may not stay. Evidently, L.A.’s new Fisker auto dealer likes bikes, too. It will now be just a little bit harder for a convicted drunk driver to run you down in Los Angeles. Another Trader Joe’s confronts the issue of bicycle parking. Building a bike boulevard in Long Beach. Huntington Beach tries to cut summer car traffic by offering a bike valet. An OC bike tour organizer does it all for fun. A landscape anthropologist contemplates the meaning of cycling landscapes. The CHP is on the lookout a pack of helmetless 4 to 8-year old bike scofflaws. David Letterman rides a Mentos and Coke powered rocket trike. The ABCs of bike slang. A DC cyclist calls for help after being the victim of a hit-and-run, and the police merely offer to “keep an eye out” for the car. Don’t park your bike at the grocery store, fold it into a shopping cart instead. Make your own DIY bike lights. A Portland cyclist clings to life after his chain apparently breaks, causing him to veer into the path of an oncoming car. Miami plans to make a deadly causeway safer for cyclists and pedestrians. New York passes a toothless three-foot passing law without the three feet. After killing a cyclist in a right hook, a Milwaukee driver says “I can’t forgive myself for not seeing him, ever.” There’s more to the rash of women cyclists killed by trucks in London than their gender. A UK rider may have died due to dim lights. A look at biking in Tokyo. The Vancouver paper takes cyclists to task for breaking the law, while absolving drivers of any wrongdoing because they have to pass a test.

Finally, the big bad bike-riding California bank robber has been caught — after a dye pack from his second robbery of the day explodes just as he was riding past a cop.

Oops.