Note: The weather forecast is calling for excessive heat and high winds for the next several days. If possible, plan your bike rides for early morning or after sunset when it’s a little cooler. If you have to ride your bike during the day, look for cooler, shaded routes, and take plenty of water with you — and drink before you’re thirsty. And watch for signs of heatstroke, in yourself and anyone you may be riding with.
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My wife and I stumbled on this piece by San Francisco artist Tim Weldon at the Beverly Hills Art Walk this past weekend, featuring genuine antique hand-painted tin cyclists on top.
It can be yours for a mere $1,500.
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British TV personality Melanie Sykes reprises her role from a series of classic Boddingtons beer ads from the 1990s, while proving once again that British ads are better than ours.
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We mentioned this story last week, but it’s worth a repeat.
Bloomberg accuses smartphones, and the distracted drivers who use them, of being behind the historic jump in traffic fatalities in the US, even as federal data collection that could identify the problem is getting worse.
Thanks to David Drexler for the reminder.
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Time flies. It’s been five years since Lance was stripped of his yellow jerseys.
E-mountain bike racing is headed to Temecula next month; maybe they’ll be racing on brand new Yamahas.
A Santa Barbara TV station says BMX racing is back, and it’s still rad.
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Local
The Radavist rides a Metro Bike bikeshare bike up the Angeles Crest Highway, and concludes it’s not that bad.
Popular bike riding route Topanga Canyon is now officially designated as a State Scenic Highway for the first three miles up from PCH. It would be more scenic without all those cars, but you can’t have everything.
If anyone happens to have a spare World Series ticket lying around, here’s your chance to uncover the Militant Angeleno’s secret identity.
State
Balboa Island gets the first bike corral in Newport Beach.
San Diego police will step up enforcement of trouble spots where bike riders and pedestrians have been injured.
Over 2,000 San Diego bicyclists were expected to raise $3 million to fight multiple sclerosis on Sunday.
The Ventura County Star looks at the Project Hero ride for wounded vets as it made its way through the county on the way to a Saturday finish in Malibu.
A Santa Maria woman was busted for fleeing the scene without stopping after plowing into an elderly man on a bicycle.
A San Luis Obispo bicyclist reminds motorists that the sign says “Share the Road,” not “Bicycles Get Out of My Way.”
No bias here. Bakersfield concludes that bicyclists and pedestrians were at fault in 73% of fatalities involving them in the city. At least some of the blame should go to high speed limits, inadequate bike lanes and a lack of crosswalks. Never mind that it’s highly unlikely that drivers were blameless in nearly three-quarters of all fatal crashes.
San Francisco one-ups LA by removing a new bike lane to restore a parking lane. Because having a free place to store a car is far more important that providing people with a safer place to ride a bike.
A pair of cyclists were seriously injured in Danville after a hit-and-run driver plowed into both of them. It’s bad enough when a heartless coward flees the scene after injuring one person, let alone two.
A San Raphael hiker speaks out about a 2015 altercation with a mountain biker in which she says the rider picked her up and threw her down an embankment, even though local cyclists call it fake news.
National
I don’t care if it has pedals. Any ebike that can do 70 mph is motorcycle, not a bicycle.
Outside takes a deep dive into the new Shimano groupo, designed to make your bike as smart as your car. Call me crazy, but I still think the rider should be the smartest part of any bike.
A Hawaii woman says police haven’t done anything yet, even though she can identify the person who reached out of a passing car to grab her bike basket, knocking her off her bike and leaving her with a concussion and afraid to ride again.
Colorado authorities are on the lookout for the Sneaky Cyclist Bandit, who makes his getaway by bicycle after robbing banks.
An estimated 60,000 people took part in San Antonio TX’s twice a year ciclovía; any event that has Corgis in bike baskets can’t be all bad.
There seems to be a growing trend of bike-by shootings; three Houston men were injured when two men on bicycles opened fire on their car.
An Oklahoma woman claims she was illegally detained and searched while riding her bicycle home from work. Just to be clear, police have to ask for permission to search your belongings under most circumstances, and you have a legal right to say no.
A Chicago TV station explains that bicycles aren’t allowed in some cemeteries because bikes are for recreation and are disrespectful to the dead, while cars are perfectly okay regardless of why or how people are driving them. Because no one would ever want to ride a bike to visit a loved one’s grave, apparently.
If you build it, they will come. The expansion of the bike lane network in Minneapolis is leaving some drivers frustrated, even though it resulted in a 66% increase in bike commuting rates in just four years, from three percent to five percent. And no, Minnesota bike riders aren’t required to use bike lanes even when they’re available — or handlebars, for that matter.
International
Bike Radar answers the eternal question of what bike lock is best to protect your ride. Thanks to Lester Walters for the heads-up.
Yes, the air is cleaner on separated bike lanes than in lanes right next to the traffic lanes.
The new Audi A8 will automatically lock its doors to keep bicyclists from getting doored. Which means you could theoretically keep someone trapped inside their car for hours just by circling their car.
Industry vets say bike shops should embrace our new dockless bikeshare overlords.
A Vancouver columnist writes a fake press release claiming local bike riders are reaching peak entitlement. A technique I thought was pretty funny when I used it for my junior high school newspaper. Never mind that he comes off like a total jerk.
Another Canadian columnist revives the “I’m okay, you suck” school of journalism, suggesting that he may be one of the few bike commuters who isn’t rude and doesn’t break the law, unlike all those angelic, law-abiding drivers, for instance.
Thirty “weird and wonderful” bicycles were paraded through the streets of Oxford, England in the first ever Great Britain Bike Off festival.
A British woman learns what it’s like to ride a bike for the first time as an adult.
The UK’s transportation minister says his goal is a world where a 12-year old can ride a bike safely, just don’t expect the government to make that happen. Although they may consider providing subsidies for ebikes to get more people riding.
German police say the bike-riding man who stabbed eight people in Munich wasn’t a terrorist, just a local petty criminal with mental problems.
Finally…
No, seriously, take a damn shower after you ride. If bicycling is the new golf, ebikes are the new golf carts.
And save those New Year’s noisemakers for the next time you’re attacked by magpies.
