BikinginLA

Day 28 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025. 

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The good news is, I don’t seem to have suffered any lasting effects from that knock on the head. 

The bad, our corgi ate a grape off the ground, which are highly toxic for dogs, before we could stop her. Although the poison control center tells us up to three grapes “should” be okay for a dog her size. 

So now we’re facing 48 hours of watchful waiting looking for any sign of toxicity. 

Good times. 

Like I said yesterday, it’s just one damn thing after another these days. 

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A legal website reports someone riding a bicycle was killed in a collision at SR 78 and Idaho Ave in Escondido Thursday morning.

However, I have been unable to find any confirmation on the crash, let alone the death of the victim. So if you’ve heard anything, let me know.

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NBC4’s Robert Kovacik returned a pair of paintings to a man who had to leave them behind when he evacuated the Palisades Fire by bicycle.

Francois Auroux was clutching the large oil paintings on his bicycle as he escaped the fire, which began three weeks ago today, when he encountered Kovacik doing a live remote broadcast.

Kovacik offered to hold the paintings for him — which ironically included Man on a Bicycle by Greek artist Alekos Fassianos — promising to return them at a later date, as the falling ash and embers surrounded them.

The two men met again Thursday as Kovacik kept his promise and returned the paintings, which is all that Auroux has left of his home of 39 years, other than the bicycle he escaped on.

However, lost in that story is another, more important story.

Because as residents struggled to get out with their belongings packed in their cars on the gridlocked streets, Auroux was able to quickly pedal to safety.

Yes, he had to leave most of his things behind, and struggled to ride with the awkward artwork. But he was able to get out when many others couldn’t.

I’ve been told by a number of people, including some who barely escaped other major fires in the state, that no one would ever use a bicycle to flee a raging wildfire.

Yet Auroux did, as did several other people who have lived to tell the tale.

A bicycle may not be the best way to take everything with you. But when you have to get out fast, it may be your best choice.

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Last week, we mentioned that Berkley is looking for feedback on the city’s 2017 bike plan, as they prepare to develop a new one. And asked the obvious question, in light of LA’s failure to build out its plan, of just how much of the old plan was actually built.

But for a change, we actually got an answer. In the comment below, we heard from our old friend Christopher Kidd, who is in now charge of the project.

Ted – thank you so much for picking up coverage of the Berkeley Bike Plan Update! I’m serving as the project manager for the update.

Since the old Plan’s adoption in 2017, the City of Berkeley has implemented almost 11 miles of network facilities (include 3.5 miles of separated bikeways) and upgraded 20 intersection crossings on the low-stress network.

More than that, the City has in queue 4-5 more miles of Bicycle Boulevards going into construction in the next 24 months.

And while we’re on the subject, congratulations to Kidd on being named to the board of the California Bicycle Coalition, aka Calbike. He brings a passionate, and very knowledgeable, voice for bike and traffic safety.

Which means we should be in good hands.

And Berkeley, too.

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Streetsblog posts a lengthy thread of public record documents showing Forest Lawn’s efforts to drum up business by fighting bike lanes on dangerous and deadly Forest Lawn Drive.

Received some L.A. City public records today regarding the mortuaries' fight against Forest Lawn Drive safety improvements – a thread. See background at SBLA coverage in December la.streetsblog.org/2024/12/19/c…

— Streetsblog L.A. (@streetsblogla.bsky.social) 2025-01-28T00:57:48.742Z

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The host of the LA in a Minute podcast talks with Streets For All founder Michael Schneider about whether Los Angeles can really become bike and transit friendly.

Ready or Not, L.A. Bike Lanes are Coming!

I sit down with @schneider of Streets For All to debate whether L.A. can REALLY become a transit friendly city:https://t.co/Iro9FSfMwF

— L.A. in a Minute (@LaInaMinute) January 24, 2025

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Bike Talk talks about SUVs as the new cigarettes.

If we could get smoking out of bars we can make safe places to ride a bike. Check this out @bikelaneuprising.bsky.social @bikelanesla.bsky.social @bikinginla.bsky.social

— (@taylor-biketalk.bsky.social) 2025-01-26T18:20:00.843Z

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In case you wonder why New York bicyclists don’t use the snow-free protected bike lanes, maybe it’s because there’s a school bus driver sleeping in them.

And yes, I can now embed BlueSky posts. 

Love to take a nap in my bus that’s illegally parked in a jersey barrier protected bike lane and force a cyclist to use the sidewalk

— Boba Cyclist 정 (@bobacyclist.bsky.social) 2025-01-23T18:29:12.330Z

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That feeling when your smooth, paved bike path comes to a sudden and weedy end.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James Hayden Burley (@funwithburley)

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A prewar photo of an early British bicycle, and the man who built it.

Cool is right.

A.L. Whale, 82, riding his 'boneshaker' bicycle with iron wheels. He built the bicycle himself in 1871; it was believed to be the second such machine built in England.Tewkesbury, UK16 May 1935

— Cool Bike Art (@coolbikeart1.bsky.social) 2025-01-27T19:37:07.905Z

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

The condition of a Eureka bike rider is unknown, after the bicyclist was the victim of an apparent intentional hit-and-run as a woman in a minivan ran them down, backed over the victim’s bicycle, then fled the scene before causing a number of other crashes; she was finally stopped when two men open the minivan’s doors and pulled her out, holding her for the police. Although it took until the last paragraphs before the story even mentioned that the seemingly sentient minivan actually had someone behind the wheel. 

A 21-year old Michigan man was the victim of an apparent road rage attack when he was run down on his bicycle by a couple in their late teens; both the 19-year old driver and the 18-year old woman he was with were arrested on charges of felonious assault.

Um, okay. An Indianapolis man faces charges for pushing a 14-year old boy off his “motorized” bike and threatening to kill him if he didn’t stop riding it in the street — never mind that the man was infamous in the neighborhood for yelling at kids to stop riding on the sidewalk, too. Which raises the question of where the hell did he want them to ride. 

He gets it. A British Columbia letter writer responds to a driver’s call to tax bicyclists to pay for bike lanes and paths by patiently explaining that it’s the people who ride bikes and buses who subsidize motorists, not the other way around.

A pair of English bike riders had to sweep up a popular bike path themselves to protect other riders, after several bicyclists suffered flat tires when whoever trimmed a hedge lining the path couldn’t be bothered to clean up all the thorns and spikes they left behind.

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

A New York writer complains that she was knocked down by a red light-running bicyclist who blew through the crosswalk she was in, but the police didn’t care because she didn’t get killed.

The good residents of Birmingham, England seem to be fed up with “inconsiderate and dangerous” bicycling and skateboarding, as the city prepares a new public space protection order to address the numerous “near misses and accidents that cause alarm and distress to pedestrians.”

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Local  

A Los Angeles social worker shares the insights she gained about the Holocaust by riding a bike across Poland, where her father, who survived 11 different concentration camps, was born.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s son Pax was involved in another bike crash last week when he “barreled” his BMX into the side of car in Los Feliz, six months after he was seriously injured crashing his ebike. Although it’s unclear from the description if he crashed into the side of the car, or if he was doored by the occupants. 

Now you, too, can be the proud owner of an 1890s cast iron stationary bike for sale for just $600 from someone in Pasadena.

 

State

Your next ebike could be solar powered, thanks to San Diego’s JackRabbit — as long as you don’t want to go very far.

No bias here. A San Diego letter writer, and the former chair of the City Heights Planning Committee, complains about the neighborhood’s empty bike lanes, describing them as “miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles,” while a road project goes unfinished. Never mind that bike lanes are far cheaper and easier to install than road work, and significantly more efficient. Or that drivers still enjoy the lion’s share of the streets.

No bias here, either. A Santa Cruz website declares a proposed lane reduction and protected bike lane project “Carmageddon,” because it would result in the loss of “some” parking spaces. Never mind that the original Carmegeddon, when the 405 Freeway in West Los Angeles was shut down for a whole weekend in 2012 to widen an overpass, failed to materialize when Los Angeles drivers just stayed home. 

Kindhearted cops in Mendota bought a new bike and lock for a young boy, after he called 911 to report someone had stolen his bike from the back of his dad’s pickup.

 

National

A writer for Clean Technica says a single brown wire is all that separates a class two ebike from an illegally overpowered one, which she says proves the idiocy of US ebike laws.

Gear Patrol wants to know why every new bicycle doesn’t come with a built-in phone/bike computer mount.

Sadly, no surprise here, after someone scrawled offensive, racist Nazi graffiti on an Issaquah, Washington bike path. There’s never been a shortage of racists and Neo-Nazis anywhere in the US — including right here in Southern California — but the Pacific Northwest has long been a hotbed. 

Over 200 people turned out for a memorial bike ride to honor an Albuquerque, New Mexico bike advocate and city worker, after he was killed by a hit-and-run driver last week. I can’t recall 200 people ever turning out to honor any fallen bicyclist here in Los Angeles, or any other bike-related cause, even though we have nearly six times as many people. 

More proof that bikes are good for business, as a new report shows bicycling has a $1.4 billion impact — yes, with a b — on the state of Iowa.

New York has opened its trade-in program for delivery riders to take uncertified e-bikes, mopeds and their dangerous batteries off the streets, and replace them with safer, certified ebikes.

A new study from a New York university suggests that people-protected bike lanes, which originated in San Francisco, have made a difference in getting better bike infrastructure built in the US.

Philadelphia is getting the city’s second set of speed cams, after the first one proved successful.

A Florida man was collateral damage when a woman ran a red light and her car was struck by an SUV, sending it barrel-rolling off the roadway and over the victim as he walked his bicycle on the ride of the road.

Florida county commissioners balk at the $40 million price tag to improve safety by building a pair of bicycle underpasses below a dangerous roadway. But no one seems to think twice about a $300 million highway widening job.

 

International

Cyclist recommends the best bike podcasts.

Momentum recommends the top eight bicycle friendly bars and breweries in North America, including one in my bike friendly Colorado hometown. But none in Los Angeles, or anywhere else in SoCal, unfortunately. 

A new Toronto study shows that bike lane placement can be optimized by a scientific approach based on traffic patterns and commuter mobility.

A London writer learns first-hand what it’s like to become a victim of the city’s masked, machete-wielding bikejacking gangs.

Despite numerous studies showing that people who ride bicycles are less likely to die prematurely, a new Scottish study shows the opposite, suggesting that certain sports do prolong life, but riding a bike isn’t one of them.

The European Union has extended its anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese ebikes for another five years to protect the local market.

Despite the Scottish study we just mentioned, a new Scandinavian study says people who bike to work need fewer sick days — yet another reason why employers should encourage bicycle commuting, as well as advocating for safe bike routes.

A Finnish city is called the “winter bicycling capital of the world” for its fabulous cold-weather infrastructure.

Pez Cycling News offers tips on where and how to ride a bike in Florence, for your next trip to Italy.

Evidently, if you want safe, separated bikeways, all you have to do is move to Abu Dhabi.

Must be nice. The newly elected governor of Jakarta, Indonesia is making fixing the capital city’s “suboptimal” bike lanes his first priority.

An Aussie woman set a new world record for the most vertical distance descended on a mountain bike in 24 hours, at 182,831 feet. Although presumably, she had to ascend that much before descending, too.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tragic news from Trentino, Italy, where 19-year old U23 cyclist Sara Piffer was killed when her bike was struck head-on by a 70-year old man, who claimed he couldn’t see her because the sun was in his eyes, yet her father somehow had the grace to forgive the man who killed her; bicyclists responded by calling for an end to the “massacre” on the streets.

In yet another mass casualty event, six members of the German national cycling team — including former European U23 champ Tobias Buck-Gramcko and World Championship bronze medalists Benjamin Boos and Bruno Kessler — were injured, some seriously, when they were run down by an 89-year old man while on a training ride; fortunately, none of the injuries were life threatening. Once again raising the question of how old is too old to drive, and how the hell can we know before something like this happens.

Gravel greats Ted King, LeLan Dains, John Hobbs and Amanda Nauman-Sheek have been inducted into the Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame. Raise your hand if you even knew it was even a thing.

The mother of 16-year old SoCal pro mountain biker Cash Shaleen says he’s home from the hospital and slowly healing, though sill unable to walk, after he was struck by the driver of an off-road vehicle while he was working on his own in Glamis, California, last month, badly compressing his spine.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could be omnidirectional, with big balls instead of wheels. Your next two-wheeled micro-lending library could look like a beetle. Your next ebike could be a Ford Mustang — even if it bears little resemblance to the four-wheeled original, aside from the paint job.

And even tandem riders sometimes had to deal backseat drivers.

No, literally.

The Tally-Ho Tandem, in which the rider in back gets to control the steering and the wheelies.

— Cool Bike Art (@coolbikeart1.bsky.social) 2025-01-26T19:07:55.965Z

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

Oh, and fuck Putin.