Day 240 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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About damn time.
Work is finally underway to repair a section of the beachside Marvin Braude Bike Trail near Will Rogers State Beach.
The $800,000 project will fix the pathway between Chautauqua Boulevard and Entrada Drive, near the Roosevelt Pedestrian Tunnel, that was washed out by heavy rains early last year.
The popular pathway is used by upwards of 10,000 people a day.
It’s been awhile since I’ve ridden that path, but I’m told there’s also a section further south that’s been washed out, as well.
And raise your hand if you even knew that tunnel had a name. Because I sure as hell didn’t, and I used it for years.
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LADOT wants to know what you think about the new concrete barriers protecting the 3rd Street bike lanes in DTLA.
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LA Critical Mass invites you to join their “party on wheels,” aka the nation’s largest community bike ride, tomorrow, and the last Friday of every month.
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Bike Long Beach invites you to attend a screening of Biking While Black tonight, and join them for Bikes and Coffee on Sunday.
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Bike Portland editor Jonathan Maus talks with Portland Mayor Keith Wilson as they bike to work together.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass claimed she was one of us when she campaigned for office. But to the best of my knowledge, she’s has ridden a bike to work or with any member of the community ever since.
The last LA mayor I know of who actually biked to work was the late Richard Riordan, who frequently led rides with hundreds of his fellow Angelenos.
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An English man took a tandem ride from his home in Bristol to Beijing after recovering from a rare form or cancer.
Which a reviewer for The Guardian says “makes for a good story but a rather annoying film.”
Ouch.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
A Texas man faces multiple charges after allegedly using a stolen truck to jump a curb and intentionally crash into a man riding a bicycle, then returning three minutes later to run over the victim where he sat injured on the ground; the driver was arrested following a short police chase, after a witness used her own pickup to halt the second attack.
Life is cheap in London, where the father of a two-year old kid was sentenced to just 18 months behind bars for brutally attacking bike riders in two separate incidents, using his mo-ped to kick them off their bicycles while they were riding, and leaving both victims with lasting injuries.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A writer for the Southern California News Group explains the rules governing bicycles after an Upland writer asks what can be done to stop scofflaw bike riders from breaking the law. Just wait until they find out about all those scofflaw drivers breaking the law in their big, dangerous machines.
Commenters in Victoria, British Columbia were up in arms after someone posted a photo of a man riding a bicycle with a helmet-less baby strapped to his back. Although it’s my understanding that a baby’s neck isn’t developed enough to support the weight of a bike helmet.
A bike rider allegedly punched a driver in the coastal town of Poole, England and threw his bicycle into the car, causing the equivalent of $1,350 in damage. Nope, that’s the entire story, taking up all of one sentence.
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Local
The LA City Council Planning and Land Use Management Committee approved a motion that could lead to ending off-street parking requirements for new developments, although Streetsblog’s Joe Linton says they’ll probably just build it anyway.
They get it. An injury law firm says LA’s streets are dangerous by design, and have a notable lack of bike lanes, protected or otherwise.
WeHo Times says a driver T-boned another car turning left from Fountain Ave onto De Longpre Ave, reigniting calls to improve safety on the deadly corridor; fortunately, no one was seriously injured this time.
Seriously? Mountain biking events for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will be be held in the City of Industry, which is better known for housing warehouses than for its challenging terrain.
Police departments in multiple South Bay cities teamed up to crack down on ebike riders on Tuesday, citing riders for illegal ebikes, as well as blowing stop signs and teens not wearing bike helmets.
State
An 18-year old ebike rider and a younger relative both suffered non-life threatening injuries when they reportedly went through a red light and crashed their ebike into a car in San Marcos Monday evening. Although judging from the damage to the car, it looks a lot more like the driver hit them.
Good for them. Bakersfield is formally opposing a recent grand jury report calling for a halt to building bike lanes that might kinda, sorta inconvenience some drivers; meanwhile, the founder of advocacy group Bike Bakersfield remains committed to working with the city to improve safety for everyone.
A San Jose bike co-op is teaming with the YMCA to provide third, fourth and fifth graders in East San Jose with free bicycles to help them get to schools farther away, after the closure of three local elementary schools.
National
Applications are now open for next year’s Cherokee Nation Remember the Removal Bike Ride, a three-week tour retracing the northern route of the infamous Trail of Tears.
Bike Mag offers a recap of Portland, Oregon’s MADE Handmade Bike Show, calling it the best bicycle show in North America.
That’s more like it. Portland backed off on plans to rip out concrete traffic diverters protecting bike lanes after a huge hue and cry from the public.
Thirty-seven-year old adventure cyclist Sarah Swallow set off on nearly 3,700 mile trip from Oregon to Missouri, becoming the first person to ride Adventure Cycling’s new, mostly dirt road Golden Gravel Trail.
A Reno, Nevada bike rider was hospitalized with minor injuries after being struck by a 14-year old riding an illegal electric motorcycle on the sidewalk; the kid who caused the crash was cited for multiple violations, while a friend on another bike was released with a warning.
The lead singer of ’90s rock stars The Offspring is one of us, going for a ride through Austin, Texas with America’s seven-time ex-Tour de France champ.
The leader of an Illinois advocacy group urges drivers to have “patience, empathy and attentiveness” in the wake of two serious bicycling collisions in the past week.
This is the cost of traffic violence. A second-generation Methodist paster in rural Tennessee was killed when he was rear-ended by the driver of a big rig truck while riding his bicycle.
Talk about not knowing your market. The owner of a Summerville, Massachusetts donut shop fears the removal of parking in front of his shop for a new bike lane will force him to move. Never mind that studies show bike lanes are good for business. And we don’t need any studies to know donuts attract bicycles like magnets.
A 49-year old New Jersey man will spend the next five years behind bars for killing a “selfless” nurse bicycling with her husband eight years ago, while driving under the influence of “a very high level of narcotics.” Although his two previous DWIs — aka DUIs — would have made him subject to a murder charge here in California.
Speaking of DUIs, a Pennsylvania man faces a DUI charge for crashing his ebike while riding under the influence.
Seriously? A recent ex-con faces charges for attempting to sell firearms from his ebike, just five months after he was released from prison for his 12th — yes, 12th — felony conviction.
International
Bike Radar says carbon fiber is great, but your next bike should have an aluminum frame. Or maybe just get the new steel Pashley.
A former UFC announcer was fined the equivalent of nearly $3,400 for attempting to throttle a 14-year old boy over a Lime dockless bikeshare bike blocking the sidewalk outside his London home — even though he rode one himself to his court hearing.
The New York Times says the fatal stabbing of a 17-year old girl riding her bike home from a night out in Amsterdam has unnerved residents, in a city where riding a bike safely at any hour is taken for granted.
German ebike maker Riese & Müller has stopped shipping bikes to the US as a result of Trump’s 50% tariff on steel.
Competitive Cycling
Jonas Vingegaard is back in the leader’s jersey at the Vuelta, after his Visma-Lease a Bike team came in second in the team time trial.
Protesters briefly held up the Israel-Premier Tech team during their team time trial attempt to protest the war in Gaza. While the team is based in Israel, it’s mostly in name only, with only one of the team’s riders currently competing in the Vuelta from Israel.
Velo looks forward to the third edition of America’s leading one-day bike race when the Maryland Cycling Classic kicks off next week, featuring US stars Neilson Powless, Brandon McNulty and Quinn Simmons.
A website for a tutoring company makes the case that the bikes used by cycling legends matters as much as the people on them, ranging from Fausto Coppi’s Bianchi to Lance’s Trek.
Finally…
Don’t mess with a cross-country rider’s Surly Trucker. Don’t let your next ebike make you SchArt yourself.
And probably not the best idea to use the local cop shop as your alibi for the hot bike you pawned.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
